What can I say?

Thursday May 25th – People have been asking how the donations I brought have been received.   Here is the answer, and I do wish I could make this post short and bouncy, but it just isn’t a subject that I can do that with.  And its quite long.  I don’t know how to leave anything out.  It’s all too impactful.  At least to me.

Nielson, our sponsor here, had told me when I first got here, to wait until I was situated at the hospital before I brought in my suitcases full of donated items, to know who to trust to give them to.  You know, this is a country that is challenged with a desperate need for high demand medical supplies, and things are sold on the black market all the time.  I guess that’s one reason it was so tough for me getting through customs when I landed at the Kilamanjaro Airport.

Here in Tanzania all medical supplies needed by patients at the hospital have to be provided by the patients and/or their families.    They either have to buy them at the hospital pharmacy, or go to the local pharmacies scattered around town.  These “pharmacies” are everywhere!  Little hole-in-wall type places.  They are called “Daku la Damu” (Medicine store) and there is one or two on every block.

The only medications or medical supplies that are provided free of charge by the hospital are things related to HIV.  Also all vaccines and malaria prevention are supposedly supplied by the government.  That means everything, from sheets and blankets for the beds, to food or drink for the patients are supplied by the patients.  Even the pregnant women are instructed what to bring in their “delivery bag” when they come to the hospital to have their babies.  This is everything you can imagine that a laboring mom and the people helping her will need.  This includes even the gloves the staff will use when delivering the babies.  Can you imagine?

So, I decided today was the day to bring in my suitcases.  I already feel so close to Alodia and trust her implicitly.  I had brought in just one box of gloves for us to use the day before.   They are such a higher quality than the gloves we had been using, and we had been using  the original gloves so sparingly at that.  Not something you want to do when you are dealing with blood and a population of people with a high percentage of HIV.  But, Alodia loved these gloves!  They are bright purple, and she kept exclaiming over them.  People here do love, love, love their bright colors on everything!

This is how we wash our hands in our exam room.  Imagine no running water nor electricity.

I told Alodia I had many more boxes back “at home” meaning the volunteer house.  She misunderstood me and thought I meant “Amerika”.  When I told here, “No, here in Arusha” she looked at me with disbelief.  I said I had brought them to Arusha, on purpose, for the hospital.   I said I had “Cases, and in the cases were boxes and boxes of gloves.” She just shook her head with confusion.  I told her I had other things too, such as gowns, wound care items, bandage scissors, thermometers, insulin needles, plastic tubings, pre-filled saline syringes, etc.  When I said gowns, she thought I meant gowns, like evening gowns.   When I tried to explain, she didn’t quite get it.  It was really cute.  Things so totally got lost in translation.  I told her I had 3 fifty pound bags of supplies.  150 pounds all together.  She put her head in her arms and cried.

I told her I would bring them in the next day.  She still just kept shaking her head like she didn’t quite get it.  She was still doing that as I left her to go home for the day.  I just smiled and told her, “Tutuanana kesho!”  (See you tomorrow)

I had Nielson drive me to work today to bring in the suitcases.  I rolled them into the waiting room of our little ward.  Alodia gasped with surprise when she saw me.  She said, “I had such a bad dream last night.  I dreamed that I had imagined that you said you had things like this, but this is real, isn’t it?”

She then took my hand, and led me outside.  She led through the back yard of this simple hospital to an even simpler structure.  She asked me, “do you know what this is?” Of course I didn’t.   She then took me inside.  It turned out it was the hospital store room.  It was a fairly big room lined with shelves.  Shelf after shelf.  All neatly labeled.  And all these shelves mostly empty.  She showed me the shelf where the medications and supplies were supposed to be kept for the pregnant women.  There were only 1 or 2 items that were sitting there on this mainly bare shelf.  I noticed the place marked “folic acid”.  This is what pregnant women need to take to prevent spina bifida and hydrocephalus.  It was empty.   And again, so were most all the other shelves as I looked all around.  Empty.   I looked at Alodia.  She just shrugged.  But it was the shrug of a battle-hardened fighter.

She then took me, stilling holding my hand, to the director’s office, weaving our way through all the corridors and people.  She knocked on his door, burst in his room, and announced that I had brought 3 suitcases full of donated supplies.  He raised his head and looked up from his desk and looked at me in shock.  He got up and  followed us back to Alodia’s exam room where we had stacked the suitcases.   We pulled down the bulging suitcases and began to open them one by one.

Um, I don’t know what to say here.  I really don’t.  Words truly fail me.  I don’t know how to express the emotions of this time.  This moment in time is one I will never, ever forget.  I  can’t begin to express the look on this man’s face as he began to take out item after item.  It was like he was in shock.  He kept saying to Alodia, “Oh!  we can use this for ….,  and then he would take out another item and said, “Oh! And we can use this for ….!  On and on he went as he took out each item.  There was even a gait belt in one of the bags.  Even the Director of the hospital didn’t know what that was for.  When I explained to both of them what it was used for by pantomime, both he and Alodia started laughing.   He then laughingly said, “Oh! we can use that in Orthopedics!”

Then we finally opened the last bag that was full of the 10 cases of gloves.  Each case has 12 boxes.  Each box has 200 pairs of gloves.  High quality gloves.  Non-latex gloves.  And yes, purple gloves.  He didn’t say anything.  He just bowed his head for several seconds and sighed.

But back to reality!  This day was “new mother day” today.  And we had to get on with it. Thursdays are when we process all the new mom’s.  And we had a waiting room full of expectant moms.  In more ways than one!

And we did have a very long, very busy day.  But very rewarding seeing all the mothers.  I love measuring the bellies and feeling and palpating the new little life inside.   I believe we processed over 100 women today.  We didn’t take time to eat, drink, or even pee.  Wasn’t time.  When I got back to the volunteer house tonight, I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired.  But I felt good.  Really, really good.

A funny little aside:  Doctor Happy later in the day had come to our exam room and insisted I go with him for just a second.  My only break for the day!  It turned out there was a monkey he wanted to show me that was swinging in the Avocado tree outside our little section of the hospital.  As we were watching the antics of the monkey, he turned to me and gave me a big hug and said, “thank you, thank you, thank you”.  I told him “Karibu” (you’re welcome).  At the time I just thought it was really sweet that he said that.  It wasn’t until later, as Alodia and I were cleaning up the exam room after the long day’s rush, and finally had some time for reflection after the busy, busy day that I realized, “huh?  How did he even know?  He hadn’t been anywhere around when the director came and got the suitcases.  I asked Alodia how on earth did he even know?  She looked at me in surprise.  “Why, of course,” she said, “he knew.  The whole hospital knows”.

Just a note:  We ran out of the Malaria tablets about half way through.the day.today.  The Tetanus vaccine is running dangerously low.  I don’t know what we will do tomorrow, just keep ploughing on I guess.   Alodia says we wait and hopefully the mothers will return another time.  Its whenever the government gets around to sending in new supplies, she says.  She doesn’t know when that’ll be.

Funny how I am already so invested in this place.  How does that happen?  These people are already so much in my heart.  Africa is addicting.