They held their breath as they approached, each fighting the urge to grasp the other's hand in comfort as they were greeted by shinning white teeth against the contrast of dark skin. The man before them stood a good five inches above Callie, making Arizona feel a bit dwarfed in his presence. He wore a simple white shirt, soaked in a few places by sweat under the blazing sun, and tattered cargo shorts. His large feet rested comfortably in handmade sandals with intricate beads painting a mural of red, green, and yellow.
"Welcome to our clinic!" His booming voice captured their attention. "I am Azibo, the tribe doctor – which of you is Dr. Robbins?"
The blonde surgeon extended her hand. "That would be me! Nice to meet you and please, call me Arizona."
"Wonderful to have you with us, Arizona." He turned his chocolate eyes to Callie. "And you must be the bit of home she brought with her."
Callie couldn't help but smile at the comment – she was starting to like this guy. "You could say that. Dr. Callie Torres – pleased to meet you."
"Good, good! Well, now that we know each other let me show you around and we can discuss our plans over lunch."
"Sounds good!" Arizona waited for the man to turn around before placing her hand on Callie's arm. "Ready?"
The taller woman sighed. "Don't have much of a choice, do I?" There was a touch of pain behind her tired smile.
"Just take a deep breath – we can do this. Come on." She squeezed the woman's arm briefly before following Azibo into the makeshift clinic.
They soon found themselves surrounded by a dozen gurneys, heart monitors and stands for IV drips crammed close together. In the corners of the rooms were bookshelves, clearly handmade, that housed packages of supplies including suture kits, gauze, bandages, and other rudimentary ER necessities. A couple of other men were stocking the shelves and prepping the beds, paying them little attention as they continued to make the building presentable.
"The supplies you shipped us from Seattle arrived not too long ago." Azibo turned to lock eyes with Arizona. "We really can't thank you enough for your generosity."
The PEDs surgeon smiled, her dimples popping when she felt Callie's proud gaze turn her way. "I applied for this grant to help people, Azibo, so of course I would send you supplies! I'm glad to see you've been quick to use it!"
"Well, we haven't used any of the monitors yet – I decided to wait for you to arrive so you could ensure it is all being used properly…"
"Sure! You know, your English is remarkably good." Arizona let out a slight laugh. "I'm a little shocked by that."
"Oh, of course! I spent several years in your country when I was studying medicine in Nebraska."
"Creighton?"
"Yes, it was a fine school. Did nothing to do away with my accent, but I did become very comfortable with English. You won't find much of that in the village, I'm afraid…"
His voice fell into the background as Callie looked from corner to corner, making mental notes on things she thought were missing and soaking in the familiar comfort of Seattle Grace hospital equipment. She thought back to her time in Botswana, flashes of the medical clinic zipping through her mind as she tried to make a quick comparison. This clinic was a mere shadow of what they had built in Botswana by the end of her stay – was this really all they were going to be working with?
"Callie?"
She winced - the nickname sounded strange in Arizona's calm voice. For years, she had become used to her full name being sung from sweet lips in a melody that made her heart skip a beat. 'Callie' had become the name nearly everyone else she knew would call her, or if it did come out of her girlfriend's mouth it meant a bout of yelling was sure to be on the horizon. This voice with this name? Not something she ever wanted to get used to, but as she turned to face those piercing blue eyes, she understood. 'Calliope' was a term of endearment they would never be able to explain… and there was no way in Hell she was going to give everyone in the village the right to call her that just so Arizona could. Ew.
"Azibo?" She waited for him to turn his head in her direction. "How many villages will have access to this clinic?"
He seemed to ponder her question for a moment, as if he were mapping the locations of their secluded neighbors. "Well, our village is technically a central point for at least 5 or 6."
Callie bit back a smile at the sign of sudden comprehension filling Arizona's eyes. "Do you think the men who built this clinic would mind coming back to work?"
After spending over an hour at the clinic, meeting the builders of the shack and the volunteers setting up the equipment, they found themselves staring into bowls of mashed corn in Azibo's modest dwelling. It was only a touch larger than the home they were sharing, but the uniqueness of handmade furniture and the building materials used to construct the walls distinguished it and gave it a strange sense of individuality.
Azibo chuckled softly at the lost expressions on the women's faces. "I know the food is not much, but our hunters were not entirely successful fishing this morning, so maize is all I have to offer this afternoon."
Callie sent him a warm smile. "Trust me, this is fine. I got pretty used to this during my time in Botswana."
The tribal man's eyes widened at the mention of the foreign country. "You've traveled there?"
"I was in the Peace Corp for a couple years helping out at a medical clinic in a remote village." The pride in Callie's voice was physically broadcasted through her brilliant smile, but that expression quickly turned to one of shock when Azibo grasped her hand on the table.
"You have a very kind heart to spend so much of your time helping people. I know that is what you have both built your careers on, but to do it in a place like this and to do it more than once? That takes a certain kind of heart we rarely see."
A part of Arizona screamed out, wanting more than anything to do what Azibo was doing. Watching someone touch her girlfriend, knowing she couldn't touch her in public the way she longed to was like a slow acting poison. She wanted to hold Callie's hand, to caress the soft skin on the back of it with her thumb while her fingers gently tickled the woman's palm. She couldn't, though, and as obvious as it was that their new friend was being entirely platonic, his easy display of physical affection just reminded Arizona of what she couldn't have. She had to take her mind off it. Speak, dammit! Just say something and stop thinking!
"Calliope's pretty amazing." Shit!
The brunette stared at her in shock, silently praying that Azibo had not notice the obvious, big, huge neon sign now blatantly revealing Arizona's mistake.
"Calliope?"
Aw damn.
"It's not a name I normally go by, but Arizona tends to call me that to annoy me… especially when she thinks my ego is leaking out of my ears." Saved!
"I see." Azibo's gentle laughed filled the room again as he patted her hand before withdrawing his. "Well, I think I'll stick to calling you Callie so I stay on your good side. Shall we start the planning, my friends?"
Happy to change the subject, Callie asked for something to write with and draw on and quickly began sketching a blueprint of the clinic when Azibo returned with a pencil and notepad. Arizona watched in silent awe as her girlfriend recreated an aerial view of what they had toured and then began to sketch something even larger.
"What you have right now is a great start, but that's really all it is – a start." Callie kept her eyes trained on the paper as she spoke. "The room you have can easily be used to fix essentially non-life threatening conditions, but if someone comes in with something more severe, you're going to be out of luck. The best thing to do would be to expand a bit and hang a curtain to separate the common patients from anyone gushing blood or severely infected or whatever."
Arizona's smile brightened as she leaned closer to Callie to get a better look at the drawing. "She's right. A closed off area to separate patients like that would help us keep track of who needs immediate care from one of us and who the volunteers can handle until they're fully trained. What about a waiting area?"
Callie shook her head. "No, family and friends should stay outside of the clinic while we work on the patients. That worked well for us in Botswana. We need to try to keep the space as sterile as possible and we can't really do that if we start to overcrowd it with uninjured villagers."
The tribal man nodded in agreement. "Do you think we will have enough equipment to service a larger clinic?"
"If you need more, I will get Melissa to order more." Arizona tapped a finger down on the paper, brushing her hand lightly against Callie's. "This expansion, though, is necessary. If you're going to try to act as a medical center point for multiple villages, you need space and the larger the clinic is, the easier it is to separate patients."
"Then we'll begin building as soon as possible." Azibo studied the sketch for a moment. "The way you have drawn this seems as though it would work well if used the current outer walls of the clinic as a divider between the two rooms. We can keep the clinic standing, build alongside it and then cut out a joining door from this wall of the current clinic. That will at least allow us to still start seeing patients while the room is being prepared."
"I like it!" Arizona clapped her hands happily and bumped shoulders with Callie. "How does it feel to be designing your own hospital, little Miss Botswana show off?"
Callie laughed, sending the older woman a loving smile. "You're a dork, you know that?"
Azibo studied them for a moment, smiling at their light hearted banter and the ease with which the two doctors before him interacted. Their chemistry was quite remarkable and though he had been told "two colleagues" would be joining him at the clinic from Seattle, he had the slightest inkling that 'colleague' was not the appropriate word for their relationship. There was a glimmer of something more in their eyes.
"You two seem very close."
Their laughter ceased and their eyes widened as a mutual fear started to turn their blood cold. Azibo noticed the drastic change in their demeanor and pocketed away that fact for later as he attempted to soothe the tension he had caused.
"I just mean you two seem very comfortable around each other, as if you have known each other for quite some time."
Arizona let out the breath she had been holding and sent their fellow doctor a weary smile. "Yes, Callie and I have been good friends ever since I moved to Seattle."
Say something, Callie! Come on! You can't just stay frozen while Arizona does the sweet talking. Snap out of it! The Latina shook her head slightly. "Yeah, there's no way I would move across the world if I didn't like this girl." Fuck! Shit! NO! Why did you say that!?
"You are a loyal friend, indeed."
"Yup! Can't get rid of her even if I tried!" Arizona subtly pinched her girlfriend's thigh under the table - she had been too close for comfort with that slip up.
Azibo smiled, looking between the two of them with clear curiosity. "Loyalty is important. You will certainly need it in this village."
What was that supposed to mean? Change the subject! Callie desperately darted her eyes around the table to find something – anything – they could talk about that didn't involve her professing her undying love for the woman next to her like some attention deprived high school girl. Oo! Food!
"Azibo, just another thought." All eyes turned to her. "What typically makes up a diet here? I'm just thinking about what food we can offer patients who are in recovery."
The man nodded his head in understanding, not questioning the blatant change in subject. "Well, nsima is the most plentiful. That is the maize dish I prepared for you and it is something we will always have available. We grow large quantities of corn in our fields and there are storage sheds around the village. When our hunters are successful, we have fish that we can puree or at least cut up to ease patients back to eating hardy food. We can also make ndiwo, which is simply the maize with beans, meat, or vegetables in a tomato and onion sauce. Rice is very hard to come by, I'm afraid, so you will be eating enough corn porridge while you are here to make you truly hate the crop by the time you return home. To spice up the diet a little bit, we will have different fresh fruits and vegetables available as the seasons change and our chickens provide us with both eggs and meet."
"Chickens?" Arizona perked up at the mention of the animal.
"Yes, we keep a good number by the fields. Half are kept for their eggs and the others we use for meat. Is there a problem?"
Callie couldn't help but chuckle at the dejected pout on the blonde's face. "Don't mind her, Azibo. She has a strange thing for chickens." That earned her a sharp smack on the shoulder from her girlfriend.
"If you would rather not eat the chicken, I can offer you an alternative."
"And what would that be?"
"Ana a njuchi and bwamnoni."
"Huh?"
"Wild bee larvae and large green bush crickets."
"AH!" Arizona pushed back from the table, flailing her arms as if to fight off an imaginary swarm of bugs threatening to jump into her mouth. "I'll eat the chicken! I'll eat the chicken! Just don't let me name a hen!"
Callie joined Azido in a hardy laugh as they watched the poor blonde attempt to wipe the mental image of eating fried insects from her mind. Arizona's dramatic disgust reminded her of her own reaction to the diet in Botswana… can't really complain about food when you're in the middle of nowhere. Even after two years, though, she hadn't gotten used to the taste and was definitely not eager to put them back on the menu.
Their joyful discussion was cut short of the door behind them burst open and a child rushed to Azido's side. After a few quick sentences were exchanged, their tribal friend jumped to his feet, ushering for them to stand.
"Come, come – we have your first patient!"
A/N: AH! I am so sorry it took me so long to write this new chapter! Time got away from me with work, my birthday, and then I was on vacation with my family... *takes a deep breath*... now I'm back to just being swamped at work for the next two weeks before more people come to visit. Hopefully I can get a chapter or two out before then! Let me know if you're still with me! Oh and before you ask, yes I've done my homework on Malawi, but I have never been there so, everything I mention here about the customs and culture are my interpretation of my readings. Cheers!