A Charity Case

It was Day 18 of my trip to Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, but all I could do was lie in bed in my room at Ecce Homo Convent. I was too sick and tired to do much else.

The evening before I had returned from three days in Jordan to see Petra and Wadi Rum.  I now had three days and two nights to visit the remaining sites in Jerusalem before taking a bus to Nazareth for my final three days in Israel.

My chest had been congested for over a week, and I was pretty sure I had a fever.  It was 2 pm and my day had gone like this: shower, rest for an hour; get dressed and wash out some underwear, rest again; go to the breakfast buffet, rest.

I needed to see a doctor, but how to find a clinic? And how far would I have to walk to get there?  Take a bus or taxi?  The internet or my DK travel guide to Jerusalem might have answered these questions, but I didn't have the energy to search them.

I decided to ask the Palestinian woman at the front desk of Ecce Homo for the phone number of a local medical clinic.  I would call, make an appointment, and then go out to do errands: mail a box at the post office, buy newspapers in English, buy cough drops, and get some cash from a bank.  After my three days in Jordan, I only had one fifty-shekel bill in cash, about $13.

I filled my large water bottle, girded myself with my fanny pack containing my passport, wrapped my neck and head in a wool scarf, zipped on my purple Eddie Bauer down jacket, and slung my multi-pocketed green purse over my shoulder.  Then I walked down one hall, up a stairway, across a patio, up a metal outdoor staircase, across more patios with views of the golden dome of El Aqsa Mosque and the top of Holy Sepulchre Church to reach the elevator.  Going down to the main floor, I wound through more halls to the entrance and front desk.

“I have a bad chest cold,” I announced in a faint voice to Maria, who lived in East Jerusalem and spoke five languages. “Could you give me the phone number of a clinic?”

“Oh my dear, are you drinking hot tea with lemon and honey in it?” she asked.  “And be sure to put the lemon peel in while brewing.  You’ll be fine.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I’m drinking hot tea.”  But the motherly mode was not what I needed. “I’ve had this for a week, and it’s not getting better.  Could you give me the name of a clinic I could call?"
  
“Oh, I see, of course,” she said, noticing my deep cough.  “Kharim will take you.”  She waved for him but he was already outside and disappeared around a corner.  "He'll be right back, maybe twenty minutes.  He'll take you," she insisted.  

Apparently my plan of phoning to make an appointment had been replaced by a personal escort.  I chatted with her for twenty minutes until he reappeared.  Then she spoke with him in Arabic and sent us off.

I stepped outside with him into pouring rain on Via Dolorosa, the cobblestone route where Jesus carried the cross.  We were in the Muslim quarter of Old Jerusalem. 

In only twenty steps, we stood at the door of the clinic.  Kharim held the door open and spoke in Arabic with the woman seated behind a plexiglass window at a desk. Then he left.

"This is a free clinic, but I'm sorry, because you are not a resident of Israel, we must ask you to pay fifty shekels," she said in English. 

I pulled out the only bill in my wallet and handed it to her, astonished that after my three-day trip to Jordan, I had exactly what she wanted.

"There will be a short wait," she said.  “Please sit down and fill out this form.”

"Oh yes, thank you," I answered, thanking the God of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar for Kharim’s help and the one fifty-shekel bill in my wallet.  After giving her back the information sheet, I sat in the small waiting room with three other women talking and laughing in Arabic.  They all wore white or black head coverings and black loose clothing, as did the clerk who checked me in.  

I felt very foreign in my purple Eddie Bauer quilted jacket with my turquoise wool scarf, unable to understand a single word of what they were saying.  And my head was uncovered; I had removed the scarf after coming in from the rain.  An African-Israeli nurse's aide also in hijab joined in the conversation, smiling at me.  I smiled back, my only way of communicating good will and interest.

Then suddenly the doctor walked past and entered her office.  The nurse's aide told me to follow her in. The time was 2:50 pm--just twenty minutes after I had walked in the door.

"Yesh li tos," I explained, sitting down in front of her desk, accidentally mixing Hebrew and Spanish as I tried to say “I have a cough.”

She understood me, took my information sheet, and conducted the interview in English. 

"What medications are you on?" she began.

Medications!  Of course I should have brought a list to show her.

"A blood-thinner, " I began.

"Coumadin?"

"No, uh...."  My mind went blank.  How could I have set out on a three-week trip to Israel, Palestine, and Jordan without bringing a list of my meds?  I felt like the dumbest tourist ever.

"Pradaxa!" I replied finally.  Yes, that was the name of the blood thinner.  I remembered a few other meds: Arimidex, the estrogren-inhibitor to prevent cancer recurrence; Zoloft for depression/anxiety, and Lipitor (what does it do?). I totally forgot Metoprolol, and I hadn't even been taking the weekly Fosamax I'd brought with me. Didn’t bother her with the vitamins, calcium, Omega-3 oil, etc.

Dr. Aida was patient, looking down at her desk as she wrote notes.  She too wore hijab: a thin pink wrap crossed the top of her forehead and around it a looser scarf in the same shade of pink covered her shoulders, leaving only a triangle of the first wrap showing.  Her eyeglasses were clear pale pink, her cheeks rosy, and her skin fairy-tale white.  I sat in awe of her business-like compassion for the stray tourist that had wandered in from the rain.  She must have been around 45 years old.

“Lie down here,” she said then, directing to the examining table and taking out her stethoscope.  I warned her that I have atrial fibrillation, and she was concerned about what she heard.  After sending me to the nurse's aide to have my blood pressure, temp and pulse taken, she saw another patient before seeing me again.

"You have mild bronchitis," she reported. "But because you can't take penicillin...."  We got into a confusing conversation about what I have taken before and what she would order for me.  I understood her English on simple subjects, but when she was listing possible meds, she didn't pronounce them the way Americans do--or maybe she was using their trademark names from Russia. When I said I can take Keflex, and she pronounced it with a soft c.

"I'm going to give you X," she said finally, using a word I couldn’t understand, “and also Y and Z.  Can you find a pharmacy?” 

“Oh yes, thank you,” I assured her, hoping one of them was an antibiotic.  "I admire your language skills,” I added.  “What languages do you speak?"

"Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, and English," she said.  "I studied medicine in Italy."

"That's wonderful, " I said.  Her beautiful face and her charity to a stranger impressed me.  I felt sure I was seeing Jesus, the healer, right here in the Muslim quarter of old Jerusalem.  

Back out in the street, the rain had eased up.  I wondered if I still had time to get to the post office before it closed--and the bank, and a pharmacy.  It was 3:30 pm and the temperature was dropping, the sun soon to set.  

I studied the sign on the clinic door: El Aqsa Muslim Charity Clinic.  

Charity indeed--a humbling experience for an American tourist.

The door to the clinic