First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria

by Eve Brown-Waite

  At least, as my mother might say, I had my career to fall back on. After a few months at my new job, I was recruited to pilot a new adolescent HIV prevention program for an AIDS prevention center at SUNY Health Sciences Center in Brooklyn. It was 1990 and AIDS was sweeping through New York City. I developed a program that trained at-risk youth to become peer educators, using music, theater, and after-school activities to grab their attention. It quickly became a model for reaching inner-city youth, and I wrote curricula, trained trainers, and consulted with the New York City Board of Education, Board of Health, and other agencies. I taught a course at the SUNY medical school on my HIV prevention techniques, presented my work at conferences, wrote a chapter for a textbook, and was even appointed to an American Medical Association panel on HIV and adolescents. All of this while sailing through public health school with straight As and not even once getting arrested for sitting in at anyone's office.

  I was meeting all kinds of fascinating people who were working in the field of HIV/AIDS. Among them was Susan, who worked with me at the AIDS prevention center and had recently finished her MPH at Columbia University. Susan's exuberance and her ever-ready sense of humor—even in the midst of sometimes depressing work—made her a lot of fun to be with. The two of us soon became regular lunch partners and Susan quickly became one of my best friends.

  Everything was more than falling into place; it was coming pretty easily. At twenty-eight, I was certainly on track for having it all. Except, of course, for the husband part. Oh, I knew I had the right guy. But he just wasn't falling into the husband place. It was then that I resorted to the age-old strategy of women nearing thirty everywhere.

  “Look, buddy, these eggs aren't getting any fresher,” I said, or something equally romantic. “I want to get married soon so I can have kids by the time I'm thirty-five.” Coming from the big, happy family that he did, I knew John wanted to have kids. “I'm giving you a year to make up your mind.”

  “Are you giving me an ultimatum?” he asked, rather calmly. “Because, I have to tell you, I won't respond well to an ultimatum.”

  “Well, then let's just say you have a year to figure out if I am the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with.” It seemed reasonable enough to me. But so did stamping my feet and whining, Just marry me already, will ya! I resolved not to say anything more about it—for a year.

  Over the next few months there was no indication that John was moving any closer to popping the question, although everyone around us seemed to be getting married. John's best friend, Andy, had gotten married—in a double wedding, no less—soon after I'd returned home. That spring, Andy hoisted me up on his shoulders and I caught the bouquet at the wedding of another of their college friends.

  “Great,” I said to Andy as he put me down. “I've got the bouquet, but not the guy.”

  Andy grinned at me. “Don't worry, Eve. John is not marrying anybody but you.” I was slightly comforted by that, but not much, considering Andy was drunk at the time.

  But married or not, our little family grew. (No, not that way! Not that that hadn't crossed my mind.)

  In October of that year, my brother found a stray kitten that looked like a short-haired version of Beijing. I gave it to John as a birthday present. Naturally, we named him Berlin, for the wall that had recently come down. So by New York City standards, our family of four was now complete. Not much more than two adults and two cats could fit into our apartment, anyway.

  But the clock on my ultimatum—as well as my uterus—was ticking away, although no one seemed to hear it but me. I stuck to my resolve and didn't bring it up, as long as you don't count things said while drunk or in the throes of passion. John never mentioned the ultimatum or marriage. But June rolled around again, and with it, another wedding season. Driving from the ceremony to the reception of another friend, John pulled the car over on the side of the road. He turned to me and stared.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “You're just really, really beautiful.”

  “I knew you'd like me in this dress,” I said. The retro red dress had a snug bodice, flared skirt, and open back. And though my mom had recently turned my hair orange with a bottle of Sun-In, I still thought that if I stood over a subway grate and a huge gush of air hit me just right, (and if you were in dire need of glasses) I'd look just like Marilyn Monroe.

  “Not just the dress,” he said, taking my hand. “You are really beautiful.”

  He pulled the car back onto the road without saying anything more. But at that moment, I knew: This was a guy worth waiting for.

  “The ultimatum is lifted,” I whispered into John's ear as we danced at the reception that evening. I would wait forever if I had to. Damn it!

  A few weeks later, on a hot and humid Friday evening, I was sitting and watching Beijing and Berlin chase each other around the roses in our backyard. I was desperately trying to catch a breeze and vaguely wondering where'd we go for dinner when John got home. It was way too hot to cook in our unair-conditioned apartment.

  John snuck up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. “These are for you,” he said, handing me a dozen long-stemmed red roses.

  “Wow,” I said. I knew from the baby's breath, the green tissue paper, and the heart-shaped “I Love You” balloon attached to it that he'd actually gone to a florist. “Not even from the corner bodega!”

  “See? I can learn,” he answered.

  “What's the occasion?” I asked. I racked my brain. It was a month away from my birthday. I'd always considered our anniversary to be our first date, which was in April. I'd been doing well at work, but nothing special had happened recently. Oh my God, has he done something bad? I thought.

  Then, right there on our back patio, John got down on one knee. “Will you marry me?” he asked.

  “You're kidding!” I said. “You don't mean that.”

  “No, I mean it. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  “Well, well,” I kind of sputtered. “What about the five-year rule?”

  “I just needed to figure it out in my own time. You were right all along. You are the woman I was meant to be with. You. So will you marry me?” Well, it sure took you long enough! I wanted to say.

  “Yes, yes, yes!” is what I said.

  And then I called my mother.

  Oh, God … We're Going to Uganda

  Ah … the Russian Tea Room. Okay, I'll admit it. The Russian Tea Room probably wasn't what John had in mind for an “international experience.” But exotic yet perfectly safe, it was exactly what I had in mind. Besides, the food was delicious and the booze was plentiful. Best of all, when I walked out the door, I was still in America.

  “So, where do we go next?” he asked as we waltzed out of the Russian Tea Room after celebrating my graduation from public health school.

  “We look for jobs overseas?” I asked my beloved. I hoped that his urge to be of service to a world in need was something I might catch, like mono. While I did, indeed, feel an urge to go back overseas, it was compelled by something other than pure altruism. I had failed to live up to the unwritten stick-it-out rule of the Peace Corps: When the going gets tough, the tough down a few more beers and keep slogging through the mud or the dust as the case may be. Nearly three years of therapy had helped me understand that I'd gone to Ecuador with psychological baggage and left under extenuating circumstances. But I still wanted to know if I had what it takes to survive overseas. And deep down inside, I feared that I really didn't.

  Master's degrees in hand, we pounded the international pavement looking for work. John applied for positions in economic development, small business, and anything remotely related to Africa. I applied for jobs in HIV/AIDS, public health, and anything that required Spanish fluency. Secretly, I was terrified of the prospect that one of us might get an offer. But international job searches are usually long and complicated, so the chances of actually having to go overseas felt blessedly remote. Besides,
I didn't think anyone was really going to hire me. The sum total of my international experience, after all, was one aborted stint in the Peace Corps. John, with three years experience in Africa and an Ivy League master's degree that had required him to do field research in developing countries, was another story. And after a few months of looking, he was offered a two-year contract with CARE as a manager of a savings and loan project in Arua, Uganda.

  “Hmmm …” Susan looked over the information packet that CARE had sent us. “It says here that northern Uganda is a bit run down on account of the civil wars that have been going on there for the last twenty years.” She paused. “Oh look, it says it has a golf course and tennis courts left over from the colonial days. Doesn't sound all bad.”

  “Well, it won't exactly be New York City. But we knew that, Susan.”

  “Wow, no running water,” she said, reading further. “Ah, bathing is highly overrated, anyway. At least you'll get three hours of electricity every night.”

  “Yeah, I'm thinking about bringing our TV and VCR. You'll send me tapes of Murphy Brown and Mad About You, won't you?”

  “Oh, I'll send you great care packages. But it says there's a bar in the town where all the workers from the nearby refugee camps hang out. Now that's where you'll want to be spending your nights.” Susan looked at me. “I know John wants this. But is this really what you want?”

  “I don't know. What girl wouldn't want this?” I laughed. “Okay, it doesn't sound great. But John raves about Africa. He swears I'll love it. And Uganda is supposed to be really beautiful. You know—the Pearl of Africa and all. CARE is offering us a great deal. We'll have a house, a car, all the benefits—even extra pay and R and R because Arua is considered a hardship post.”

  “A hardship post? That's where you want to go? Really?”

  “Well, it's the AIDS capital of the world. The epidemic is so widespread that USAID—that's the United States Agency for International Development—has a whole slew of people over there just working on AIDS projects. That's gotta be a good thing.”

  “That's not a good thing, Eve.”

  “Well, maybe it means I've hit the career jackpot.” I shrugged. “Who knows? In a year, maybe you'll want to move there, too.”

  A few days later, I told my friend Jean about it. “Do you really think this is a good idea?” she asked.

  “No worse an idea than sliding down the Andes on our asses!” Jean had moved to New York and become a social worker after finishing the Peace Corps.

  “I'm serious,” she said. “Do you really think you're ready for this?”

  “I've got to be ready for this. I have no other choice.”

  Jean looked me in the eyes and, as usual, saw right through me. “You have plenty of choices, Eve. You're the only person who seems to think you have to go live in the jungle in order to prove yourself. No one is making you do this.”

  “I'm making me. I have to do this, Jean. You know how it is. No, you don't know how it is.” I was thinking of how I had left Ecuador, with no closure and no good-byes, just lots of tiny undies hastily stuffed into my suitcase. “You made it. You COS'ed. I never did.”

  “COS'ing? Is this really what all this is about?” Jean asked.

  Close of service—“COS” in Peace Corps speak. The final conference. Those last halcyon days as a Peace Corps volunteer. It was during this conference that you filled out your papers, collected your readjustment allowance, and bid a bittersweet farewell to all things Peace Corps. Then you boldly headed off for your final fling—trekking through India and Nepal, backpacking through Africa, cruising the Galápagos—on your way to reentry into the real world, where the cold beer flowed like mother's milk and your family and friends welcomed you like a conquering hero. At least that's how I'd imagined it.

  “Geez, Eve. You didn't COS,” Jean continued. “So what? You think you have to stick it out for two miserable years in some jungle outpost to prove yourself? There are plenty of people who never even go into the Peace Corps, much less COS, Eve. It's not like you can't get on with your life.”

  But in my strange world, that's exactly how it was. I was tired of feeling like a fraud among the fou-fou-eating, henna-footed jet-setters. I so wanted to be a full-fledged member of their pack, with the merit badges and all. And I needed to know, once and for all, if I had what it takes to stick it out overseas.

  “Would this be a good career move for John?” my mom asked when I told her about the job in Uganda.

  “Oh, you know him. He doesn't think in terms of career moves. He simply wants to be where he can be of most use.”

  “Ah, Saint John,” she said. “Such a comfort to have a live organ donor in the family.”

  “Mom!”

  “Well, who else can I count on if I ever need a kidney?” she said, and I knew she was right. Left to my own devices, I knew I would never be as good a person as John. I planned on going out with all the kidneys I came in with. But when I'd married him, I had hitched my wagon to his good star. And for all my misgivings, I knew that I'd follow him to the ends of the earth. And now, apparently, I was going to get my chance.

  “Yes, I was in therapy for three years,” I shouted through the pay phone from a rest stop on the Massachusetts Turnpike. “It was very helpful. I feel much better now. What? Why was I in therapy?” A bus belched to a stop behind me. “Um, well, when I was in the Peace Corps, a friend of mine was raped and it triggered my own repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse.” A stream of passengers dribbled by on their way to the restrooms. “I had severe anxiety attacks and was medically evacuated.” I wondered if three good years of therapy could be undone in one ridiculous moment.

  The psychologist and I had been playing phone tag for a week. After months of interviews and negotiations about John's contract, there was one last hurdle to clear before going to Uganda: I had to prove my emotional stability. John was a safe bet to survive two years in a rural African outpost. After all, he had sailed through two years in the Peace Corps and happily signed on for a third. But in international work it's often a case of “love me, love my dog.” And I was the dog. Since CARE would be footing the bill for both of us, they wanted some sort of guarantee that the dog could handle it.

  An eighteen-wheeler blew by. “Excuse me, I missed that,” I said to the invisible man on the other end of the line. “No. I haven't had an anxiety attack in about two years.” I felt exposed saying all this on the side of a highway to a faceless stranger. But I desperately needed this guy to believe that I was okay enough to go to Uganda. And I desperately wanted to believe it, too.

  “Do I think I'm ready to try living overseas again?” I repeated his last question and squelched the urge to say, Why the hell else would I be standing in a truck stop having this bizarre conversation? Instead I answered, “Yes, I'm definitely ready. I've had three years of therapy. I'm married now, so I'll have support if I need it. I can handle it.”

  “I'm sorry you had to do that,” John said when I got back to the car. He wrapped me in his arms and kissed the top of my head.

  “The guy said he'd sign off on my medical clearance.” I looked up at him. “We're going to Uganda.”

  “We're going to Uganda!” John shouted and hugged me tighter.

  Oh, God, I thought, uncertain if the pounding in my chest was excitement or the beginnings of an anxiety attack. We're going to Uganda.

  We finished our trip through Massachusetts, bidding farewell to John's family and friends. Back in New York, I gave a month's notice at my job and prepared for two years in a rural Ugandan outpost by going to Pottery Barn to buy a cappuccino machine. Best to come prepared, I thought. I also picked up a new set of dishes—plates painted with the word “Plate,” and bowls painted with the word “Bowl.” I thought these would be nice conversation starters among our new, largely illiterate, neighbors.

  Once we ascertained that the cats could, indeed, come with us, I took them to the vet for a checkup. I was concerned about Beijing. I'd recently no
ticed her banging into walls and even once saw her fall off the edge of the bathtub as she tried to drink out of the leaky bath faucet.

  “I'm concerned about her balance,” I told the vet. “Maybe she has an inner ear problem.”

  The vet checked her out and looked at her eyes for a long time. Then he called in his associate, who also looked at her eyes for a long time.

  “Your cat does not have an inner ear problem,” the doctor announced. “Your cat has an eye problem. The problem is she has absolutely no blood vessels in her eyes.”

  “Oh, well, what do we do about that?” I asked.

  “We can't do anything about that. She's blind. Your cat is totally blind.”

  “What? Beijing is not blind. I've seen her chase butterflies around the yard. She's not blind.”

  “Well, she hasn't always been blind. But she's definitely blind now. Look.” He shone a penlight into her big, blank eyes. “See, there are no blood vessels in there. None. I've really never seen anything quite like it. But an organ that receives no blood doesn't function.”

  “Beijing is blind?” I repeated. “Blind?”

  “That would explain why she's been bumping into things. And falling off the edge of the tub,” he said.

  “I guess that explains why she started drinking water out of the tap. She could hear that. Maybe she can't find her water bowl! Oh, my poor baby.” I hugged her soft, fluffy body to my chest.

  “Well, what do you do for a blind cat? Get her a Seeing Eye dog?” I asked.

  “Don't worry. She's fine. Other than the blindness, she's perfectly healthy. And cats can be pretty adaptive,” he said. “I suspect she's doing just fine. Whatever you do, though, don't rearrange the furniture in your house.”