Day 21: I Think I Was Meant To Be Royalty.

The group was pretty lethargic this morning, but I know that is because we were thinking about what our day at the Clinic had in store. So we ate breakfast and headed over to staff meeting without too much excitement. I’m glad God always knows when you need some extra thrills. The staff meeting turned into an argument over the upstairs toilets for a good twenty minutes; what shouldn’t go in them, who has the privilege to use them, where are all the keys going to unlock the door, it was quite the skirmish. I found myself more awake once I left the room to continue on my documentation project.

 

            I can almost guarantee this is the most tedious task I have ever been assigned but I got through every patient that came through the doors for HIV testing in January of 2005 over the course of five hours. The guy next to me watched a movie for half of the day with headphones on, which, needless to say, was driving me absolutely crazy. He’s getting paid by a non-profit business to do this?! (A rant for a day when I have more energy) Ima, the guy in charge, keeps thanking me profusely and telling me that if I ever need to rest my hand or walk up and down the stairs to get my blood flowing to not feel bad about leaving the room for a while because I am being such a great help. So at least I have a good supervisor. Plus, today there was the added bonus of enjoying an hour’s worth of boy band music coming from our speaker-system. Apparently the Backstreet Boys are still good to go in Jos, Nigeria! I wonder what they would do if we all decided to listen to my itunes one of these days...

 

            A quick lunch and then back to the grind where I was able to come up with a quicker writing system; at least working on this is giving me the time to experiment with how my brain organizes things. After work Adrie and I dragged ourselves the few blocks to the flat where we collapsed until dinnertime. I was able to finish reading Dry and am now on the hunt to read everything that Augusten Burroughs has ever put on paper. Oh memoirs and bizarre life stories. After dinner it was another crazy night of Phase 10 and Adrie schooled us! (I on the other hand had a score that looked like all of our combined weights) After deciding that going to bed at 8:30 was a pretty good idea we said our Goodnights and Jon spoke up, “I think I was meant to be royalty.” Without waiting for any questions he went on, “I just require a lot of sleep.” Good point.

 

            After a day like today it is always interesting to take a step back and think through what it is I am doing here. I am a volunteer from a different country who is working on random tasks at a health clinic, trying to overcome the social and cultural barriers that comes with being a foreigner, wrestling with questions about God and life, and missing my family and friends back home. It doesn’t sound like such a glamorous experience but the truth is I am eating up every second of it. When will I ever get the chance to live without any sort of structure again? It is very freeing and I know I am learning a lot. Maybe one of the best things God could ever teach me will come from sitting at a desk and silently scribbling names and dates into a giant Nigerian government directory.