We partner with a ministry that has been firmly planted in the poorest parish in Jamaica, and we return year after year to the same ramshackle “clinics” to find a warm and joyful population eager to see the doctors and nurses from the States. One of the great benefits to our team is the fact that Jamaicans speak English which greatly simplifies our diagnostic querying. There remains some challenges as the words are heavily accented and often flush with the native Patois, a mixture of Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Amerindian, and English along with several African languages. At times I feel somewhat akin to a southern East Tennessee hillbilly (which I am) trying to communicate with a Jersey shore bling queen. Needless to say there are occasional consequences to misuse and misinterpretation of phrases.
On our first trip to Jamaica, many of us were in the habit of using the term “little buddy” when referring to a small male child. Those of us who are old enough to remember also recall the Skipper’s favorite name for the hapless Gilligan was “little buddy”. This expression was almost automatic for me to employ as a young man would hesitatingly sit in the chair across from me wondering what the white doctor from the US was going to do to him. (Thank goodness none of them knew I was a gynecologist!) I would routinely start each encounter with, “Hey little buddy”, or “How’s my little buddy today?” Since I generally have the observational skills of a blind rodent, it took me a while to pick up on the confused and often surprised expressions on their face. I just thought that they were apprehensive about their impending exam. Due to the matriarchal nature of the Jamaican culture, virtually all the parents we saw in the clinics with their kids were mothers; however, I had the good fortune (and as you will see the ultimate humiliation) of having a father bring in a young boy about midway through the clinic. I greeted the tyke with my traditional, “So, how’s my little buddy today?” The child, about 12 I guessed, looked at me, looked at his dad, and burst out laughing. I get that occasionally, especially from my own family, so I didn’t think it that unusual until the father pulled me aside and reset my cultural sensitivity button. It turns out that “little buddy” in the Jamaican culture is a slang name for the male genitalia. So all morning I had been asking young children how their wee wee was doing, and even more troublesome, how my wee wee was doing! After effusive and voluminous apologies I contemplated how many young men I had traumatized that day, but I suspect none more than I.
One afternoon we were asked to go the a local primary school in Jamaica and do a brief presentation on why we were there and a bit about what we did at the health clinics. It was a great opportunity to interact with the kids and begin to build relationships that form the foundation for the ministry. There was a variety of ages, mostly first through fifth grade, so we knew we needed to keep the explanations on a relatively simple level, much as we would do if we were talking to a room full of congressmen. I opted to just say I was a doctor who delivered babies and did surgery and elected not to go into detail of the life of Ron the Roto-Rooter, and other folks on the team followed suit. David talked about fixing bones, Susan talked about nursing and Ben, our pharmacist, talked about his job. Being a jokester, he began by saying he sold drugs. This got an interesting reaction from the teachers, so he quickly countered as to what kind of drugs and why he was not carrying an assault rifle. Shifting gears fairly rapidly (I think the principal was close to ending the session prematurely at this point) he decided to talk more about what we were doing in Jamaica. He talked about the medicines we brought with us in our suitcases and how we divided them up and placed a three month supply in little sandwich baggies for distribution. We gave a three month supply to last the folks until the next team came, and the most efficient way we have been able to accomplish this is to buy out all the baggies at Target and use the zip lock style as our pill bottles. So he said, “We take all the medicines, put them in baggies, and give them out to people we see in the clinics.” At this the kids burst out into uproarious laughter that was so loud it was heard in the next parish. It turns out, we learned later, that baggies was slang for women’s underwear! The kids thought it was great but puzzling why we placed Tylenol in Aunt Jameka’s underdrawers.
These embarrassing but entertaining incidents remind me that everything we do has to be viewed in the cultural context of where you are. Watch your words, and be careful where you put your medicines!
