When I first got wood and tools for my woodworking program, I immediately built a park bench to put outside my house. In all the teachers quarters, there was no place to sit outside, except one small stoop on one of the houses. I had a student named Fundisiwe, which means, “She who loves to learn”, and it was true, Fundisiwe loved to learn. And she would come by my house some afternoons, to sit with me on the bench, and practice her English with me, and to ask me about life in the US. 

In Swaziland, it was not meet for a girl student to enter a male teachers house, and if she did, word would get around that she was having sex with you. And if she did willingly enter your house, it meant that, in fact, she was willing to have sex with you, or she wouldn’t come in. Sexuality in Swaziland was different than in the US, more open, and accepted. Well, I was not there to have sex with girl students, and the bench was a good solution to that.

One day I was down at my woodworking shop, as usual, sweeping up bat poop before classes started, and Fundisiwe walked in.

Fundi: Maseko, Sophie is waiting up at your house, and she needs your help.

Me: Um, Hi, Fundisiwe! Why is Sophie at my house, and what help does she need?

Fundi: Maseko, you must come now.

And she walked out of the shop. Well, my momma didn’t raise no fool, so I followed her up across the soccer pitch to the teachers quarters, where sitting on my bench was Sophie, holding a big wad of toilet paper on her knee.

I had seen Sophie at the school, but didn’t really know her. She was not a woodworking student. I had talked with her briefly, a couple times, and found that she was a shy and quiet girl, who was intimidated by my teacher status. She was tall and pretty, and Fundisiwes best friend. I knelt down in front of her.

Me: Hi Spohie. How can I help you?

Sophie: Oh, Maseko. I live about 8 km from the school, and to get here on time, I have to leave my homesteasd before dawn, and walk thru the dark. Today I was walking to school, and was singing, so that I was not afraid in the dark, and was not paying attention, and I walked off the edge of a donga, and fell in, and hit my knee on a stone, and you must look at it, please.

A donga is a small arroyo. It is caused by erosion. It starts as a footpath, and over years of rain, it gets eroded, and becomes a small canyon, about 5 or 6 feet deep, and 5 or 10 feet wide. The cattle would hang out down in them during the afternoon, to get into the shade there, because the sun was very hot. So, the bottoms were a mix of dirt and cow poop and stones. And Sophie had fallen off the edge, and landed on her knee in the dark.

I asked her if I could take away the toilet paper wad, and look at her knee. She said yes. Removing the bloody toilet paper, I saw that she had torn her knee skin, a c-shaped patch about 3″ in diameter, and it was covered with dirt and dry cow poop. So I went in and got my Peace Corps medical kit, which I had supplemented with tape and gauze, and brought it, out, along with some hydrogen peroxide and a bottle of store bought water that I had picked up my last trip into town. The flap of skin was loose, and the inside was also full of dirt and poop. Knowing that I was going to have to open it up to clean it, made me momentarily woozy. I could never be a doctor. Other peoples pain always affects me deeply.

Me: Sophie, you need to take the bus to the clinic in Siphofaneni and have the doctor look at this.

Sophie: Oh no sir, I can’t. I have no money, and if I go to the clinic, my father will beat me.

I looked up at her. She was trembling a little, but bravely sitting quietly waiting for me to get to work. “This is going to hurt a little, Sophie. Are you ok with that?” 

“Yes,sir.” she said

I took a deep breath, and pushed down the nausea I was feeling, and started washing off the outside of the wound. Eventually it was clean enough, so I lifted back the flap of skin, and almost fainted. I could see the muscles crossing the patella, amid the blood and dried gunk. It wasn’t bleeding much, so I asked her how long ago she had fallen in the donga. About an hour and a half. She had climbed out of the donga and took the toilet paper from her backpack, and had limped the rest of the way to school while holding the paper to her knee. What a totally brave girl. The dirt was so ground in to the muscles and tissue, that I had to get my tweezers, and pick it out, grain by grain. I was light headed from the gravity of the wound, and from knowing how much I had to be hurting her. To her credit, other than a couple of gasps, she sat perfectly still whie I was picking dirt out.

I picked for about 20 minutes, rinsing it, and picking every speck of detritus that I could find. Finally, I could not see any more. My hands were shaking as I finished. I splashed it with peroxide, and gently laid the flap back in place. Then I wiped the edges of the wound with iodine, and when it dried, I smeared on some antibiotic ointment, and taped some gauze in place, and wrapped it with an ace bandage. I told her not to get it wet, and to come back in 2 days, ao I could look at it again. I again encouraged her to go to the clinic to have the doctor look at it. She shook her head. And limped off to classes.

She came back in 2 days, and I took off the bandage and cleaned the outside. It was pink around the wound, but there were no red streaks running away from it, and it appeared to be starting to heal. I iodined it, and smeared more ointment on, and bandaged it again, and put the ace bandage back on. It was the end of the term, and I was leaving to go camping with some volunteers on an island off the coast of Mozambique, so I made up a small medical kit for her, with iodine wipes and gauze and tape, and told her to treat it every two days, and keep it dry, and watch for dark red streaks, which, if she saw them, she should go directly to the hospital in town, or she could lose her leg from infection. And if her dad said no, she should ignore him and go anyway. She said ok, and walked home.

The whole time that I was camping, I could not stop thinking about Sophie. What if I had trapped some dirt, and it got infected, and she had to get her leg amputated? It was awful.

I got back to school after break, and Sophie came by to see me. She said that she had been taking good care of it, and that it didn’t hurt any more, and when I took the bandage off, it actually looked like healing was underway. I was so relieved. God must have been looking out for her because my crude first aid was a lot less than what a doctor would have done. I gave her the rest of my gauze pads and tape, some iodine wipes, and my tube of ointment, and my other ace bandage, and told her to continue to treat it every couple days, and watch for red streaks.

A couple weeks later she came by my bench again, and when I looked, it was healing, but the scar was going to be with her for the rest of her life. Sophie got into the habit of coming with Fundisiwe and sitting on my bench, and conversing with us practicing her English. I felt like a miracle had happened. There were so many things that could have gone wrong with her knee. Such a brave girl.

Courage Matters