aJust finished a long day at the hospital and I am dead tired. I spent the morning accompanying the only female driver of Mennonite Hospital's version of Meals on Wheels. Her name is Cai E (Being atrocious with Chinese names, I kept on repeating in my head "Rainbow Moth. Rainbow Moth.") and she is a WICKED driver. Dude, boys in America can not drive anywhere near as well as she can. Riding with her was like throwing your hands in their air at the apex of a roller coaster -- you can give yourself over to the fun because you are confident in your safety.
The Meals on Wheels program is actually run by a branch of the Mennonite Hospital. This branch cares for the physically and mentally impaired. This is the clinic for the paraplegic that ADVENT visited two years ago. There is also a school for children that are developmentally challenged. When I was waiting in the lobby with the other workers, a cute little boy stumbles past in a helmet. "DiDi (little brother) falls a lot", a worker explains. Cutest little kids EVER. Before we left, I helped to distribute Zong Zi. As I mentioned before, Duan Wu Jie is this Monday, and they decided to give the meal recipients a taste of the festivities. Anyways, as I lent a ginormous hand by standing beside the people tossing Zong Zi's around like hot potatoes and keeping count (silently), I got the full rundown of the operation. The Mennonite Meal Service serves the mobility-challenged elderly but also caters to low-income families. They prepare food for any need, including recipients that are vegetarian, have diabetic diet restrictions, or can no longer chew.
After bundling up the Zong Zi, we hopped into the truck. Instead of immediately heading onto the route as I anticipated, Cai E turns and REVERSES into this teeny tiny alleyway DOWN a slope. This chick is badass. And she was going fast. We end up in the loading zone of the hospital's cafeteria. Being the spoiled American I am, I thought the food was already loaded into the trucks for us. Instead, I stood by and watched as Cai E pushed cartload after cartload of bento boxes, cups of soup, and fruit to the table to be sorted. We then put the boxes into the order they were to be delivered. Most were in disposable containers. However, for grandpa and grandmas who were still active enough to wash dishes, the hospital gives them washable trays. (For such a polluted place, Taiwan sure is environmentally friendly.) One of the male team leaders was chivalrous enough to push our loaded cart to the truck. The back of the truck somehow uses the heat that radiates from the engine to keep the food heated. Magical. Before we leave, Cai E turns to me with a serious face and says, "Do you need to go the bathroom?" I'm like "Nah, I'm fine." "Are you sure? We won't be back for three hours." "Yeah, I think I'm good...why... are you going?" "Yeah." "OK, then I'll come." She gave me this really strange look. I don't think the women of Taiwan follow each other to the bathroom... Then, when we got to the bathroom, I tried to be nice and let her go first. She's like, "No, go." When I come out, she hands me the car keys and says, "You can wait in the car if you want." OK. Believe it or not, I think for the first time in my life, I got the subtle hints that say "I need to take a dump." Yay for me.
I'm twiddling my thumbs in the car zoning out when suddenly I hear tires screech. I look up into the glaring brake lights of the car that was parked above us on the slope, literally centimeters from the windshield. At this exact moment, Cai E gets into the car. "Did I almost just die?" She glances over. "Oh, yeah. Some problem with the brakes." All nonchalance. I love her. haha
There were 50+ houses on our route. I was warned that even though some grandpa/grandmas (We call them Ah-gong and Ah-mas) were well off, others might live in places that would "shock" me. So with my loins girded, we set off. Some deliveries we left in little boxes that were affixed to the front gate. Cai E would ring the door bell and yell "AH-GONG. THE FOOD IS HERE." Other times, we would just walk into the houses and put the food in their hands. In Taiwan, it is perfectly acceptable to just waltz into the houses of the Ah Gongs and Ah Mas. Cai E laughed when I stood there aghast. She's like "Yeah, Daniel freaked out about that too. He called his Mom." Sometimes, deliverers find the last day's food left untouched. If the door is locked, they call dispatch at the Hospital so that someone can contact the meal recipient or the recipient's family. If the door is unlocked, the deliverers can enter and see if anything's wrong. Cai E says that once she found an Ah-gong on the floor who had literally fallen and could not get up. One of the other deliverers had entered the house of an Ah-gong to find him dead, sitting in the same position that he was in when she brought him food in the morning.
Some of the Ah-gongs and Ah-mas are blind. When I handed one blind Ah-gong his lunchbox, saying "Eat slowly" (Polite Chinese thing to say), he turned to Cai E and asked "Did you bring your child to work?" He then reaches down as if to take the food from a 10-year-old. I'm like "EXCUSE ME. UP HERE." On the car, I demanded to know if my voice sounds like a kid and Cai E replies monotonously, "Yes. A little." D:
It was really fun driving around with Cai E. She has a really cute laugh. I wasn't sure how old she was so I called her "Cai E Jie" which means "Older sister". I later discovered that she had kids my age. Tricky Asian people who don't age. It doesn't help that the Taiwanese don't always wear their wedding bands. It's impossible to tell if people are already married or not. The two people I've asked about it told me that rings just get in the way of doing work. Very practical. Someone should tell Rachel Ray that. Cai E showed me the ropes of the business-- How to fake buckle my seat belt so that we could slide in and out of the car quickly without the cops busting us, how to avoid piles of poo that seem to come from nowhere (she had to push me out of the way of one I was three inches from stepping on), how to open and close the latch on the delivery truck's door, and most importantly, how to respectfully interact with the Ah-gongs and Ah-mas. We worked from 10 AM to almost 1 PM. I was almost asleep by the time we finished the route. Some recipients lived off the main road so we had to park and walk a few yards to get to their houses. Others lived in apartment buildings without elevators. So...many...stairs. Anyways, got the full recommended dose of physical activity today.
After the route, Cai E took me back to the main hospital. I was starved. After hustling over the Death Floor, I inhaled my lunch box and promptly fell into a food coma. Pastor Chao let me nap for fifteen minutes. In Taiwan, if you finish your lunch before the allotted lunch break time, you're allowed to nap until it's time to work again. Sometimes, they even turn off the lights if everyone's sleeping. Makes me think back to Kindergarten.
OK. I found out that Wai Ke actually means "Surgery Ward", not outpatient. haha. Makes a lot more sense. haha. Patients that go through there are either being prepared for surgery or recovering from surgery. I actually started to dread going to the Surgery Ward because there is a particular Nurse who always has something banal for me to do. She seems to have the wrong impression that I am there to do normal volunteer work. kukuku. The first time she had me staple papers, I was like "Uhh..OK. This is not what I flew 13 hours from America to do." When I went today, I thought, "If she makes me do it again, I'm going to flip a bitch." Sure enough, when I arrived, her face lights up and she begins gathering up papers to staple. At that time in the Surgery Ward, there apparently isn't much for me to do. I tried to use my eyes to plead with Xiu Zhen to save me, but she was the one who got Pei Lin (the Evil Nurse) in the first place. Judas! JUDAAAH-JUDA-AH-AHHHH. Xiu Zhen asks Pei Lin "How many does she have to do?" and Pei Lin replies "As many as she can. She's here until four right?" It was 2 PM.
It was at this point that I discovered the extent of my superiority complex. In Chinese, the expression is, "My stomach was full of rage." All kinds of nonsense was going through my head like, "I FLEW HERE FROM AMERICA. NOT TO DO THIS SHIT." and "I GO TO JOHNS HOPKINS. IS THIS WHAT I'M USING MY EDUCATION FOR." After the last one, I was like "Wow. I sound like a douchenozzle." So I just pouted and stapled. haha. In between bitter rantings, I was like "JESUS. GIVE ME PATIENCE." but there was also intermittent exclamations of "JESUS. WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE??" Needless to say, my brain was very conflicted. By the time I had finished stapling the 50th stack, I had resolved to never come back to the surgery ward.
Then, RAPTURE. No, kidding. The shift changed, and Xiu Zhen was replaced by Mei Jiao (fondly called Mei Jiao Jie). My face must have screamed "SAVE ME." because she comes in and asks, "Do you know how to take blood pressure?" Desperate, I replied, "No, but I CAN LEARN. PLEASE. LET ME LEARN." Instead, she hands me this cool little device that looks that the things doctors use to look into your nose during physicals (before they tell you to stop picking). She shows me how to use it to take patients' temperatures. You place the device on their forehead and slooooowly slide it over to their ear. SO COOL. She hands me some alcohol wipes and says, "OK. Now go do every patient. Here's a list. So you won't be bored." I LOVE HER. Most of the patients were very nice. They didn't question the fact that I was clearly not a nurse and was wearing a volunteer vest. One of the patients was like "Do I have a fever?" and I look at the temperature, which is in CELSIUS. I'm like "Uhh...nope. You're great!". hehe. I had nooooo idea. Just so I don't sound totally irresponsible, I did compare the temperature with all the other patients, thank you very much. This other patient was tricky because he had had brain surgery. I then got to learn how to use the temperature thing that you put the little plastic cone on and stick in people's ears. AWESOME.
Later in the shift, Mei Jiao Jie taught me how to feed patients. At first, I thought she meant with a spoon...then she busted out the syringe. The first thing we had to do was check to see if the tube was in place. Sometimes, Ah-gong would use his gag reflex to force the tube out of his stomach and into his mouth. This Ah-gong is very determined. They had to restrain his hand so that he wouldn't pull the tubes out. AND he's tricky. The nurses have learned to watch how they angle his head even when they've restrained his hand. Sometimes, he leans his head over and pulls out the tube with his restrained hand. Much respect for this kickass Ah-gong.
Mei Jiao Jie is definitely more hands-on than Xiu Zhen. This may be because by the time I come during Xiu Zhen's shift, most of the stuff has already been done. I arrive right when the lull begins and the nurses start filling out the charts. Still, I learned a lot today, including where the 7-11 is located in the hospital (VERY important in Taiwanese society).
Just treated Pastor Chao out to Da Tu Dou, a Taiwanese dessert place. I swear she let me win just to humor me. ): (sigh) I WILL PREVAIL.
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