Josephine.

Screaming. I was sitting in the nurses station, sketching,
journaling, and waiting for the next nurses to come take report, when
we heard crying. We ran into the next room and saw Josephine
wrapped up in her daughters arms, her eyes rolled back into her head
and mouth moving in completely unnatural ways.
Josephine is so sweet. She has corn-row braids that follow her
scalp from her forehead to the back of her neck. She's missing her
front two teeth. She came to hospital maybe a month ago. She was
rushed here after a moto accident that left her bone sticking out of
her ankle. An open fracture. They put her back together in
emergency surgery and now she has been resting in Bed 6, taking her
antibiotics and getting dressing changes on the crater of infection
that the bone left. Everyday she is really chipper. Somehow she
creeped into my heart with a chair and has stayed there the past few
weeks. She only speaks Nangjere and every morning when I ask her,
"what's going on?" she simply says, "nothing..." and smiles. We
have talked about her leg, if she's hungry, if I had worked alot that
day....very simple conversations since my Nangjere is oh so simple.
The daughter was up on the bed with Josephine, trying to manually
close her eyes as I imagine the contorted expression was scaring
her. But in the process she was pushing Josephine's neck down to her
chest, completely cutting off good airflow. This is a really
common reaction of the people here. I have pulled so many parents
away from their children because they are panicking and smothering
them. We pulled her sister off of her. We checked Josephine's
pulse. Normal. Called the head nurse. The head nurse then was
Augustan, a really good nurse. Josephine kept seizing. Her neck
would whip back and forth and her hands clench down on mine, sending
muscle spasms up her arms as well.
There is alot of witch-craft and meddling with dark things here in
Chad. I don't completely understand all of it. I know that alot of
times people will try witch-craft first to fix their health problems
and then when that doesn't work, they come to the hospital (alot of
times with all their money used up). Josephine had an episode
somewhat like this when she first came in and Augustan believed it
could be something spiritual that she was dealing with. He gave her
a drug to calm her down and Kristen prayed for her.
She settled down and the crowd started to disperse. She still
hadn't responded to any of us; hadn't recognized us. I started
asking her what her name was. She responded with her full African
name. :) "This is Emily, Josephine." She said, "Lapia", the
greeting here. I just kept fanning her and half singing her
name: "Josephine...." to which she responded in a sing-song tone,
"Emaleen" which really humored me that she had rhymed our names
together. I asked her how she was and she responded with a answer I
hadn't heard before. I asked the sister what she had said, and the
sister said that Josephine had expressed that things were not going
well. I asked if we could pray again with her now that she was
conscious. Josephine said, "Emily, there is only one God." I
agreed and so we prayed. She said,"Merci Buja, Merci Buja," still
grasping my hand. We stayed and talked a while longer through
broken Nangere, broken French and lots of smiling. She asked me to
stay and eat with her, but I told her I needed to go, that maybe
tomorrow I would eat boulle with her. She said, "Yes". She asked if
we could pray one more time and then if we could pray tomorrow as
well. I said for sure we could.
I went back a little later and peaked around the corner. She was
sleeping soundly. God can work his good and life changing magic
against the magic that so many people have meddled in; the dark magic
that destroys their lives. I wish that we came to God more often
with each other. Just stop to talk to him. How will our father
know us if we never talk to him. I hope Josephine wants to pray
together more. Maybe we can pray together in the mornings. I'll
have to ask her.