Death by hangnail

No really. I might die from this hangnail. This is sort of funny, but also not really. I always imagined my death being a result of something way less painful than an infected hangnail, or at least way cooler. So, here's the scoop. The other day I get this hangnail on my thumb. Okay, I get hangnails all the time, no biggie. Except this little bugger hurts a lot and Alex is really concerned about it. A couple days later he tells me that I really need to take care of it because his friend had one once and hid it from his family and died five days later. I laughed at him. Then I waited two more days putting Polysporin and Band-aids on it the way I always do at home. I figured a couple nights of this would clear it up very quickly. However, instead it became more inflamed and more painful. Basically my entire thumb hurts now in a throbbing sort of way and if anyone touches it I have to cry out a little. Alex kept saying I had to apply alcohol to it and I kept saying NO! because that's going to burn like hell. Last night, though, I finally gave in and we went to the pharmacy to buy some. The pharmacist there looked at my thumb and said it's the beginning of what's called a panaris. I have no idea what that is in English or if it even exists in English. I've never heard of it before. Apparently though, Alex was right and if I hadn't let them care for it last night it would just keep getting worse and worse and I guess if the infection gets bad enough without being treated you could die from it. So, I let Bo, my new "brother" treat it with alcohol which hurt so much I could barely keep from screaming and then later that night my other "brother" Francois did it again with alcohol and I think mercury. This was not fun and I am not looking forward to them doing it again tonight. It's a good thing I have my boyfriend to inform what's normal and what isn't or else I probably would've ignored it and then maybe died. The inflammation is caused by the water. This has really made me think differently. People can die from something so little as a hangnail. It's unbelievable.

I only have two days left at the hospital. Those 6 weeks went as quickly as I'd anticipated. Yet it felt like a year because I cannot even gauge how much the experience has changed me. Yesterday morning I saw two deliveries. These weren't the first deliveries I've ever seen in my life. I saw the birth of my niece Macie and the birth of Lauren's baby Collin. But in neither of those instances did I see anything resembling this experience.

To give you an idea. When I first got to the hospital I tried describing an epidural to a maternity nurse of 14 years. She had never heard of it. Women here get no form of pain medication. The only thing that enters their bodies is a glucose drip. I haven't even figured out why. The first woman to deliver yesterday I was fairly certain might die. I thought to myself, the first delivery I see in Senegal and the woman is going to die. This is not good. Luckily she didn't. At least not before I left the hospital but she maybe would've preferred to. I think if I were in her place I would've chosen death over delivery. She came in fully dilated and looked about to pass out. The women guided her directly to a delivery table. They inserted something which I think was to break her water although I cannot be certain because I was always under the impression that labor takes hours after the water has been broken. Most of the work of the delivery was done by interns in their 2nd or 3rd of three years of schooling. There was no compassion in their directing her to push. No one coached her breathing or talked to her encouragingly. After pushing and pushing without repose they had to cut the woman to allow enough room for the head to exit. This is with no anaesthesia. There was kicking and screaming involved. After the baby was born it was a process to birth the placenta that didn't seem to want to come out. Interns were reaching into her and pressing on her stomach with enormous force. The woman was squealing in pain. This is poverty. This is suffering because of being poor. I have the luxury of never having to have a baby in that manner. A luxury that maybe I had never even known to appreciate before.

I have a week and a half left here. I hope it's not my last time ever in this country. I have found two English teaching jobs that would allow me to come back next September. I want to come back. I want to live with Alex. I know it will be a struggle and my grandma is sick and I can't imagine spending so much time away from home again but when I think about being with Alex none of that matters. I don't want to leave this life. I see more here before lunch than in two years at home. Yesterday there was a fight on my Ndiagne Ndiaye. A very large woman was very upset about something, I think maybe the fact that no one wanted to let her take up an entire bench herself, and took a teen aged boy by the ear. After that I saw two babies enter the world. The other day there was a cow walking down the sidewalk in front of me. No one uses fences here but he wasn't with anyone either. Everyone was trying to shoe him away from them. These things are so Senegal. It's going to be so boring to be home. If it weren't for college and my family and friends I wouldn't even bother leaving.