hail to the chief

We've been having sermons the last few Sundays in chapel on
relationships in various parts in our lives -- with family, friends,
workplace, government -- and one of the things that keeps hitting home
is the importance of respect. I remember in college how my friends from
the East Coast would make comments about relationships in the south as
'fake' or superficial because they placed a emphasis on respect, even
when you don't necessarily like the person who you're dealing with. All
I can say is that the issues you might bring up with Southern culture
are magnified to the Nth degree here.
For example, two weeks ago on Wednesday one of the district chiefs from
north of here showed up to have eye surgery. Unfortunately, he hadn't
coordinated with anyone at the hospital, so the eye surgeon was gone on
a trip, the cell phone service was down, and he had not arranged for any
place to stay or any provision for food or shelter. So I go to meet him
in the reception area, crouch down to the ground, clap my hands, and ask
his entourage what I can do for him, to which I am told 'whatever you
think is appropriate'. I am thinking to myself that it would be fairly
inappropriate in America to show up unannounced and uninvited and expect
someone to take care of you for two weeks, but I remember our chapel
talks on respect and wisely keep these thoughts to myself. I ask them
if they would like to stay in the hospital or stay in the guesthouse in
town a few kilometers away, to which they say 'whatever you think is
appropriate'. I think to myself that probably making him walk the 5
kilometers to town will be seen as 'inappropriate, so I start working to
find a private room for him to stay in. We have two -- one on the labor
ward and one on the female ward. I decide that the female ward room
will be more 'appropriate' than screaming women on labor and delivery,
so we go there. I then ask if they need to eat, to which they say
'whatever you think is appropriate.' I now explain to them that a 33
year-old American male take on appropriate might be a little different
than a 60 year old , requesting a bit more clarification on
'appropriate' and find out that yes, he hasn't managed to pack lunch for
himself. It now being 3 o'clock, our evening meal won't be served for 2
hours, so I go home to find something to cook for the chief. My
refrigerator contains mustard, eggs, green peppers, and potatoes, so I
decide that eggs are probably the safest of those options and make some
scrambled eggs for the chief, with some peppers mixed in. I deliver the
eggs to the private room where he is settling in, thinking that I can
now possibly go see the other 200 patients in the hospital, when the
chief's staff comes out and says that he is not happy because there is
no table on which to eat his eggs. The nurse in charge of the ward and
I look at each other. I suggest the rolling trolley that the nurses
dispense medicine from, but that suggestion is rejected as not
respectful enough. Eventually we decide to move my doctor's office desk
into the room, where he then happily eats his eggs.
Two weeks later, after his eye surgery but not quite long enough for him
to arrange a ride back to where he came from, my desk still missing from
my office, we have needed to spray for cockroaches in the ward. We
arrange for the chief to move to another room so he won't asphyxiate
from the fumes, but again we are told that we are not being respectful.
Fortunately, in the two weeks since his arrival some of the senior
Zambian staff have returned from their meetings and the cell phones are
working again, so I can defer this discussion of respect to one of
them. I am sure that it was handled better than my initial attempts at
appeasement, and we did manage to avoid cultural crisis and still spray
for cockroaches.