Clay

Yesterday at the health center, after I’d been talking with the in-charge for a while, he approached me with a curious and perplexed look on his face and something small in his hand. “What is this?” he asked me, as he handed me a bar of yellow clay marked ‘Modeling Clay.’ You know what I’m talking about – the sort of clay that you made sculptures with in elementary school. Heidi and I did our best to explain to him what modeling clay is used for, which was quite difficult. There are no such things as art classes here, and when you try to explain them to someone from this culture, it comes out sounding rather silly. Still, we tried to explain that this is something that is usually used by children to play with and make small men, which is something that should be understood, since I’ve seen kids make things out of the heavy clay soil.

But it really got good when we asked him where this clay came from. Apparently, the last shipment of drugs from the Ministry of Health also included two boxes of modeling clay. Did the shipment contain the TB drugs that we need, since the health center is now out? No. But to compensate for that – modeling clay! The seeming absurdity of it was hilarious. There was no indication of why it was sent or what use the Ministry envisioned for it. I suggested that perhaps they were worried that the in-charge was becoming bored and needed some toys to entertain him. We stood around for a while, just laughing at how ridiculous the situation seemed and brainstorming possible reasons it might have been sent.

I’m just trying to picture the process at the Ministry of Health when someone was deciding what supplies to send to Nyahuka Health Center – “Ok: Antibiotics, ARVs, syringes… do we have any more TB drugs? Hmmm, no TB drugs… what else can we put in there? I’ve got it! Modeling clay! I love modeling clay!” I’m amazed that someone would put that on the list and that a supervisor would then approve it.

Of course, it’s likely that there is some legitimate reason that it was there. Perhaps every health center is receiving modeling clay for some reason about which I haven’t yet heard. Perhaps modeling clay has newfound medicinal properties ;) But I’d rather assume that it is the random and hilarious workings of a national bureaucracy.