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Eric
Three days later, I borrow the van and make the trip to the hospital to see Kwame. I frown when I see him, but know why he looks so poorly.
“Dak,” he says weakly, his lips dry and his eyes bloodshot. “You visit me.”
I hug him gently and say, “Of course, I wanted to see how you were doing.”
“I don’t like these drugs, Dak. They make me throw up.”
“I know, and I’m sorry, my guy. Would you believe me if I told you that you have to feel worse before you feel better? The drugs are killing all the bad guys in your blood that made you so sick, but unfortunately, it’s also making your tummy upset. You told me you’d hang in there for me, remember?”
He grins weakly. “I do it for you.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and force a smile. “You better! Are they treating you okay in this dump?” I ask, pointing around.
His eyes widen. “It’s not a dump, Dak!”
I chuckle. “It was a joke, silly. I’m glad we were able to get you here. You’ll get all better, then you can go back to the village and to school. They miss you there!”
He smiles. “They do?”
“Of course. They all want you to get better. So don’t let them down, okay?”
“I won’t, Dak.”
I squeeze his shoulder. “I gotta go now, buddy. I’ll be back, though.”
“Bye, Dak.”
I grin at him and head back out to the van. I follow a crude paper map to the airport, where my shipment is set to arrive. I checked the tracking on my laptop before I left and it was still on time for a 2:45 landing time.
I reach the airport, park, grab a dolly from the back, and lock the van. I head toward a large structure. I ask a man working where the shipments arrive, and he shows me to a door leading to a tarmac.
I wait inside. It’s warm but I’m thankful it’s winter. The summer was horrid. There’s no A/C anywhere in the village and it was miserable. The winter here is mild.
The sound of an engine catches my attention and I see a small single-engine plane land on the tarmac.
I head out, hoping that’s my shipment. I have no paperwork to prove it’s mine, but I hope using my name and driver’s license as ID will be enough for them to give it to me.
After the plane looks stable and parked, and the engines have been shut off, I run out with the dolly as the belly’s door lowers and men begin offloading boxes onto an electronic golf cart-type vehicle.
These men work very fast. They almost have the whole thing unloaded as I reach them.
“Who are you?” one man with a bald head and yellowing teeth asks me. He wears an airport uniform.
“Hi. I believe one of those boxes is mine.”
He doesn’t even look. “No, all these are ours.” He points to the two men who had helped him unload.
“I understand, but if I could take a look, it should only be two medium-sized boxes.”
“No, fuck off,” he tells me in broken English.
Oh, so that’s how this is going to go?
“I’m afraid I must insist.” I set the dolly down and approach the cart, looking at the boxes and see the top two have my name on them.
One of the men pushes me away.
The bald guy snaps, “I said no. Now go away or I call police.”
I laugh. “Oh, you’re gonna call the police? Well, two of those boxes are mine and you’re stealing. So go right ahead and call.” I pull out my phone. “Or better yet, let me.”
I have no idea if the police will even show up. I don’t even know the police’s phone number, as I assume it’s not 911 like back home, but the little Blackberry does have an emergency call icon.
“No, no police. Go away and we won’t whoop your ass.”
My eyes widen. “Are you serious?”
The other two guys hop on the cart and I yank one down and throw him to the ground. I didn’t want for this to get physical but there’s no way I’m leaving without these drugs.
The guy I grab punches me in the face but I recover quickly and punch him back. The other guy lunges for me but I duck and take him down with a leg sweep, then kick him in the stomach. He groans while the first guy tries to hit me again, but I knee him in the balls for the simple reason to get him to stay on the ground this time.
The man who first talked to me tries to punch the gas and go, but unfortunately for him, this cart looks exactly like the ones we used in the laundry department, after we’d wash clothes and bedding and had to distribute them around the prison compound, so I’m aware of exactly what pulling that big black cord will do. I quickly kill the battery with one yank and he hops off, infuriated.
We hear shouting and both look over to see two airport police running our way.
Good.
I stand with my hands up.
They shout in Swahili and I inform them I only speak English.
One says, “What is happening?”
“They’re trying to steal my shipment. I’m an American doctor and we have very sick patients in the south village. Please. All I want is to get my two boxes in peace and I’ll be on my way.”
The cop eyes me speculatively, then says, “Juma, you stealing this man’s things?”
“No! He lies!”
I carefully pull out my ID and show it to the cop, then I ask him to follow me to the cart. I show him the two boxes with my name on them. “I had these arranged personally because I had a feeling this was happening. These guys are stealing medical supplies. Do what you want with that information, but I’m leaving.”
I heave the two boxes onto my dolly and walk calmly off the tarmac, smiling when my back is turned.
My hand and jaw throb, and I taste blood, but I don’t care. It was worth fighting for.
***
The next few days are quiet. On my way back to the village, I found a small store and bought a couple of hardware kits with padlocks for the door where we keep the drugs. After that interaction, I’m taking no chances. I won’t ever find out why they were stealing the drugs, but I can guess. Especially the narcotics. I know a criminal when I see one and their intentions aren’t difficult to figure out.
I take a set of keys for the padlocks and give them to Jack. “I’ll let you decide who keeps a key.”
“Appreciate it, Eric. For everything. I had no idea the drugs were being stolen. I thought the main hospital was just hoarding them.”
“Did you ever ask anyone there to let us have some of their supplies?” I ask.
“Yes, they always said they were short and couldn’t share. Which is true, I’m sure, but now we know why they were short. I mean, they did give us a few things when I would ask, but nothing like narcotics or chemo drugs.”
“Shouldn’t cancer be monitored in a bigger hospital, anyway?” I ask, having always thought it was odd that people going through such things should be convalescing in a hospital, not a village clinic.
“Yes, once the type and severity of the cancer is determined, they are allowed to get treatment here, since we have the IVs and the nurses. But it’s getting the blood tests done to check the progress that is the challenge.”
We have a village member who runs blood we draw to the main hospital for testing, and usually they call Dr. Alsworth with any results. Kwame’s blood hadn’t been tested in a while, which was why we didn’t know what stage it was, only that it was leukemia.
“Kwame’s already doing better, they tell me. And a delight to the other patients,” the doc says.
“I’m glad. He needs to be around other people. I imagine being an orphan is terribly lonely.”
“A family friend of his parents took him in, so hopefully he can go back there once he’s better.”
“No grandparents?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “They died young, then the parents passed. Dad died in the river trying to rescue a large animal, I’m not quite sure of the story. Mom had, what we can best guess, was a stroke.”
“Sad,” I comment.
“Right. So, are you excited to go home?” he asks, changing the subject.
“I have mixed feelings about it,” I tell him honestly.
He nods in understanding. “Well, of course we’d love it if you’d stay.”
“Trust me, I’ve been thinking about it. But I do think my time here is done for now, which isn’t to say I won’t be back. You have a new group of people coming in Monday, right?”
“Yes, two doctors and two nurses. I’m very excited. I’ve also petitioned the organization for more supplies, and after your ordeal, I’ll personally be going and picking up shipments from now on.”
“Take a couple of big, strong villagers with you. I don’t trust those creeps I ran into.”
“I plan on it.”
Dr. Alsworth, his wife, and two teens have been here for two years. They are missionaries of sorts, him working as a doctor and she teaches school to the village kids, English mostly. They hold Sunday services, which I mostly attended with them. They were sobering experiences, and I hoped my prayers for forgiveness did not go unheard.
After changing out of my scrubs for the last time, I put on some sweatpants and a tee, and head to the mess hall tent for dinner.
“Well, it’s your last night eating this stuff. Bet you can’t wait to get back to the States and all that delicious food,” Clive says as we sit and eat.
I shrug and poke my pork chop with my fork, lifting the whole thing to my mouth. “I won’t lie and say I don’t miss a good Mexican... meal.” Or a beautiful Mexican girl I think about every day.
“Ah, never tried it, but I do want to visit America one day.”
“I really hope you do. Come to Denver, I will show you the most beautiful mountains in the world,” I tell him, biting into the chop.
He looks at me and makes a face. “We have knives, you know.”
I shrug. “I know, I’m starving.”
He chuckles and takes a bite of sweet potato. “I’d love to see Colorado. Got any pretty ladies there?”
It makes me happy to know he’s thinking of moving on, and I answer honestly. “The most beautiful in the world. I’ve never seen an ugly woman there.”
He laughs. “Do you have your own? Woman, I mean.”
I hesitate and pull out my regular cell phone. I keep it charged up to access the photos and contacts on it, but I have to use my little Blackberry for phone for calls and texts because mine wasn’t compatible here, nor was there data service. I swipe through photos and pull up one of Christa and me at her company picnic last summer.
Clive takes the phone and whistles under his breath. “Wow, what a knockout, mate. Love the tattoos. Very colorful and sexy. She’s a curvy one, eh?” He hands it back to me.
I smile. “That’s just one of the things I love about her.”
“That’s great. Bet she’s missin’ ya something fierce, eh?” he asks, picking up his milk.
“I don’t know. We... haven’t spoken.”
He pauses the scratched plastic cup at his lips. “What? Why not?”
“I couldn’t ask her to wait six months for me. I’m assuming she’s moved on.”
Clive shakes his head. “You are downright mad. Why wouldn’t you keep in touch? Don’t you love her?”
“More than anything.”
“And she loves you, too?”
I nod. “Yeah. Well, I think so.”
“Then what’s the problem?” he asks.
I blow out a breath. “I don’t deserve her. She can do much better than me.”
“Bollocks.” He shakes his head. “Even you don’t believe the words comin’ out of your mouth, mate.”
“It’s true, but I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“Does she know you’re comin’ home?”
I lift a shoulder. “I don’t know. I assume my sister probably told her. They’re good friends.”
“And she hasn’t tried to contact you at all?”
I pass the phone back to him and let him read the texts. He gives it back to me.
“Ouch. Those are from months ago. All I’m going to say now is—good luck. You’ll have a lotta grovelin’ to do.”
I swirl my sweet potatoes in a circle like I’m ten years old at Thanksgiving, hating sweet potatoes and forced to eat them anyway. “I doubt she’s still around. I’m sure some lucky guy snatched her up already.”
“Not if she loves you. She’s probably as miserable as you are.”