Another tough day and the reality of daily fight against malaria

19th February: Another tough day and the reality of daily fight against malaria

Today we had a long day planned ahead with the most important thing being Kundaeli; I have told you about her; she is the gorgeous 9 years’ old (though she looks 5) who is been tortured by her aunt. Her aunt seems to be on the mid twenties and has another son. Kundaeli’s mom is very poor and lives away and left her to be taken care of by her brother. We assume she is unaware of the situation or at least we’d like to believe that. I told u how Rebecca managed to get her aunt’s permission to take her to a boarding school and for the transfer we need a medical examination so Rebecca managed again to get her aunt to grant us to take her for a check up to hospital. Her knees’ wounds are healing so I guess she thought nobody would notice anything. Linnea and I stopped by her school to speak to the headmaster; he was more interested in charging me the fee for the transfer papers than on her dramatic. Oh well, what could u expect! TIA (This is Africa). Then we went to have a chat with the instructor who understood her behaviour after what Japhat told her; it seems that she was always late, disappears during the day and she is very shy and does not communicate with the rest of pupils; I am not a psychologist but I guess she feels different to the rest and humiliated at the same time??? We were there to get her to go to the hospital but we were told she had gone. At that stage Linnea had fainted so we walked to the main road to get her a coke and something to eat; the heat was again unbearable so we assumed it was her pressure. Japhat came with us though he is suffering the effect of the malaria medication, the strongest one as he had stage 6 so had to take quinine. On our way to the main road we saw her; she was looking for us; it seems that her anxious aunt took her from school made her walk with her to her job and then told her to look for us. Linnea and I held her hand and walked to the main road while Japhat spoke to her to explain her what was going on; the thing I hate the most is not being able to communicate with them. We had a quick soda and Linnea went back with Japhat and Kundaeli and I took the dala dala to Tengeru to go to the hospital there. As we walked I could feel people staring at me..some showing satisfaction as a mzungu was looking after a poor girl, some other with doubts; apparently there is a rumour that Mzungus are stealing kids to get the to Europe; poor people, they really thing we have power to do anything but they don’t see that we do not. I got to the reception and managed to oversee the cost for the check up: 3000 Tsh so 1.5. The physician arrived and took us to the lab for a blood and urine test. I could see her fear on her eyes; it made me feel very sad so I kept smiling and speaking to her; the urine test was the worse as she could not pee so she drank water and I took her to have something warm to eat. After that, I showed her the tiny glass container and took her to the toilet, well, if that could be called such. We succeeded this time so took it back to the lab and then we waited for the results. With them in my hand we went back to see the doctor. His check up made me laugh and angry at the same time. I asked him to check her thoroughly but he only tried her temperature with HIS HAND not even a thermometer! I can do better than that for God’s sake. I asked if I that was all and he did not even bother to reply to me. The physician did not even pay any attention when I told him about her case. He then told me that she had malaria, stage 2, urine infection, vaginal infection and another one caused by the wounds that were not treated. He brought all the medicines but made me pay first: 12,000Tsh so I asked why so much; I know that the malaria treatment is 5000 and the check up 3000 Tsh and he looked embarrassed; I then realised that physicians are corrupted too. I did not have money left on me, well, enough for the dala dala, 300Tsh but he agave me 3000 back and asked if that was enough; I did not want to make a scene so we left but I made her take the tables there first. We then went to take some passport picture which I had to take back to the headmaster to be able to issue the transfer report (for a fee of 4000 of course, they do not do anything for free). When we got back to the school, the door was locked so I could not do anything till Monday. We went back to Rebecca’s cause I was concerned that her aunt would not give her e medication so she called her and explained it to her in front of me. Kundaeli’s face changed the minute we got back from being happy holding my hand tightly to being scared she, poor thing. I forgot to mention that she was beaten again the night before and apparently her screams could be heard in the distance. I am just happy that this is coming to an end.

Later that night I approached the director at St Jude’s school, a fantastic school run by an Australian lady who depends on donors on a 100%,and I had a long chat about these kids situation; the lady told me something that left me really down; someone had told her that it is better to be a dog in the West than a child in Africa and as cruel as it sounds, I am starting to realise it is a very true statement. The lady has been here for 8 years and I asked her if she ever wished to go back home and she stated she was tempted to go home several times a week … but there was always a positive aspect that made her realise she can still do some good here so she battles on. She then expressed her gratitude for having found a solution and she then said, “one more life saved. Well done!”. That left me lost for words. She also stated that sometimes the situation overwhelms her and she despairs for this continent but then she reminds herself that she is not trying to help a continent, just a relatively few kids and that is all she can anticipate to do. she ended up saying: “Keep up the good work!”

That made me think about my sister Adela cause she had told me something similar; I can not help all of them, I wish I could, but at least I know that my work will help a few of them so for me, my mission will be accomplished if I can change the life of just a few.

Linnea sent me a text from the hospital; she was just told she had malaria again, stage 2. They are going back to the UK in 3 weeks so she was hoping to be fine but well, at least is only stage 2.

I would not like to finish this section without mentioning Lisa Freudenheim who I met 2 weeks ago here in Arusha; her partner Evan is helping Linnea and Andrew with the orphanage. Thanks for being there.

More Source:

A Nurse's Story of Her Fight Against Malaria | Impatient Optimists
Only A Clean Environment Sustainably Kicks Out Malaria | Amplify
Letter Templates - Minnesota Annual Conference of the United ...
Today's Naira

Related News:

Details :
Submited at Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 5:00 pm on Africa by dave
Comment RSS 2.0 - leave a comment - trackback

Leave Comment Here...

404 Not Found