Chapter 38
Alex awoke the next morning and turned over. She wasn't surprised when Gavin wasn't there. Still, it would have been nice she decided. She attempted to get up and found that her body didn't want to. It was angry after all the hard work done yesterday. The pounding and bouncing in the trucks over what they called roads around here. The carrying of boxes into the store room. Standing on her feet for hours both in the store room, and in the hospital afterwards.
Her calves hurt and cramped during the night from dehydration, something Gavin warned her about. The cramping reminded her of her mural for the Expo, the nights of cramps in her legs that kept her from sleeping. She found a bottle of water on the table next to the bed and drank from it thirstily, but the damage was done as her calves hurt, as did her feet!
Sliding her legs out she winced as she put her feet to the floor, her calves warning her with their twitching she had better take it easy at first, or she would pay dearly. She stretched her back as she stood, her bones popping as she did. The popping one right after another, seemingly never ending. Each a painful but sweet feeling, the pain of the pop. The sweetness of the relief afterwards.
"Holy shit!" she gasped as she stretched her hands above her head. She then bent at the waist and let her body hang as she stretched out. The muscles in her back groaning as they stretched, as did her hamstrings on the back of her legs.
"Wow!" his voice made her eyes open as she looked between her legs and smiled at him. "It sounded like you were popping popcorn in here!" Gavin teased at the noise her body was making.
She stood and turned to him, he gently took her into his arms and kissed her.
"I'm sore," she admitted with a smile.
"I'm with you," he agreed with a firm nod. "Pavy needs us, we got a new batch of refugees about an hour ago." She nodded and began to put her hair back up in the pony tail as she trailed behind him from the tent.
She followed him into the hospital and now there were over 80 people waiting. She frowned. This was too much. How can the rest of the world sit idly by and do nothing?
These people were getting pummeled with sadness and doom. Pain and death, and she knew that there were people in the United States that were more worried that their basketball team just lost their best player to a twisted ankle.
Really? People are dying here and they think their basketball team is killing them? Come here, your perspective on life changes the moment you look into one of these people's faces. The moment you see the devastation. The moment you see the sadness, the total loss on the faces of the people that came into this tent. Gavin walked to an elderly man who had that look of utter desolation on his face.
Gavin began treating the man's wounds as Alex assisted. She struggled at first, her fatigue keeping her memory from being used effectively. Soon her brain caught up and they were flowing seamlessly together.
They moved from patient to patient. Alex trying her best to keep the sadness emanating from the wounded from infecting her. She tried to smile reassuringly at them when they looked to her. A smile of comfort. She hoped it was getting through.
"Alex," Pavy interrupted hours later. "I want you to start giving the kids inoculations."
"I can't do that!" Alex protested. "I'm not a doctor or a nurse!"
"Do you think these people care?" Pavy smiled with a slight shake of his head to answer for her. "Look, Gavin will show you where to inject, it really is no big deal. Just do what you've been doing. You are very calming, so just continue to do that. These people need that more than all the medicine we can provide. Your smile lets them know the worst is behind them."
Alex looked to Gavin who winked at her.
"You'll be just fine," Gavin assured her with a quick kiss.
Gavin took her over to a corner of the tent. A small table had been set up for kids to sit on allowing her to inject them. Emem came over and he would assist her, as he had been doing since they arrived.
Gavin assured her that he would be a few feet away if she needed him and that was comforting. Gavin injected the first couple of kids. Alex was surprised when they were so brave, they didn't cry out a great deal. Then again, most of them were numb from their panicked retreat from where they called home. After getting shot at, or watching family members get slaughtered or maimed in front of you, what's a small needle?
Yes they cried but they didn't have the response she thought they would have. They didn't have all the apprehension she had witnessed with Nora a few years back when she went with Livy to get her inoculations for pre-school.
Gavin then stood nearby as Alex delivered her first inoculation. Her hand shook the entire time and the kid cried out and looked to her, the child's eyes spoke of betrayal but she made up for it with a sucker. Once the sweet treat hit the tongue on the child, the expression changed. It went from betrayal to that of awe. The pain melting away along with the sucker.
After Gavin watched for a few kids and Alex had no problem he slipped away without her knowledge. When she looked up after a few minutes she noticed he was working on his own patients while she treated the kids. All enjoyed her candy. All enjoyed her reassuring smile, her reassuring voice as she whispered to them they were going to be alright.
First in English, which they didn't understand the words, but they understood the tone. Then Emem taught her the words in their native tongue and dialect. She began to speak only in their Swahili, asking them to be still, then comforting them after the sharp pain of the injection.
Mothers would look upon her and smile at her gentleness. More than one took her hand and thanked her with a kiss there. She remembered Pavy saying that was a compliment. High praise.
The look on the mother's face told her he wasn't lying. They looked to her like she was saving their child's life. But she was only giving them a shot. Then she remembered. In America, we take our inoculations for granted.
In this war torn corner of Hell, they may hear of people getting the lifesaving shots but not have access to them. Now they were watching their own child get the shots that would save their lives from some diseases that were prevalent there. Prevalent but preventable, with the proper inoculations. It was as if Alex was saving their lives with magic.
Alex knew these kids had enough things here trying to kill them, they shouldn't have to worry about diseases that the rest of the world had eradicated through systematic immunizations not available to them.
"They may have never had one," Emem pointed out after she marveled one child looking at her as if she was some sort of angel after tasting the sweet treat she gave them with her megawatt smile.
"A sucker?" Alex asked him as she stared at the small girl while stroking her face lovingly. He nodded. That blew her away. No candy? How spoiled she was living in America. There were a lot of things she was encountering here that made her appreciate what she had in America. There were a lot of things she took for granted there that she would not now. Not after seeing what the rest of the world was dealing with.
Simple things, like roads. Paved roads to be specific. The fact that there were plenty of medicines available. Plenty of doctors, doctors you didn't have to walk a day to get to. Public transportation. She thought of the food she wasted, people here would go all day without eating. Candy? Would she ever look at a simple sucker again without thinking of the look each child gave her when they tasted the colorful treat?
As they went, Emem would prepare the needles, Alex would prepare the child then inoculate them. The child would cry, then Alex would produce a colorful piece of candy, the crying would soften. Then when the sweet taste of the treat hit, the crying would stop all together. On and on it went. Child after child. Hour after hour. Shot after shot. Sucker after sucker. Smile after gentle smile.
By the time she realized it, night had fallen and the tent was empty. Gavin and Pavy sat on a table just off to the side and watched her work. She didn't know how long they were watching her but when she turned the two men smiled to one another.
"Well Gavin," Pavy exhaled deeply. "I don't know about you, but your little angel there could give me a shot any day!"
"She is quite fantastic, isn't she?" Gavin smiled as he hopped off the table.
"Can I have a sucker?" Pavy asked her as he followed Gavin off the table.
"Sure," Alex shrugged. She picked up a needle and held it up. Pavy stopped his advance on her.
"What's with the needle?" he asked her.
"That's the cost," she told him with a firm voice. "One shot, one sucker."
"I don't need an inoculation!" he told her.
"Then you don't need a sucker!" she laughed. She rolled her eyes then tossed him one as he pouted.
"Thanks," he said popping the sucker in his mouth. "You were a big help today!"
"Yeah," Alex rolled her eyes. "Kids now know I'm mean and cause pain!"
"No," Pavy argued. "Now the people of this country know you care about them enough to protect their kids when nobody else will!"
This caused her to suck in a breath and it became trapped within her, not allowing her to let it escape from her lips as she thought about that statement fully.
Entering the tent again they shuffled their exhausted feet as Gavin made sure the tent was securely closed to keep the insects on the outside. In their short time here they had encounter insects that bit and stung that were the size of small birds it seemed. Like they were from some cheesy B-horror flick. To avoid those same monsters from getting into the tent while they slept, he made sure the tent was properly closed.
