EMS

Last week, Marion, Becca, and I went to EMS school, which is an ECWA school where Nigerian missionaries can send one child to school for free. It must be such a tough choice, because they have to somehow pick, either the smartest one or the oldest or what, I don’t know, but only one, and the other children often won’t get any education, since there’s no money. These kids are often quite neglected medically. Since they are missionary kids, many people think, “oh, we don’t have to give money to take care of them, they’re not as bad as the street orphans”, but yet, there isn’t any money to give them decent medical care. So we went to do physical exams on them. White doctors try to do it once a year, roughly. Dr. Anthis sent us and told us she thought we’d be able to get through them in 1.5 hours. We set up shop in one of the classrooms and each of us had a bench and an interpreter, and off we went. We quickly realized we were NOT going to be done in 1.5 hours, as there were 110-120 of them, and we had to take their histories, treat them, counsel them, and pray for them. Even if we spent a minute a person, that would still be longer than 1.5 hours!!!! Plus, we’re medical students, and we’re new at it, so it probably took us twice as long as it would have taken Dr. Anthis.

We were there for 3 hours and saw about 66 kids. We saw the usual big mix of things. Most were healthy, but there were a lot of coughs, fever, stomach aches, fungal infections, malaria, ear infections, etc. I also counseled many of the older girls about sex and being careful and saving themselves for marriage, which was an interesting experience for me, having not really done it before. They were quite shy about it, but after seeing all the HIV I’ve seen here in Africa, believe me, I was quite motivated to do it, shy or not shy! They all got de-worming medications. They were mostly so well behaved, and I was surprised that most of them really enjoyed being prayed for, as most kids aren’t like that in the US! We decided to quit when it got dark and returned the next morning to finish the other 60-70 kids. We didn’t have interpreters this time, so we just pulled out our little Hausa book, learned some critical words, which got us through, and finished much quicker than the day before.

We had a tour of the school, which includes the girls and boys hostels, kitchen (VERY small), classrooms, main building, and playground. Each child does all his/her own cleaning, laundry, etc., and they all participate in chores around the school. These kids are so amazing. They all love God and their families so much, even the youngest ones. They are dirty, have so few clothes, do tough chores, are so far from their families, don’t eat nutritious food, and endure many other hardships, yet they have time to laugh, smile, enjoy themselves. They loved having us and followed us everywhere. They were so cute and bright and so social. I don’t understand what it is about these kids---they’re all so much less bratty than US kids, yet, once they grow up, they often forget the good teaching they have. Many youths here don’t work, they sleep around, they lie and cheat, they don’t want to work hard—sadly enough, I think it’s so many years of a hard life at a young age that changes them. It robs them of their native decency and trust and honesty. They endure suffering without complaining as a child, but at some point, it just proves to be too much and they break. It’s very tragic. Of course it’s not everyone, many Nigerians are decent and wonderful and all are joyful and strong, but in general, in Nigeria, you jut aren’t trustworthy until you prove yourself so.