ROugh Weekend
After visiting the health centers, the numbers were ridiculous! It didn’t hit me until this weekend. There were three children who died within two days. I went to the two of the burials and they will be something I will never forget. I wrote in my journal that day, and here is what I wrote:
My feet were bare as I sat on the rice mat. Women and children were in front, to the sides, and behind me by the hundred. The village was there. Men sat in chairs under a make-shift shelter for the clouds rolling in predicted rain. The sun was struggling to show itself and created a crisp silver lining on the darkest of clouds. The breeze threw the wisps of my hair in my face and I would toss them aside as they would hinder my view. Hinder my view of the blackened coffin, fit for a four year old yet the child was eight. Voices would rise and fall but just blurred together in their native tongue. The thing I noticed that the young mothers around me were clutching their children, knowing that it could happen any day to them.
A fury of emotions sweep through me, the same fury that shown across the faces of the women and children sitting next to me. Sorrow, confusion, and anger.
What resonated the most was anger. The mass amount of infected individuals with HIV/AIDs, malaria, and other water borne diseases were in the hundreds diagnosed per month. Those numbers in my mind were just that in the record books, numbers. Today I saw one number turn into a lifeless child and I could not help see it multiple in the masses
I was angry to see people, women, children die of such a curable disease. I was angry at the circumstance that this family could not afford a three dollar treatment. I as angry at the fact that due to the lack of medication at the health center, a child was sent to her death bed.
I then started to think if this would ever occur in the States. The answer is simple. NO! I then redirected my anger.
I was angry that Americans are either ignorant or ignore these conditions. The lack of empathy is obvious as it is mirrored in our governmental spending to aid compared to our deficit spending for the military. Is it because we are comfortable and desire to maintain this comfort? Are we blind to see that our sense of entitlement to our lifestyle is a joke? Our privileges and rights occur the day we are born. Sure one has the power to change circumstances, but please tell that to an American born child and the same message to a child from a family of fifteen living in Bugabula. The last message would falsely deceive that child. She would have an enormous likelihood of death compared to completing a college education. Anyways, women are usually seen as investments to be sold off into marriage.
Many more thoughts like these cascade through my mind.
I am finally brought back as the women around me stand. They carry the body off behind the mud house to be buried. I finally see the mother. She is curled up in the fetal position on her knees with her face buried in the dirt. It seemed as if she wanted to join her child.
As people moved away for her to ceremoniously throw the first handful of dirt on the coffin. The mother lets out a horrifying cry that sent tears sweltering into my eyes. I have never heard a sound ever like this before and it is one that I never want to hear ever again. She had to be carried off since she went limp.
After the procession, I was emotionally drained. But it lit that fire. As long as I save one life or even plant the seed of preventative health care, I would feel like my two months here was successful.
I have so many thoughts but they have to wait.
