“You must be a strong woman—most people would not be standing”

From Sarah’s Journal February 13, 2008

After several days of sickness, we decided to delay our trip to Buea (in the Southwest and English-speaking part of the country) and Mount Cameroon (we eventually cancelled this portion of the trip due to time constraints) so that I could go to the clinic and get better.

Both Ken and Judy Hollingsworth were extremely helpful to us when we were sick. Ken Hollingsworth is a missionary who lives up in the North and he and Judy, his wife and a team of translators, translated the New Testament into a language which is spoken by about 70,000 Cameroonians. Cass’s parents were doing agricultural research in Cameroon with a development agency, but he went to the missionary high school, where he met the Hollingsworths’ children. Ken took me in his landcruiser (the other option in Maroua is to cling to the back of a small motorcycle) to the clinic, which incidently, was a mission clinic run by a Swiss organization.

The concrete building had concrete benches that were filled with people whose brightly colored clothing vibrantly decorated the spartan waiting room. I have to say, in contrast to my own whiney complainyness, that many of the people in that waiting room were far, far worse off than I was and did not seem to be complaining, not even the children. The people spilled out of the building and many were lounging under the shade trees in the yard.

After buying my medical record for 100 CFA (20 cents) I entered the building with some trepidation because I thought I would be waiting for at least four hours with the number of people that were ahead of me. (In the U.S. I would have waited for at least 17 hours with that kind of crowd.) However, the clinic was very efficient and people were being seen quickly, so I only had to wait 20 minutes before being seen by a doctor.

Cass did the translating from French to English for me, and there were some funny moments, especially when the doctor handed me a plastic bag for the “sample.” Getting that sample was quite an awkward time, since all of the bathrooms were locked, but I won’t get into the details. The lab was right next to the clinic which was incredibly convenient. The lab costs were 600 CFA or $1.20. Cass even got to look through the microscope at the little critters that were making my life miserable.

After looking at the results the doctor said, “You must be a strong woman—most people would not be standing.” I got my prescriptions at the clinic from the dispensary there—they turned out to be quite powerful drugs that in and of themselves knocked me out for a day or two. The whole visit with labs, doctor visit and prescriptions cost about $9, which is amazing by U.S. standards, and reasonable for many Cameroonians, although would be out of reach for many as well.