I Get Stitches

Amani had asked me if I would be her chauffeur on her wedding day, or in other words, have me drive our Landrover to ferry her and her bridesmaids to the church and then back to her parent's house for the wedding feast. Of course I wouldn’t refuse her because she was one of my nursery workers and her parents lived in the house closest to us across the creek. But for vehicle access we had to go right out to the main road to Kilala and up past the famous Dik Dik Lodge.

Amani's flower girls and helpers came over to clean the Landrover and to decorate it with purple Bougainvillea flowers. Cleaning vehicles is not recognised as a female task, but these young women did a good job. To keep it clean, I travelled slowly and I didn’t want to dislodge the flowers they had beautifully hung around the outside of the vehicle. We had a goat in the back, which was to our wedding gift and we had our visitors, who also had invited.

The wedding was a typical Meru wedding with singing and some dancing with everyone but the bridal couple looking joyful. Couples usually look forlorn to show that they are not happy about leaving home. But it was a good day and everything went well. We lined up with the gift-givers, and the gifts were large and small, cattle beast to a handful of coins. Our goat, Shishitoni, behaved well, and we had decorated him to look like a 1800’s tart!

The next day we were expecting Mama Riziki, another of our nursery workers, to bring her young daughter to visit us. We liked Mama Riziki and at that stage we had not met her young daughter. We employed her initially to bring us Grevillea seedlings because there was poor germination in the seed I had collected. She was a bright cookie and reliable in the nursery.

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon and I ventured into the cool of the garage while we waited for Mama Riziki and little Riziki. I noticed dusty hand-marks all over the Landrover! This was because the decorating girls had oil on their hands. Fragrant oil or lotion is used by most, because the fine dust dries out the skin and everyone likes to have clean, shiny skin.  The oil had stuck to the paint surface and the dust from the road stuck to those invisible hand prints, leaving them plain to see. Absentmindedly I began to wipe them off. Wham! I fell across the inspection pit that the Landrover was parked over. The pit had a steel edge where safety boards were supposed to sit.

The steel edging opened a gash in my shin, and I could see the bone! I held the wound to stop the piece of meat flapping and to stop the bleeding! I hobbled, bent over compressing the wound to the backdoor steps, where I called Mags. She called back that Mama Riziki had just arrived and that that I should come to greet them. But the tone of my reply, that I needed her right now, brought them all running.

One of our guests, Malcolm, quickly produced a bottle of brandy from his kit, with the enthusiasm of youth he hoped it would help! But I suggested I might need to be alert because we didn’t know what medical help we could find on a Sunday. Mags drove us into Dr. Joyce's hospital! Our field rep Mama Mbembe, had met up with Dr. Joyce and his wife socially, and so all vols ended up going there. Apparently if asked, he couldn’t produce his credentials – but that’s another story. Being Sunday the hospital was closed, but his day-guard went to fetch him and he came out and took me into his surgery.

All of his sewing/surgical equipment had been sterilized and he kept them wrapped in cloth to keep the invasive dust off. He injected some painkiller into the wound and began scraping the oil-gunk and dirt from the bone. That painkiller stuff didn’t do much of a job there! Once he was satisfied that the wound was clean, he stitched it up using ten stitches. Ness, who had worked as a vet nurse came in from time to time to cast her professional eye over his work. She returned to the waiting room and told Mags she thought it to be a little uneven, and that her vet could make a neater job! However, his work was good and it healed well and now is not easy to see.

The next day I had work to do at Valeska village and school.  It is an arduous trip and the paracetamol worked for a time, but not all day. When it wore off at about lunch time, I could not operate the accelerator at all so Mags had to drive us home. Luckily I mended quickly! It could have been worse had I fallen head first into the pit. I might not have been found for some time!