Gimbie Reports

I watched the baby breathe. 1, 2, 3… 17 breaths. 3 second pause. 7 breaths. Pause. With a mighty sigh, she started breathing again. Her nostrils flared despite the teeny nasal canula in her nose. Her accessory muscles heaved out the breaths her ordinary muscles had grown tired of supporting. Her perfectly formed fingers were limp, pale, cold. There was a cyanotic ring around her mouth.

In utero, she had been in distress for hours. Her mother hadn’t wanted to have a C-section, despite the information that her baby’s head was too big for her pelvis. Finally with the doctor screaming at the mother-to-be, her fingerprint was pressed Into the paper, sealing her alleged consent. It took around a half hour to get the consent, and another half hour to secure proper anesthesia for the surgery.

My shift was complete, but I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to make sure the baby breathed. There was a miniature ambu-bag at the foot of the bed in case she stopped. Not that it would matter. Even if we do CPR, there is no way to correct the causative physiological factor(s). So the patient usually dies anyway. I touched her small chest, counted her heart beat and felt her lungs expand. I held her small cold hands to warm them and checked to see if perhaps she had any reflexes. She didn’t.

Finally, she moved her tiny limbs. The machine continued to pump oxygen into her starved lungs. She breathed. Her heart beat. So I went home to get some rest. In the morning, she was gone.

This past Friday was Ethiopian New Year. I awoke in the gray shadows of the morning to rambunctious chanting outside our window. The children of our hospital staff were carrying out the yearly tradition of yelling for lemons. The steps of the ceremony are basically as follows: 1. Kids gather outside your front door and chant, “In Qutattash!” (It’s New Years!) in exuberant expectation. 2. You sleepily drag yourself from under the covers, and go open the door. 3. If you have any lemons, you give them each two. If you don’t have any lemons, you have to give them a birr. 4. They go away. Thankfully, we had just enough lemons to pacify our visitors.

At breakfast, we wished each other a “Happy 2002!” Ethiopians follow the Julian calendar, which is 7 ½ years behind our Western Gregorian calendar. A local story explains the disconnect. Apparently, the world leaders gathered and decided upon creating a new calendar. The Ethiopians thought it was a wonderful idea, and sent an emissary to collect the new design. Unfortunately, what with the difficult road and the distractions along the way, it took him 7 ½ years to arrive back with the calendar. Yet, in typical enthusiasm, the Ethiopians decided to begin following the calendar right away.

No one works on New Years. We spent a delightful day lazing around the house, trying to be as unproductive as possible. The medical staff had a relaxing day as well… at least until later when the post-holiday trauma began to filter in to the ER - mostly those who had over-eaten or been injured in drunken brawls. We ordered tea and cakes for all of the hospital staff who had to work, and good cheer was preserved.

The next day was Sabbath – the first time I have ever enjoyed two consecutive “days off” at the hospital. I joined in the mass choir which performed for the celebration at church. We belted out multiple local songs, all in Oroomiffa and all in unison. The rafters were strung with twirled toilet paper (to resemble streamers), a few strands of plastic flower chains bedecked the sanctuary, and the pulpit emitted an electrifying strobe of red Christmas lights, which kept the congregation mesmerized throughout the service. Smiles radiated from every face. A New Year meant new chances to do good.

On Sunday we were back to work at the hospital. Still, it seemed like a new exuberance pervaded the building. We were so inspired that we couldn’t help but make New Years’ resolutions together over lunch. I intend to have better posture. Renee plans to wake up earlier. Paul resolves to exercise more often. We’ll do our best to keep these promises… but then again, if we slack off, the rest of the world’s New Years is only 3 ½ months away…

According to Strunk and White, authors of The Elements of Style, a participle is “a verbal that functions as an adjective” (93).

Yes, a verbal. I had to look it up too.

A verbal is “a verb form that functions in a sentence as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb rather than as a principal verb” (95). Basically, a verb went to a costume party and we call it a participle.

The challenge was to teach identification and usage of participles to 23 EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students that still mix up past tense and do not understand commands. (Disclaimer: There are about 6 other above average students that are capable of understanding and using participles.) Our nursing school students will be tested over this information when they take the governmental exam upon graduation. Therefore, they must learn and I must teach.

Following the advice of Frauline Maria per Rogers and Hammerstein we started at the very beginning: verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and subjects. Then, we progressed to present and past participles. All students were copying the example sentences and taking notes. Next, participle phrases: modifiers, objects, and compliments. Somewhat confusing, but punctuation rules make identification of these phrases rather simple.

After one hour and thirty minutes of definitions, diagramming sentences, and learning the rules and exceptions, I’m pretty sure their heads were spinning. I assigned 5 sentences for homework, asking them to underline the participle or the participle phrase, label it as past or present, and place commas where needed.

I am curious to see how they do. Even more, I want to know how I did teaching these undercover verbs. Monday is our next class. I’ll know then.