Thanksgiving at the East Bank

          A few days ago right outside the gate of Nsanje District Hospital, an old woman, topless with flabby loose breasts, bent down to pick up a mango pit from the ground and promptly delivered it to her mouth to suck it.  A few feet away she spotted a brown banana peel and she picked that up as well.  She was like the many goats milling around there scavenging for discarded edibles.  A frail blind old woman holding a walking stick was guided by a youngster, probably her grandson standing at the door of a store at the filling station hoping to be given something.

This week my team and I are spending our time at the East Bank.  The rain which is expected about now has not come, the farmers are growing anxious.  We stay in Thekarani up in the mountains so the nights are windy and cool. I took a walk our first evening here and lo and behold as my mind was on Thanksgiving I saw three turkeys pecking away by a church yard, the white turkey looked quite ancient. 

Turkeys in Thekerani

          On Thanksgiving morning, children in Thekerani were going to school, many were not in uniform and almost half of the children were barefooted.   Two boys were walking slowly to the market aimlessly obviously they were not going to school.  Another two about fourteen years of age walked with a grown man who carried a sack.  The boys were in shirts filled with holes and shorts that barely clad their skinny bums.  They sat on the curb rather listlessly.  The man reached into the sack and produced two small loaves of bread which he gave to the boys who bit into them slowly.  There was no beverage to wash them down.       

Thanksgiving is a time when we should sit down and count the many blessings bestowed on us: peace in our country, loved ones, family and friends, food, shelter, financial security…I feel particularly blessed when I travel and volunteer in many countries where I witness the daily struggles of the local people for their daily bread, people who are caught up in war and conflict and their lives are turned upside down by them, natural disaster, hunger, famine or people dying because of lack of healthcare.   

            At Great Grand Rounds, we saw a HIV-infected young man who began treatment six months ago came in with signs of meningitis.  He was started on medicines to treat bacterial and cryptococcal meningitis.  He was no longer awake and was drawing on his last breath.  He died shortly after we left him.

            Two people were attacked by crocodiles this past week while fishing in the Shire River.  The man’s arm was injured but he was lucky not to lose it.  However the young lady lost her left arm as the crocodile ripped it off when she reached into the river to catch fish.  A medical assistant estimates that they see about four crocodile attacks a month at the hospital. 

Woman and Crocodile Attack

          As we drove downhill one day from Thekerani to the East Bank, a father frantically flagged us down and asked for a ride to bring his five month pregnant daughter to Thekerani Rural Hospital run by MSF, it meant going back up the mountain from where we just came.  She looked well but he was worried that she was anemic.  She had not had any prenatal care having been hiding her pregnancy from her father as she got pregnant after staying with a friend.  The father was wearing an oversized pinstriped suit, his forehead beading with sweats.  We would bring his daughter and told him MSF restricts us to one accompanying guardian.  Backtracking is not recommended but if we were to go forward she would have to go to Trinity Hospital, a paying hospital.  A few hundred yards later, he yelled out to the driver to stop and apparently another daughter had come from Thekerani to meet them.  She then boarded the cruiser and the father got down, we were under the impression that his home was close by.  Later we learned that father and daughter had walked all the way from Trinity about 15 km to this village to discuss with the man who impregnated his daughter what he planned to do.  As we drove back again we saw him climbing the road towards Thekerani Hospital, still wearing his jacket in the heat.  I felt really bad that we did not realize how far he had walked and he still had a distance to walk to the hospital.  If I had known, I would have broken the rule of one guardian on board.

            Later the same day we took a young woman who was bleeding at her fifth month of pregnancy to Trinity.  Our visit to the East Bank is always filled with surprises.  The bridge that will take us straight to Makhanga in the East Bank within an hour instead of the five hours is still being built and the date of completion has been pushed from November to February.  We drove to see it from the Makhanga side crossing a solid iron railway bridge over the Shire.  This bridge was built years ago and still remains strong. 

The Railway Bridge

The Mtayamoyo Bridge Viewed from the East Bank

          My family is gathering at my son’s place in North Carolina for Thanksgiving.  I was not able to hang out with them on Google video because there is poor intermittent or no internet access in the East Bank.  For a brief moment I was able to skype with them, I was thankful to hear their cheerful voices.    

            This weekend I will gather with Erin and her friends to celebrate a belated Thanksgiving in Blantyre.  Two Thanksgivings ago I was in Dadaab, Kenya where a fellow American volunteer was so lonely for his family that he retired to bed early.  It’s a great blessing to have your family close by and treasure them as much as you can while you have them.

            Happy Thanksgiving!