'The Team' once again embarked on yet another adventure in unison. This time absorbing yet another weird experience at the hospital that came straight out of 'Pearl Harbor'-the movie that is. I remember the night clearly. I was ill with the flu. A runny nose, headache that just wouldn't quit and of course drowsy. I dozed myself with Flutabs before I left. Anyone who knows about Flutabs will tell you they tend to make you imagine things. So what I'm about to tell you, might just be a figment of my imagination.
Well, I'll start by saying that the color of the hospital's interior gave me that off-color, sepia feeling, like there was no life in it. 'More like a morgue' I thought. People were sitting in long corridors waiting to be called to their death. Well, so it seemed. They were so morbid and depressed, it looked like they were all given life threatening news. The hospital itself wasn't a posh place at all. It was a run-down shack located in a hive smack in the center of down town Al Balad. The building looked like it had a previous identity as well, probably that of a slum lord's apartment. I was wondering once again why our school was so cheap in sending us there. This was when I got to know what a Polyclinic was.
Anyway the driver, Adel, spoke to whoever inside and made all the necessary arrangements. We were all seen to one by one. Our names were called in a such a threatening tone that made us look at each other in total fear and deniability. I always had a belief that one could get more sick in a hospital than anywhere else in the world. Well, if you there with me that night you would've believed me saying we were surrounded with at least a thousand different foreign diseases.
The nurses auditioned for a horror movie and got this role instead. It was like some cruel joke. Many times I thought, 'We did nothing wrong, we don't need to be punished.' I mean really picture this, when last did you see a nurse with a little white cap stuck at the back of her head, looking like she belonged in 1944. No smile, no peoples skills and rough as they come. She would stick a tube in your hand and say, 'Stool.' 'What! Do the deed on demand! This isn't happening!' There are things in life that take careful planning and concentration. Like eating bran cereal in the morning and drinking lots of water. 'Listen lady, don't rush me! I'll be ready when I'm ready. It can be in ten minutes or ten days.'
In the mean time, I was sent over to another room where a male nurse from the Filipines, were seeing to blood tests. I was supposedly being tested for HIV by a guy who looked very Positive about himself, if you know what I mean. I don't mean to be discriminatory, but common he might as well have worn Armani's Fall Collection, parading around like he was on a catwalk instead of a ward. Because we were treated like we belonged on conveyor belts, he stuck me with the needle at least three times before he actually got the vain. He was in such a rush to get done, that he obviously didn't care turning my arm into a tea strainer. Luckily I was drugged and didn't feel much of that. The blue marks however were evident the next morning.
Back to the toilet-no way in hell was I going to perform that night. The toilet was as filthy as a dumpster behind a club in Shanghai. Ryan was the only one who prepared I suppose, as he completed his mission. The rest of us were given the special luxury of taking the viles home and bringing it back the next day filled. The driver wasn't too impressed with that as it would've been his task to take them back to the hospital, properly labelled of course. 'Please people. First put in not see through bags, and then in plastic bag. Tape it many times. Please,' were his exact words as we were driving home.
At least being part of Dar Al Fikr had some privileges. 'Ya Right!'
We got home at around 10 that night. It was a real dreadful experience-one that I never wanted to re-live-thank God I never did. The stool test for South Africans were lifted since then.
Next Up......Translating our certificates and other legal documents from South Africa, into Arabic. It's amazing the amount of people working in government, who cannot speak, read or write English. A language we take so much for granted. Such a lucrative business for Translators, isn't it?
This, among other events will have to wait until Chapter 11.
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