Read Online The Third Wave by Alison Thompson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alison Thompson
Ads: Link
back in New York City.
Luke and Steve soon left us, and it was the four of us alone again. Donny and I moved the first aid station into the library to shelter us from the blistering heat. We turned two bookcases upside down to make them into beds, and I put towels I’d purchased from a village nearby across them to act as sheets. Each day, the hospital lines swelled and I collected a few Dutch doctors whom I had found in the local town to work with us. News of our services quickly spread, and some people walked over twenty miles to see us. Most mornings, we would find thousands of people waiting for us outside the old school library.
I became so busy with the clinic that I barely had time to use the bathroom. Once, I was so absorbed in my work that I accidentally ended up peeing down my legs. There were pregnantwomen who needed basic healthcare, and babies with dangerously high temperatures. Some people had broken arms, infections, or respiratory problems. Others had deep cuts and abscesses from glass and other foreign bodies lodged deep inside their skin. I had never sewn up wounds before, but one of the volunteer doctors taught me how.
One of my first patients was a very old man who I had thought was dying. I couldn’t work out what was wrong with him. I fussed over him and gave him water and let him sleep in the hospital. Hours later, the village chief came in yelling at him and chased him outside. Apparently he was the village drunk and was suffering only from having had too many drinks.
This was a symptom I now recognized and would see over and over again in the coming weeks. The local brew was called
arrack
. It was a strong alcoholic beverage distilled from fermented fruit, grain, sugarcane, or the sap of coconut palms. It tasted like a mixture of whiskey and rum and caused people to hallucinate when drunk in large quantities. In the weeks to come, I saw many volunteers get drunk and aggressive from it.
I ended up developing a deep affection for the village drunks, many of whom had open wounds on their legs just like everyone else did. Sometimes our local staff would try to refuse them entry to the hospital, but when I heard them fighting I would step in and gently guide the drunkards to a corner of the hospital for treatment. One of the drunk men had escaped from the tsunami by climbing up a coconut tree, and now had fifty-three infected wounds on his legs. We called him Godzilla because he always wore a T-shirt with a cartoon of the green monster on it. When Oscar roared playfully at him, he would roar back.
Many people also came in with dog bites, and I wondered if there would be a rabies outbreak. The animals in Peraliya werestarving to death. There was hardly any food around for the humans, so the dogs had begun eating the dead bodies. One day I saw a dog running through the village with a human femur in his mouth. I hoped we wouldn’t have to start killing the dogs.
There were also injuries that we couldn’t see—the emotional ones. There were women who had lost eight children and were suffering immensely. We called our treatment for these people “the tsunami Band-Aid.” We would fuss over them, holding their hands and beaming love to them. Children clung to my arms in search of milk and love, but I had only love to offer. I would hide my tears behind my Gucci sunglasses and walk into a broken house to cry where nobody could see me. Then I would walk back wearing a disguise of smiles. Being strong was imperative to the success of the mission. I told myself that I could always go home to New York if it got to be too much.
At the end of the second week, a German disaster relief organization called the Federal Agency for Technical Relief, or THW, arrived in town. Thankfully, they started pumping the wells to clean the water and set up two temporary water tanks, which they tested for E. coli bacteria each day. Now the villagers at least had some limited access to clean water again. Still, we often ran
Luke and Steve soon left us, and it was the four of us alone again. Donny and I moved the first aid station into the library to shelter us from the blistering heat. We turned two bookcases upside down to make them into beds, and I put towels I’d purchased from a village nearby across them to act as sheets. Each day, the hospital lines swelled and I collected a few Dutch doctors whom I had found in the local town to work with us. News of our services quickly spread, and some people walked over twenty miles to see us. Most mornings, we would find thousands of people waiting for us outside the old school library.
I became so busy with the clinic that I barely had time to use the bathroom. Once, I was so absorbed in my work that I accidentally ended up peeing down my legs. There were pregnantwomen who needed basic healthcare, and babies with dangerously high temperatures. Some people had broken arms, infections, or respiratory problems. Others had deep cuts and abscesses from glass and other foreign bodies lodged deep inside their skin. I had never sewn up wounds before, but one of the volunteer doctors taught me how.
One of my first patients was a very old man who I had thought was dying. I couldn’t work out what was wrong with him. I fussed over him and gave him water and let him sleep in the hospital. Hours later, the village chief came in yelling at him and chased him outside. Apparently he was the village drunk and was suffering only from having had too many drinks.
This was a symptom I now recognized and would see over and over again in the coming weeks. The local brew was called
arrack
. It was a strong alcoholic beverage distilled from fermented fruit, grain, sugarcane, or the sap of coconut palms. It tasted like a mixture of whiskey and rum and caused people to hallucinate when drunk in large quantities. In the weeks to come, I saw many volunteers get drunk and aggressive from it.
I ended up developing a deep affection for the village drunks, many of whom had open wounds on their legs just like everyone else did. Sometimes our local staff would try to refuse them entry to the hospital, but when I heard them fighting I would step in and gently guide the drunkards to a corner of the hospital for treatment. One of the drunk men had escaped from the tsunami by climbing up a coconut tree, and now had fifty-three infected wounds on his legs. We called him Godzilla because he always wore a T-shirt with a cartoon of the green monster on it. When Oscar roared playfully at him, he would roar back.
Many people also came in with dog bites, and I wondered if there would be a rabies outbreak. The animals in Peraliya werestarving to death. There was hardly any food around for the humans, so the dogs had begun eating the dead bodies. One day I saw a dog running through the village with a human femur in his mouth. I hoped we wouldn’t have to start killing the dogs.
There were also injuries that we couldn’t see—the emotional ones. There were women who had lost eight children and were suffering immensely. We called our treatment for these people “the tsunami Band-Aid.” We would fuss over them, holding their hands and beaming love to them. Children clung to my arms in search of milk and love, but I had only love to offer. I would hide my tears behind my Gucci sunglasses and walk into a broken house to cry where nobody could see me. Then I would walk back wearing a disguise of smiles. Being strong was imperative to the success of the mission. I told myself that I could always go home to New York if it got to be too much.
At the end of the second week, a German disaster relief organization called the Federal Agency for Technical Relief, or THW, arrived in town. Thankfully, they started pumping the wells to clean the water and set up two temporary water tanks, which they tested for E. coli bacteria each day. Now the villagers at least had some limited access to clean water again. Still, we often ran
Similar Books
