Dr. J

Doctor Joanne Polka is a tall, slender, middle aged woman with short hair who commands the respect of every volunteer. She is the main Peace Corps medical officer here in China. She shows up every other week or so to give a presentation, invariably loaded with graphic pictures,for example, of twenty foot tapeworms or images of micrscopic bugs maginified several hundred times to reveal their true horror. She has told us parasites, the effects of smog, and the dangers of drinking too much. She has lectured us on everything from how to disinfect our vegetables to how to deal with depression. And when she talks, people listen. I am reminded of the old commerical about the stock brokerage firm that read "whenever E.F. Hutton talks, people listen" and would show someone in a restaurant or other crowded place and they would say something like, "Well my broker is E.F. Hutton and . . ." and then everyone in the restaurant or wherever would stay silent.

Today, she lectured us about the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases with the usual graphic accompaniments. I need not go into details. She has an odd yet effective way of making this and all issues both of tremendous import and yet incredibly light. I don't know how else to put it. Like any good doctor, I think, she has an oddly detached manner which comes from having seen so much that is so awful. So she can talk about the most horrible of situations with a sort of profound detachment that makes you take it seriously but yet allows you to put the whole thing in perspective and not get too freaked out, for lack of a better word.

From her I have been convinced of everything from carrying around my own pair of disposable chopsticks to not eating pork in China to not worrying about malaria protection in most of Thailand. She is, as it were, the Dr. Andrew Weil for China volunteers, the ultimate authority on all matters of the body.

One of the benefits of being in Chengdu is being not very far from the good doctor.