Notes from a Spinning Planet—Papua New Guinea (7 page)

“Missis Chase?” says a male voice behind me. I turn around, expecting to see the friendly taxi driver. Perhaps I left something in his car. But instead it's the man in the bright shirt-the one I've just escaped from. I frown at him.

“I'm sorry. Are you Missis Chase?”

“Yes,” I say cautiously.

“I am Peter Sampala. I am a friend of Lydia Obuti. She told me to meet you here.”

“Oh,” I say in relief. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to run from you like that.”

“No,” he says in a serious tone. “That is good. You should not talk to strangers.”

I smile. “Yes, I know that.”

He looks somewhat relieved but still a bit uneasy. I'm afraid I offended him when I all but ran away from him screaming for help. Still, he seems to understand.

“Have you been here before?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No. Lydia works here sometimes, and I have picked her up after, but I have not been inside.”

“Halh” szys
one of the nurses that I met yesterday. “Can I help you:

“This is Peter Sampala,” I say, glad that I can remember his last
name and hoping I pronounced it correctly. “Lydia Obuti asked me to come-”

“I know. I know,” she interrupts. “You are to talk to patients.” She nods in the direction where someone is yelling. It sounds like the person is calling for help. “I am very busy. You will have to find your own way today.”

“Oh, that's okay,” I start to say, but she is already heading down the hall. I glance back to Peter, who is looking even more uneasy now. “Are you ready?”

He nods, but I can tell by the way he's looking around-his
eyes
darting down one hallway and then the other-that he doesn't want to be here.

“Do you mind doing this?” I say as I begin to walk down the hall toward the patients' rooms.

He takes a quick breath and looks like he's about to make a run for it. Perhaps he's as frightened of me as I was of him. Or maybe it's something else. I pause by one of the rooms, about to go in, but he hesitates in the hallway. “Do you want to come in?”

He nods again, taking a careful step, then hesitating.

“Does it bother you to be here?” I ask him in a quiet tone.

“Yes. Alitde.”

“I have an idea,” I say. “Lets go out to the courtyard and have a quick talk.” Then I lead him to the exit we used yesterday, going to the same bench where I thought I was going to lose my lunch. “Sit down,” I tell him.

He does, and I sit down beside him. “Look,” I begin, “I was here yesterday, and it made me uncomfortable too.”

He nods as if taking this in.

“And I'm not used to being around sick people either. I think I was a little scared.”

“Sick people are not so bad,” he begins in a quiet tone. “But AIDS…it is bad. Very bad.”

“Oh.”

“People with AIDS…they are not Christian people. Good people do not get this terrible disease. This is Gods judgment on these people because they chose sin and not God. It is bad…bad…”

I consider this. For some reason his thinking rings a bell with me. And then it hits me. I remember something I read in Margaret Mead s book. Sure it happened long ago, but perhaps its still part of the culture here today. People used to believe that if someone did something wrong and refused to confess it, that person or someone close to him would get sick and maybe even die. They thought there was a direct correlation between sin and sickness. Time and again, Margaret Mead actually observed this very thing happening in the village she was visiting. Maybe that's what Peter was concerned about here.

“Do you think that everyone who has AIDS has done something wrong?” I ask, just wanting to be sure that I'm clear.

He nods eagerly. “Yes.”

“And you think they have AIDS because they are bad people?”

Again he nods. “Yes. We all know this to be true.”

“Have you ever discussed this with Lydia?”

“No.” He frowns down at his feet.

I wish Lydia were here. I'm sure she could explain this better than I can. “But do you know that little children get AIDS?”

He just keeps looking at his feet.

“You think its because they sin?”

“It s because of sin. “

“Oh.”

He looks at me nqw. “It is evil, this AIDS. God does not want his people to get this evil sickness. He does not want his people to be near this sin. I should not be here now.”

“Do you believe in Jesus?” I ask.

“Yes!” He nods his head firmly. “I do believe in Jesus.”

“What do you think Jesus would do if he were here? What would he do if he saw these sick people?”

Peter looks down at his feet again.

“I can't make you come inside and talk with the patients,” I tell him. “But maybe you should ask Jesus what he would want you to do.”

He lets out a long sigh but keeps looking down.

“I don't speak pidgin English,” I tell him. “So without your help, I won't be able to hear their stories.”

He's still looking at his feet. And suddenly I remember that I forgot to call Sid and tell her I'm here. I'm surprised she hasn't called me, but when I look, I see that the phone is turned off.

“Excuse me,” I tell him. “I need to make a phone call.”

I call Sid and explain the situation.

“Maybe you should just come back,” she says, still sounding worried.

I glance over to where Peter is still sitting on the bench,
hiβ
head hanging down. “Not yet,” I tell her. “Maybe Peter will come around.”

“Keep me posted.”

I hang up and wait a couple of minutes as I silently pray for God to open Peter s eyes right now. I pray that God will help this confused man to see that many of the people who are sick with AIDS have simply been victims. And perhaps God could show Peter that forgiveness is available to everyone, including those who got AIDS through bad choices. As I pray, I begin to understand what could possibly be one of the problems with this AIDS epidemic: it might be that well-meaning but fearful people like Peter dont understand what's really going on.

I
go back to Peter and ask him whether he wants to translate for me this morning.

“I believe Jesus would help these people,” Peter says in a sad voice.

I smile. “That's good.”

“But I am still worried.”

“Why?”

He looks up at me with frightened eyes. “I do not want the AIDS sickness. I have a wife and baby back in my village. I do not want to take this sickness to them.”

I nod. This concern is much easier to handle. “You can't catch AIDS from these people, Peter. You won't get it by talking to them. Not even if you touch them.”

“Do you know this for sure?”

“Yes,” I tell him, “I've learned about it in my country.” He still looks uncertain. “Hasn't Lydia told you this?”

He shrugs now. “Maybe.”

“So, do you want to do this with me, Peter? Are you all right?”

“I will try. I will pray for Jesus to be in me.”

I smile at him. “Yes, that's what I'll do too.”

Then he stands up. “I know that Jesus healed people. He touched people with leprosy. That is a bad illness too.”

“Is there leprosy in New Guinea?” I ask as we walk toward the entrance.

“A little. Not so much as the AIDS.”

The first room we go into has three women in it. I think this might be better than a ward, which is overwhelming to me and might really frighten Peter. I go to the woman whose bed is near the window. She is looking outside with a very sad expression. I can see that she is a pretty woman, maybe about my age or even younger, but her face and arms have lots of open sores, which are even more visible due to her skin tone, which is about the color of cocoa.

For a split second I can relate to Peter. I so dont want to touch this woman. To be honest, I dont even want to be here right now. To make matters worse, I'm starting to feel a wave of nausea coming on. This is not good. So I tell myself just to chill, remembering how its probably the Malarone pill I took with breakfast. Still, it does make me wonder how bad malaria can be if taking these pills makes me feel this lousy. I look at the woman and realize that she probably feels way worse than I do.

I take a steadying breath and scoot a chair next to this woman's bed and ask if I can sit down. Peter translates this into pidgin, and the woman looks slightly surprised, but she nods her head with a tired sigh. Then I introduce myself to her and tell her I'm from the United States, and she tells us that her name is Mary Kilamo and that she is from a village near the town of Goroka.

“I'm working on a news article about the AIDS epidemic in
Papua New Guinea,” I begin slowly, waiting for Peter to translate this as I take out my notebook and write down her name.

She gives me a blank look, almost as if she is bored or maybe just tired, and I ask Peter if she understands what he just told her.

He nods.

“And I want to get stories of real people,” I continue, “people like you who have AIDS. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

Peter translates this, and the woman from the bed on the other side of Mary makes a comment, which I can't understand. I glance at Peter, who looks slightly exasperated. “It was nothing,” he says. “Nothing you want to hear.”

“Did she say something bad?” I ask.

“I think she's jealous,” he tells me. “She wants you to talk to her instead of Mary.”

I turn and force a stiff smile at the plump woman, who doesn't look nearly as sick as Mary. In fact, she looks perfectly fine, and I wonder why she's here taking up valuable space. “Tell her I will talk to her
after
Mary,” I say, and Peter quickly dispenses this message to her. She nods and smiles smugly at me.
)

Then I look back at Mary. “How are you feeling today?”

“No
goot”
she says without waiting for Peter to translate.

“Do you speak English?” I ask.

“Nogat?”

“Oh.” I smile at her. “But maybe you understand it a little?”

The corners of her mouth almost turn up into a smile but not quite. Then she slowly nods.

“How long have you been in the clinic?” I ask, and Peter translates.

“Three months,” he tells me, and I write it down.

Then I ask if her family comes to visit her, and I discover they do not. So I ask about friends and learn that she has none. I ask how old she is and find out she's twenty-three. Then I ask how long she s had AIDS, and she tells us she got it when she was eleven. I feel shocked at this. She's not much older than I am, but she has had AIDS for twelve years, more than half of her life. I tell her that I'm sorry and that it's too bad. As I say this, I can feel tears in my eyes, and I don't even try to hide them.

“Do you mind if I ask how you got AIDS?”

Peter translates and then waits for what is a fairly long answer. But after she's done speaking, he just sits there for an even longer time. His face is expressionless, and I assume he's trying to reword her response into English for me. But when he begins to tell me her answer, I see that he, too, has tears in his
eyes.
I can tell this is difficult for him.

“She says it happened in her village when she was a young girl. She and her friend were supposed to be working in the garden, which is away from the village, but they were playing like children do. And they were careless, too near a public road. A band of men found them and took the girls away in a truck. They took them far from home. And then the men raped both the girls. Many times.” He takes in a sharp breath and continues. “Her friend was killed. But Mary did not die. After some time-she does not remember how long-she became sick, and the men let her go.”

Tears are running freely down my cheeks now, and despite my earlier revulsion, I take Mary's hand in mine and tell her that I'm so sorry. She seems to understand this without translation. Peter also says
he is sorry, but he remains where he's sitting. He doesn't touch her. That's okay, maybe even for the best. I make some quick notes, planning to fill in more details later.

Then she says something else, and Peter translates for me. “That was a long time ago.” It's as if she's trying to make us feel better.

I nod. “Yes. But what happened after that? After the men let you go, did you return to your home?”

Peter translates, and I learn that, yes, she did return to her home. But she returned in shame. Her family was disgusted with her. They told her to leave, that she was not welcome. She was worthless to them. Dead.

I remember something I recently read about New Guinean culture. Daughters have monetary value because their families can get a bride price when they are married. In other words, the groom must pay the brides father with livestock and produce and other goods in order to marry her. Depending on the girl, the price can go quite high. Seeing that Mary is a very pretty girl, I'm guessing her family had great hopes for her. I'm guessing she was an investment that lost its value.

“Was she considered worthless because a daughter's value is related to the bride price?” I ask Peter in a quiet voice.

Peter sadly nods, thankfully without even translating my words to Mary. I can tell he's familiar with this custom. Perhaps he even had to come up with a bride price for his own wife. But poor Mary. Just because she was raped and hurt, she lost everything. It's so sad. So unfair.

“What did you do after your family sent you away?” I ask. I realize I'm still holding her hand, but she doesn't seem to mind.

She tells us that she stayed with relatives in another village. They made her work for food. But it wasn't long before they, too, did not want her around. And so she came to the city, to Port Moresby.

“And what did you do here?” I ask.

Peter translates, and she pulls her hand away from mine and looks down at her lap. I can tell she's ashamed.

The woman from the next bed laughs and says something to Peter, something that seems to embarrass him. He looks away. Mary looks uncomfortable too. She turns and looks out the window again.

“What did that woman say?” I ask Peter.

He leans over and speaks quietly to me. “She said Mary was a sex worker.” He turns and scowls at the woman. “She used different words, cruel words, but that is what she said.”