Naomi Gladish Smith
The three animals pictured come from Africa. The buffalo on the right is the oldest, bought many years ago in an open-air market in Zimbabwe where my husband and I wandered among men, boys, and the occasional woman who eagerly hawked their wares, calling out to passersby to inspect carvings that ranged from tabletop ornaments to four foot statues of giraffes. My husband was enamored by one of the giraffes, only dissuaded from buying one by the thought of getting it on the plane when we traveled home.
The rhinoceros on the left is a gift from one of our sons, brought home about ten years ago when he returned from a medical trip to Rwanda where he and several other gastroenterologists went to help train physicians in procedures. Due to the slaughter that occurred a few years before, there was only one gastroenterologist In the country, so equipment and expertise were desperately needed. The rhinoceros remains as a reminder of that trip and ones that followed as Rwanda’s group of physicians trained in procedures grew to an actual medical school gastroenterology department.
So, what’s with the colorful little elephant in the middle? The intricately decorated wax candle was made at an Eswatini co-op and is a gift too. This past March one of our granddaughters went to Eswatini, a country I’d always known as Swaziland. She and ten other student nurses traveled with an escort to meet and share experiences with nurses in this tiny country where HIV and other diseases are at extremely high levels.
It was a life changing trip that introduced Molly to nurses who routinely went above and beyond anything first world practitioners would expect to encounter. The nurses made do with what they had available, knowing that when they discharged their patients these people were apt to be going home to conditions that might well mean they would soon be back in the hospital. During a home visit that Molly attended, the nurses were unable to give a woman dying of cancer morphine for her pain because the medicine just wasn’t available, so the nurses sang to her. It was an unforgettable moment.
Molly graduated in June and this October she will accompany her father to his Rwanda stint as a newly certified RN.
These three animals, two of carved wood, another of wax, sit on my bookshelf. One is a cherished remembrance of my husband who is no longer here, one is a reminder of an ongoing effort to help medical workers half a world away, and one announces that the next generation is ready to carry on.