Troubled

My eyes scan the room. I'm on a mission. I approach the bed where Dr. Mason is doing rounds. Plopping down on the other cement bedstead I am oblivious to what Dr. Mason is saying to the small group of nurses that are assisting with the rounds.  I lean forward with my camera, not really paying attention to how sick the baby might be, and ask if I can take a photo. Dr. Mason pauses in his explanation of the babies' problems, "I really don't think this one is a good one for a story. It's probably not going to make it." I pause, embarrassed, not quite comprehending what he's saying. The med student accompanying him on rounds tells me plainly, "The baby is too sick. It's going to die." I look at the baby, really look at her. She doesn't look that sick. She doesn't look like she's about ready to give up. Her breath though rattles in her chest. And suddenly I'm angry. Why does this baby have to die? She's so beautiful. So perfect. It's not her fault that she lives in a country ridden with malarial mosquitoes. She shouldn't have to die simply because she was born here in this messed up world. She's not even old enough to know that she's alive. And now she's going to die. And her mamma, her poor mamma, won't have a baby to hug and cuddle anymore. I wonder how many other losses her mom has experienced. How many miscarriages? How many of her children have succumbed to malaria? Or typhoid? Or any of the myriad of diseases that this country is cursed with? How many will? Will she end up like the grandma who came in with a prolapsed uterus, who had been pregnant 13 times, but only had one child living? Who elected to have the surgery that would close up her vagina making it impossible to ever have sex again because it was something she'd always been forced to do?

It's these things that make it so difficult here. It's not the dirt or the heat. It's not the food or the sickness. It's not even the distance from family and friends or the poverty I see everyday. It's the dejected look on the mother's face when there's nothing more you can do for her child who is dying of a preventable disease. It's the emotional drain you experience everyday when you see the way that the women are undervalued and abused. It's the knowledge that there is only so much you can do to fix the problems that are destroying this planet.