Kuokoa Miasha - To save a life

 

The last few days have been emotionally draining. I got to experience the slaughtering of a pig. The pig ate one of her babies so they decided to kill it. They do it the old fashion way. For those of you with weak stomachs skip to the next paragraph. They offered me to be the one to slice the pig’s throat but I was too scared. It was one mad pig and it weighed about 250lbs. Moses took a knife a cut the pigs throat. The good news is the pig died quickly. I will always remember the pig screaming for its life. Moses offered me to drink the blood but I refused. He did drink the blood and it was bright red. We then shaved the pig with a knife. I helped out in that. They then cut the pig down its belly to open it up. They then pulled out all the guts, lungs, and heart. The next part was to chop the pig into pieces with an ax. We then threw the pieces into a wheel barrel to carry to the kitchen. While we were chopping up the pig someone was already cooking some of the pig over a fire. We rinsed our hands with water and ate some pieces of meat. It was weird for me to think that the pig was alive less than an hour ago and now I’m already eating her. It is a different feeling. That night I ate pig heart and liver. It wasn’t too bad. I was just glad that I didn’t get sick.

Yesterday a 2 yr old boy came into the hospital. The child did not look good. We drew his blood and tested for Malaria. He was positive for malaria and had a lot of parasites in his blood. His blood sugar is very low. He is anemic. His eyes were very pale. No blood vessels at all. We gave him quinine injection into each leg. The child hardly even cries because he is so week. We give the child IV fluids. After four hours he is not getting better. Br Fulance said he must go to the hospital which is 48 km away. The mother, father and child leave. We go to have lunch and I ask Br Fulance, “They are going to take him to the hospital? Right ?” He said, “Probably not. They probably don’t have any money”. I said, “Don’t you think the child will die then?” He said, “Yes the Child will die”. My heart stopped. He said, “I’m sorry”. I thought how could you send a patient away to let him die. I said “WE must take him to the hospital then”. He said, “With what car.” I said, “What do you mean there is the Landcruiser and the Landrover infront  of the church.” He said, “Yes but there the priests car. Those two cars are not for us”. I instantly became furious. I am not going to let a two year old die on my watch because a priest won’t let us take his car, besides I don’t believe the priest would let us if we told him the situation. But that is the way Br Fulance sees it. He sees it as impossible question to ask.

So I marched  over and ask Fr Tesha saying “can we take your car to drive a child to the hospital. If we don’t get him to the hospital he will die. Fr Paulis said, “It costs 50,000Tsh to drive to and from the hospital and we don’t have that kind of money. If we drove every single person that needed to go to the hospital we would have ran out of money in February. It wasn’t even a question in my mind. I said, “I will pay 50,000 tsh for the diesel.” He said, “Ok let’s go then”.

Br Fulance had to make a phone call and try to find out what village the child lives in. We drive about 10 km. Br gets out of the car and starts asking people in the village. My heart is racing, I’m in a panic to get this child to the hospital ASAP and everyone else is calm just chatting with people. Someone knew where the family lives and lets them know. They come rushing out. Mom, dad, the child, Br Fulance, Fr Paulis and myself take off for Tundura. It is only 48 km but it takes an hour because the roads are so bad. I’m trying to calm myself down. I look back and to me the child basically looks dead. We get to the hospital and I rush out of the car and everyone else is taking there sweet time as if it is no big deal.

I find where we check in and I stand infront of the desk staring at the nurse working at it. She is staring at me and then goes about here business. I stare at her until she finally looks and talks to me. She then sees the patient. I run and grab Br Fulance who is chatting with an old friend at the hospital. I said, “You must come now and tell the nurse what is going on”. Well he takes another few minutes to finish his story to his friend and then comes. The thinking is just different here. It can be frustrating at times. We get the paper work and take the child to the ped’s unit. The nurse there starts and IV. Br Fulance tells this nurse the history. I give the dad 10,000 tsh and walk out. I finally can relax now. I ask Br Fulance if he could find out for me in the next week what happened to the child. I have peace of mind knowing that we got the child to the hospital. I think his chance of getting blood and surviving are quit good. But it is never guaranteed.

I can’t believe they were going to let the child die. I can’t even imagine. But that is the reality here. I guess people die everyday because they can’t get to the hospital. Maisha magumu- life is tough, and they accept it.

So I paid 50,000 tsh which is $32.00 usd and then I gave 10,000tsh for medicine which is about $8.00 usd.

So for about $40.00 USD you can save a child’s life in the future.

I met with the chief of the hospital. I asked to see all of there facilities. I told him who I was and what I do. We seemed more than happy to show me around in the future. So we made a plan for tomorrow. Just so you know where ever I go people see me as walking dollar bills. That is just the way it is. If you are white you are rich. So I know he is glad to show me around. I can see that there is a great need for things in the hospital. I notice when the nurse started the IV she didn’t have gloves so I asked about that. The hospital ran out of gloves. So until they get some more they have to deal with out it. A simply thing as gloves. I asked if they had an ambulance. They have two ambulances. They probably need about 42 ambulances for the entire county. One ambulance is for pregnant woman only and there is rules. Only if it is your 2^nd,3^rd, or 4^th child will the ambulance come. They have a whole list of questions that you have to answer before the ambulance will even think about coming and getting you. The other ambulance is only for very serious cases. They screen that too. It takes about 2 to 3 hours to get to the patient  him/her to the hospital. The good news is that children 5 and under are free. Sort of, they are still suppose to pay for the medicine that is given to them but most don’t have the money. Sometimes the hospital runs out of medicine then you must run to the pharmacy to buy the medicine there and return to the hospital. It is a bad situation here.

This has to be the poorest are I have ever been in my life. I went with Elizabeth who is a nurse here at the clinic in Namiungo to a local village. It was about a 5 km bike ride. The children immediately come to see me the muzungo. All the children stand around me and stare like I’m an animal in a zoo. It is quit funny how they just stare at me and watch my every move. Elizabeth goes to the village once a month to weigh the babies to see there growth progress and to give them there vaccinations for DTP and polio. I took pictures of the kids and they were fascinated with my camera and then I would show them and they all would huddle around me to look at the screen. They love getting there picture taken. I went walking around the village and they all follow me. Where ever I went I had a trail of at least 10 kids following me. It is poor here but they have been surviving for a long time. They make about $200.00 a year. They make this by selling there crops to other villages and of course buying the crops that they need. They know how to grow food and raise chickens. Starving is not the problem in Africa. Of course if there is not a drought or a big monsoon that wipes out there crops which is there lively hood. They are use to walking long distances to get there water. It is there way of life and what they know. The biggest problem here is disease, Typhoid, Malaria, HIV, Diabetes, pneumonia, and more.

As a result I think the biggest need here is money for transportation to the hospital. The clinic needs a lot of supplies and it is probably better and cheaper to get the patient to the county hospital instead of helping them at the clinic. That is my perspective.

I would like to start a TRANSPORTATION fundraiser here. I firmly believe for $40.00 YOU CAN SAVE A CHILD’S LIFE in the FUTURE. That is $32.00 for diesel fuel to and from the hospital and $8.00 for medicine. Well I should say get the child to the hospital where he has a much greater chance of living. Then to just send the child home and see what happens. I need to talk to them about how to set up and account with them to transfer money into.

If you are interested in donating any money for this cause PLEASE send me an email to michaeldonaldjohnson@gmail.com and the amount you would like to donate. I am going to go through the work of setting this up. I will check my email in a week to see who is interested and let Br Fulance and the Clinic here know. I appreciate everyone for there time reading from my blog.

Kuokoa Maisha

 Weighing the baby to check its growth rate from month to month

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