"Mike, you cannot die with it!"

OK, OK, OK, OOHKAY already. The last entry wasn’t really the last. Now all you out there that have placed bets on the short can start to collect.

On my last day of outreach I was in Kanye. There the medical staff surprised me with a breakfast to say goodbye and farewell. During the meal an MO that I have mentored for the last two years was walking around the rather crowded room in hushed conversation with the others there. Now I like this guy but he can occasionally wear on me a bit as he tends to whine. I asked if he could wait for the gathering to end, he said “just a minute”. Now there is no “minute” in this culture. I was being blown off. OK, my last day, so be it. Point to him.

Shortly thereafter he stepped to the front of the room and said, “Dr. Mike do you know how many languages are represented here?” I didn’t. “Twelve.” “Do you know how many nationalities or cultures are in this room?”Mind you there were only fourteen people in the room including me,“twelve”. Interestingly none from Botswana.

And then the most moving and extraordinary thing happened; each of the MOs in turn stood then stated where they were from, their tribe and their native language… and then said “thank you” in that language. Wow-- as in lump in the back of my throat wow. That, I hope, finds its way to my hippocampus, right next to my “asymmetric amygdala” and therein imbeds itself for me to recall as often as I would like. It was just incredible and made all the time there even more extraordinary.

Then this: we were on the way to the Gabs airport to fly to the N.E. kwaZulu Natal coast. We wanted to decompress after the craziness of packing (all by Lynne) and leaving B-UP. The diving (me-six dives) and the beach (Lynne-six days) there was amazing but it was the trip to the airport where I was broad-sided by the cab driver whom we have known for almost three years.

Tendai is a religious man, a transplant from Zimbabwe, and adamant about his family and ideals. He started by saying that I was given a “gift from God himself”. It is always uncomfortable to compare myself to another who thinks of himself as of lower station. I tried to blow it off and equate him and his use with mine. He became even more animated and talked up the whole “came from the US to help us Africans” slant on things. I again tried to not let this stick. If there are any hero’s to this saga it is the patients. He finally became even more animated and stated that “you have a gift from God Mike and you cannot let it die with you!”

OK so there is was, on the head with a veritable 2x4. At some level he put simple words to an idea I have been considering for some time now: how self centered would it be if I don’t give of myself such that the “gift”, all the effort people have put into my career, is shared? Shouldn't I (we) pay it forward, share it as it were? This is no doubt a touch hokey as there is apparently a popular film out that comes at this idea. And while the benefit clearly goes both ways, it is I who has been endowed with this and need to initiate the first encounter by simply sharing and hopefully exchanging benefit It has only taken me 30yrs to get this. Maybe that is one of the lasting legacies of this adventure.

Happy New Year and compliments!