Doctors Without Boundaries

Except for Jarrik's grumpy mood, his surroundings were picturesque. The porch had been built with local wood. The texture itself was unique. The wood color had an orange tinge to it. Tribal carvings embellished the edges of the porch. A beautifully lush grass lawn lay at the feet of the porch. The lawn was framed by bushes and small trees that each deserved individual inspection. Birds with vivid color highlights fluttered and chirped around them. Evidently, the birds were fed by nasty flying insects that were landing on Jarrik's skin.

Their breakfast company was consisted of the most select members of the tribe. The dress was mostly simple and exposed plenty skin for ventilation in the heat. Yet, their faces painted the intelligence, experience, and determination of the individuals. Older man with short, gray, curly hair and sometimes beards looked venerable for their wisdom. Middle aged men with tough bodies and demeanor that promised instant action were probably leaders in their own respect for agriculture, construction, or some other business.

Steps and sounds came from the direction that Mangeni had left to. A small group of four huddled people came closer. Mangeni lead them chabbering about a great doctor and only a little farther. Two men were half carrying and half assisting to walk an elder, not too old, woman. She was almost like a round ball because of all the fabric draped around her. The blanket had red, green, and black stripes running around it with white frizz at the edge. Red flip flops covered her feet. There was a little break in the blanket wrapped around her near the bottom of her ribs on the right side. There was a white bandage with blood.

Jarrik jumped up and ran towards Mangeni's aunt. He asked the two men to lower her to the ground onto the soft green grass. The aunt struggled, because lying flat caused her unbearable pain. Jarrik palpated the aunt's abdomen. It was hard like rock. The wound had introduced an infection that had spread across the whole abdominal cavity. She was in very critical condition. The wound itself had re-torn itself from walking and was freshly bleeding. Jarrik removed the bandages to get a look. A seven inch gauche exposed the large intestines and a shimmer of the kidney. A few drops of bright red blood fell on the loose grass.

Mangeni explained that the village had been raided three days ago by rebels. Her aunt had been running for the fields. A rebel had hit her with a machete from the car. As she fell, the rebel had assumed her dead and speed back to the village. The wound had been getting worse and worse despite smearing dirt into it and herbal remedies. Mangeni looked at Jarrik with large puppy eyes. Her cute young body was shivering slightly. She was sitting on her knees. She leaned forward on her hands. Jarrik told her to get the aunt to a hut for treatment. He'd meet her with medical supplies from the Jeep.

A hut next to the porch was prepared. It was an empty room. It had a door frame and two openings for windows. There was neither a door nor a window pane. A hand-woven rug served as the surgery table. Jarrik had supplies spread out next to the aunt. The aunt was silently weeping with the back of one hand over her eyes. Mangeni stayed close to help. Jarrik had her wear Nitrile gloves and a face mask as well. She looked kind of sexy with her exposed brown skin of her hot weather clothes and the sterile medical accessory.

The first order of business was to open the wound properly to suture the cuts to the large intestines. They were still bleeding. Luckily, the kidney was only nicked and already healing. The hygienic conditions for this kind of surgery were horrible. Jarrik did the best he could. This was field surgery. Mangeni did the best she could catching any flies that entered the hut to avoid their dirty feet to infect the wound further. Jarrik sent Mangeni to get hot water, plenty of it. Mangeni went running out of the room. Her young legs were flying high behind her with the soles of her cute soles showing. Jarrik was still attracted to the pink edge that black people's feet have, as the foot curves to the sole. Her black hair was flying as she jumped from the cabin floor down to the grass outside.

The entire abdominal cavity had become infected. Jarrik used a tube to fill the cavity with a very strong antibiotic solution. He taped the wound temporarily shut. His fingers kneaded the whole stomach to move the solution around. Mangeni arrived with a large pot of hot water from the fire. Jarrik dropped a couple iodine pills in it to be safe. Mangeni helped kneed her aunt's stomach. The Nitrile gloves were way too large for her small hand. They made her look goofy. She almost played with the stomach. Jarrik showed her how to work more systematically. Her young playful young face had a serious look.

The hot water had cooled enough to flush the antibiotic solution out. Mangeni kneeled high to create enough gravity pressure for the tube to in her aunt's stomach. Jarrik guided the tube deep under the abdominal skin to flush everything out. He also looked at Mangeni. Her skin was so tender and soft. Her boob size was average. Yet, they were so unperturbed by the drag of gravity that they marveled him. All of her movements were so light, like her body moved instantaneously as thoughts crossed her mind. Old people move slowly as to overcome a reluctance to move. All of Mangeni's movements were so easy without hesitation.

With the emergent problems addressed, Jarrik could focus on the urgent issue of repairing the tissue damage. Being in the field, he lacked the specialized instruments of a Western surgery room. His main tools were a ten blade scalpel, tweezers, and a suture needle. The rest he had to improvise with gauss pads and his own fingers. His gloves were covered in red blood of all shades. The tips were liquid bright red. From there out multiple rings of dried blood covered his hands as a reminder, of when he had been deep inside the body cavity and how deep.

Mangeni stayed steadfast at his side. Around lunch time, she left for a moment and returned with a mushy, yellow papaya half without the black round seeds. The papaya flesh had been cut into cubes inside the skin. She feed him one cube at a time by reaching her hand to his lips. At first, he gingerly picked the piece with his lips and sucked it in. After the first slippery piece almost dropped to the ground, he would take the whole piece in his mouth by touching her fingers a little bit. Her fingers had become all oozy with papaya juice and sticky flesh. Once a soft papaya piece had split in two. She rubbed her young fingers against his teeth.

A little later, she had to wait for a moment with a papaya piece raised in her hand for him to finish a tricky procedure. The juice ran down her finger and over her hand. She licked her brown hand clean following the juice drop in reverse up to the fruit piece. Jarrik opened his mouth. She put the piece in. He closed his mouth around her and licked her index and middle finger as she pulled it out. For the strangest reason, Jarrik was thinking about Mageni's freckle and licking it. Jarrik had started thinking in Kyden's Australian accent. A freckle in Australian is the anus. He imagined the tight sphincter in the middle of the butt cheek bulges with her smooth tender skin.

Jarrik wiped the thoughts off his mind and continued the surgery. By late afternoon, he worked his way backwards out of the abdominal cavity. He sutured each layer of muscle and finally the skin. The aunt had fallen asleep from exhaustion and the mild sedatives. Mangeni was sleeping as well with her face resting on her aunt's thigh. The last part was re-inserting the lost blood into the aunt's body. A sterile stainless steel kidney bowl had collected half a quart of blood. The faint blood pressure indicated that she could need everything she could get.

Following field procedure of the Army manual, he strained the blood through gauss from one kidney bowl to the next four times. Then, he injected the blood into a plastic pouch. The pouch was connected to a drip into the aunt's arm vein. Jarrik waited for the blood to go in, while he took her complete vitals again. Then, he sat there waiting for the blood to drip. At last, he was able to do something good. At last, his mind was taken away from his struggles with the experience. At last, he was able to do something neat and meticulously according to the available conditions.

The next day had minor orthopedic injuries and suture jobs. The recent rebel attack had broken some bones and cut some skin. For the most part, the rebels were mild this time. Disfigured people from previous attacks were among the people. The starkest example was a boy with lips, nose, ears, fingers, and toes cut off. It required good bed site manners to keep a calm constitution next to him. Fortunately, he was fine and never required the services of Jarrik or Kyden. Seeing him in at the group gatherings was enough of a challenge.

After lunch Mangeni grabbed Jarrik's hand to lead him across the grassy lawn. She told him to not go back to get his sandals. The lush grass felt wonderful under Jarrik's feet. She led him into the bushes beyond the grass. She raised her arms as if she were playing to be a plane. The underside of her arm grazed the top of the bushes left and right of her. Jarrik felt the bush brushing against his side. The leaves were soft and the branches a bit scratchy.

Mangeni stopped in front of a smaller bush with purple flowers. The flowers had a waxy sheen that made them appear like plastic. They were about half inch wide and an inch and a half deep. Mangeni twisted one flower off. She tilted her had back and placed the flower against the tip of her small pink lips. She sucked the nectar out and motioned Jarrik to do the same. There was virtually no nectar to be sucked out, a small drop perhaps. However, the small drop was extremely sweet like a mouth full of a chocolate croissant. She laughed at him straining to get nectar out and his clumsy hands crashing the delicate flowers. Her face shimmered the white of her eyes and teeth with her childish smile.

She turned on her heels and jumped sideways to a bush not too far away. Her youthful jumping and movement made him feel large, lumbering, and old. Feeling that way only made him want to be with Mangeni more. She stopped in front of a perfectly round bush with many dark green leaves the size of four quarters. The leaves were concave and had many little hairs on their surface. Mangeni picked a few. She brushed them against her face. The expression of coziness on her face equaled that of a model's for a toilet paper commercial, where the model rubbed a rabbit against her face to illustrate the softness.

"This is lover's bush. The leaves are so soft, the tree may become your lover," said Mangeni. She threw a delighted smile about her tease. She held a leave out to Jarrik and her other arm next to it: "Compare the touch and tell me, who is softer." The lover's bush leaf was sure extremely soft with the fuzzy tiny hairs. However, Jarrik enjoyed feeling Mangeni's skin more. It was soft, moist, and otherworldly smooth.

Jarrik walked his index and middle finger up her arm to her shoulder and said, "a little man walked up the stairs." Mangeni wiggled her body with excitement. He knocked his knuckles softly against her forehead, and said, "He knocked." She looked up at his hand cross eyed. He inched her nose shut with his fingers and gently wiggled the nose left and right, while saying "And, he rang the bell." Mangeni's head ducked down as she could not breathe for a moment. Then, she burst into laughing, jumped up into the air, and hit Jarrik with both hands on his chest: "You are funny, mister." She ran off.

The next morning brought sadness. The village leaders expressed their gratitude. Mangeni's aunt was stable. Yet, she could not stand up yet to say good bye. Mangeni in her place wished Jarrik good bye. In place of the aunt she, placed a fat and wet kiss with a lot of suction on his cheek. Jarrik was sad to leave the clean, lush, and vibrant rural village for the dilapidated and primitive capital.

Before Kyden could step on the gas, Jarrik put his hand on Kyden's arm to interrupt him: "Kyden, I may have been an ass. The way this place works may be a huge culture shock for me. However, I appreciate that you look out for me."

"Mate, no drama. You are here for the medicine and beautiful land. I will make sure that you get that. And, the rebel dealings, I try to keep out of your eye sight. If you knew it all, you would leave this place the same day. So, trust me, when I don't tell you something. This place can get immensely ugly. Think about your girl Namazzi or your new friend Mangeni."

The drive back to the capital was immensely fun. Without fragile medical supplies in the Jeep, they could play around. Once, they drove the Jeep with one side up on a dirt mound to see, how far to the side they could tilt the Jeep before it would fall over. Jarrik slowly steered it into a steeper side angle. Kyden stood on the ill side. After every foot forward, he pushed against the roll bar of the Jeep to test, if he could push the Jeep over. When the point was reached, where the Jeep precariously balanced on two tires, Jarrik reached his hand out of the open window and could touch the pale hard soil. He climbed out of the car through the roof. They laughed and high fived each other.

A couple hours after sundown, they arrived at the white washed MSF clinic. Because a Jeep is an open car, they had to unload everything into the clinic. It was a hardship, because their brain was fried from the constant attention an unmaintained dirt road required. Constantly, a deep pot hole could come up. Some potholes were deep enough to break an axle. When Jarrik finally retired to his room, he again found a huddled person waiting at his door step. It was Namazzi.

Namazzi pushed off the blanket that covered her. Her tall figure emerged in the nightlight. She was wearing dress with shoulder straps that went down to the mid thigh. The small dress only made her lanky body seem larger. She was enraged. She grabbed Jarrik by the ear and turned him in a half circle: "Have you been sleeping with another woman?" Jarrik wined at the pain and denounced the question.

She pushed him into the room. He sat down at the foot of the bed as a helpless heap. She insisted on her question with a shrill voice: "Swear to it!" He swore by his Eagle Scout honor and raised two fingers straight into the air. He silently wondered, if it was time to break the relationship off. She insisted even more vehemently: "Proof it!" She pulled on his pants. He struggled to remain on the bed. All grace had left her in the fight to see his penis. He ceded and undid his pants.

Her hands lifted his penis up to her face. She turned it around looking for some kind of signs. She pulled his foreskin back. She softly pressed the head of his penis to make the urethra open. Evidently, she was not sure, what kind of sign to look for infidelity on his penis. However, she checked every inch. Jarrik enjoyed watching her so eagerly handle his penis. It was close to a blow job in his mind. She sniffed his penis: "Does it always smell like this or is this another woman?" He laughed: "Why don't you lick it!" She dipped her sharpened tongue tip on his penis, considered it, and said, "It doesn't taste like much."

Namazzi got a can of Sprite from the cooler. It was probably lukewarm, because the ice had not been replaced in their absence. The can opened with the familiar ping of carbon sparkling with little pops into the air. She led him into the bathroom. Over the sink, she poured the Sprite over his growing penis. Her fingers distributed the Sprite over the skin of his penis. She made sure to get it under the foreskin. Half the can was left over on the thin wooden ledge under the mirror.

"An old house technique is to put Sprite on the cheating husband's penis. If the Sprite dries and it changes color, the husband has cheated. It turns orange for one time cheating, red for cheating twice, and blue for cheating more frequently."

His pants were still at his ankles. She was kneeling in front of him blowing on his penis to dry it faster. Little water drops rolled away from her mouth. She chased those water drops across his penis with her lips almost touching his penis. So much teasing made his penis completely erect.

Of course, the Sprite became only sticky and did not change colors. There was awkward silence after Namazzi conceded that he probably had not cheated on her. His penis was hard, yet Namazzi made clear that he had earned the right to have sex wit her yet. Out of fairness, Jarrik asked, how he was to know that she had not slept with another man. Namazzi immediately placed her face on the ground and begged him not to hit her, because she had been completely faithful. Jarrik was dazed by the intense reaction. Namazzi took the silence to intensify her pledge. She kissed his feet and offered to do anything to proof her chastity. Jarrik wondered what being in the power seat could get him.

She hopped to the bed and threw herself on it. She lifted her dress and pulled down her panties. "Please, check for yourself. No penis has touched me." He grasped the opportunity. He made her move higher on the bed, so that he could comfortably lie down on his chest. Her vagina was longer than that of most women's to match her tall size. The end of her vaginal lips was almost completely dark. The inside of her was bright pink. He folded labia and vulva over. He checked under her hood. He smelled her. He of course copiously tasted her. The vagina was very well lubricated. The whole panic deal must turn Namazzi on.

He insisted on verifying that her boobs had only been touched by her. She quickly pulled down the top of her dress, which was no scrunched together to form a ring around her midriffs. The breasts were a bit flat, because the fat of the breast had to spread over such a tall chest. The nipples were somewhat erect. The little dots that formed a circle around her nipples were more stiffened for the size. He licked her nipples. She let her handle her boobs, while attentively paying attention to the feeling.

After Namazzi had decided that his inspection should have been convincing, she dressed herself properly again. Reluctantly, Jarrik packed his erection back into his pants to mirror her. A little platonic talk about his trip quickly signaled Jarrik that his chances for sex were near zero. He also felt extremely tired and asked Namazzi to leave. She gave him a peck on the lips. He slapped her butt friendly as she walked through the door.

The next day brought a long line of patients to the clinic. The line extended outside the little clinic's doors into the sidewalk. The UN had a Typhoid immunization drive and was sending throngs of people to the clinic and other centers all over Africa. Kyden and Jarrik became assembly line workers. Their office doors remained open to let the next person already stand in the door for swift handling: Ask for allergies, swipe the shoulder with an alcohol towel, and inject the vaccine. Jarrik remembered his times at McDonald's. McDonald's had clocked all customer interactions to the second. The boss would yell at them for being seconds slow. Jarrik tried to turn patients over in under sixty seconds. Kyden would occasionally take notice of Jarrik's speed and yell from his room: "You mad man!"

The busy clinic was good for Jarrik's mind. The relationship with Namazzi was on the downswing. Like sharks, relationships that don't move forward die. Over beer, sitting in the foldout chairs around the cooler in Kyden's room, Kyden had sympathized with Jarrik's plight of being stringed: "Even you are the opposite of a wombat, you still want to root at some point." That was another Australian expression that stumped Jarrik.