The Badge and The Little Girl

day 1

       In the past, JIA doctors have often brought their children along to medical mission trips but my father started bringing me early when I was just 9 or 10 years old. Some of my earliest memories were sneaking into the white-tented clinics and listening in complete fascination to their rapid consultations and diagnoses. Like an endless string of scarves from a clown's mouth, the doctors seemed to draw limitless information from their minds, precisely stated in long elegant titles of diseases and disorders. It was unknown to me that while I gravitated towards the clinics and triage, other missionary kids instead had a different gravitation towards the preschool to play with the small Kenyan children.

     While I never quite understood the other kids, but that trip I found belonging within my new team of pre-med students. From the very first day as leader, I instinctively knew that we could handle anything the world threw at us. My team performed like clockwork, effective and efficient, and glowing with an energy I thought radiated from my luminous orange badge. Just like any other team, we had ups and downs; the language barrier resulted in patients being consistently confused. However, we were never without a solution and learned how to adapt by making our own makeshift sign language. At the end of the day, my station was considered a success and I permanently got the job. We had seen a record number of people: a total of 600 patients in 8 hectic hours. That night I slept contently with my bright orange lanyard securely around my neck, cradling my badge in my sleep.