Refugees

"When you were born, you cried and everybody else was happy. The only question that matters is this - when you die, will you be happy when everybody else is crying"
-Tony Campolo

Clinic was busy today. One after another they came. Typhoid, pneumonia, HIV, tonsillitis, more pneumonia, miscarriages...even the standard foreign body in childs nostril.

My Swahili is starting to improve - which speeds things up. Unfortunately my brain seems to make these adjustments to a new language poorly......but most of you probably already know this. It has to be one of the hardest things working in this environment.

An example occured with one of the refugee clients today.

Funnily enough however you can always pick the refugee...even before they speak.

Walking in they always carry themselves low; as if carring a weight. I guess most are. Sometimes you can see this in their eyes.

This one sticking in my memory was this Congolese guy. He must have been 23 or so. After struggling for about a minute with my Swahili, I found out he spoke french only. yes hilarious!

So I get my Swahili nurse and his friend (who speaks only french and swahili) to form a four way conversation.

He speaks to his friend, his friend tells the nurse, who then tells me what he said. I ask a question, she relays it to the friend who uses his french to ask the patient. My first experience of chinese wispers in Africa seemed to work pretty well....

Both of us were using this broken language must have looked strange to any one else. Chatting later to his friend I hear a little more of why he is in the country.

It would be nice to think that his story was the exception to the rule, but I have seen already enough to know that this isn't true.

Father mudered in front of him the patient was chastised then to become a part of the fighting force. He fled as they attempted to take his life too - running he lost sight of his mother. His rejection caused his sister to be left a cripple by the guerillas - now she is unable to walk, living in the hospital, and his mother he has no idea.

It is a sad state of affairs that the pain doesn't end once they arrive in Kenya. Here they are looked after by numerous NGO's with minial money to support them all. They drink the worst water in the slum, eat whatever they can and sleep in cramped rooms side by side. They are the sickest too. This I can attest to working at the dispensary. Blows my mind how these people keep fighting on. But they do......and even manage to smile.

"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."

"Albert Einstein"