Guts

Art is long. Life is short. -Studs Terkel

2 April, 2009

A slick sheet lining my guts really crossed the line. It slipped through the right inguinal canal and formed a pocket filled with mysterious contents, an unnoticed trespass, until it was noticed. Surgical repair was scheduled.

What we in the states call an operating room, Kenyans refer to as "the theater," so I enjoyed an afternoon in..."the theatah". I fasted before surgery because I am an obedient patient. When Dr. Nganga, the anaesthetist, slid the needle into my arm 15 hours after my last meal, he asked what I would like to dream about while sleeping.

"Spaghetti," I said.

Those of us with a uterus also have round ligaments with which to suspend it and when Surgeon Mogere pressed down with a scalpal, he found one of mine out that should have been in, tucked these parts back where they belong, and closed the incision.

That week we also removed similar parts from no-longer-living bodies of some Amboseli baboons.

Humans and wildlife life in close quarters here and drought conditions pull them in even closer. Many living things here are right now going hungry. The Maasai cattle are slow and weakened by starvation and everything on them that can reduce, does. Their hooves are becoming disproportionate to skin and bones, so that a herd walking toward you looks like a bedraggled troupe of vaudevillians in platform shoes.

But the truth is they are on the verge of death. Driving back to camp means passing a young boy standing over a dying heifer, trying to beat the life back into her. Or past a little girl next to one dead cow and one more dying. "Will someone help me lift my cow?" Neither child is much larger than one of the dying animals' legs but even two grown men cannot convince the cow that it is worth it to stand.

Zebras get stuck in the swamp and are too exhausted to move. Their heads surrender to gravity and they drown standing up. Elephants look like paint-drenched canvas draped over an incomplete scaffold.

It is bad and the baboons are hungry. Untended young goats fall easy prey to male baboons who have developed a taste for meat. Lost livestock means lost livelihood for the Maasai and so full blown attacks of were launched. Because big meat-eating males have the strength to escape, the heaviest toll fell on females with infants.

We worked through the night until 3 AM. This was an opportunity--uninvited and unwelcome--to collect tissue samples.

"Heart, liver, kidney, lung, ovaries, adrenals?"

"Check."

Surgeons use a nylon mesh patch to repair an inguinal hernia, so I am now nylon-fortified. New and improved. Extra strength. This patch will stay forever and, over time, my own tissues will swallow it. Years from now another surgeon would never even know it was there.

Folks around here sure are hoping for rain. Folks are hoping this year will not be that one year that the long rains failed, that year that all the cattle died. And while bones of dead baboons are underground being stripped of their muscle and collagen, I am getting on with the business of laying down more.