Thursday, September 11, 2008

Pain and Happiness

Yesterday, I began another facet of my job here with Frank and Susan, which is to assist their Community Development Officer, Mary, with certain projects that I might have experience for.

Mary has been working for Frank and Susan now for years and speaks perfect English. I have worked with her before on mobile clinics in the area and up at RVCV. She is a real gem!

Every Wednesday morning, she and I will be teaching "parenting" classes (of sorts) at an orphanage located very close to the Clinic. The orphanage is run by a Tanzanian woman and her husband who is a Christian pastor. It is called the Shalom Orphanage. Frank has been doing health screenings of all of the children and the director inquired as to some assistance with issues like discipline.

Rift Valley Children's Village it is NOT. Nor did I expect it to be; but Mary and I have our work cut out for us. It only took moments to notice some of the topics that we will need to counsel the staff on. Hygiene being first and foremost. Every child had their hands in their pants, complaining of being itchy. Runny noses, ring worm - all obviously the result of not bathing everyday. I couldn't find a bar of soap in the entire place!

But I have to say, the staff were amazingly open to Mary and I, and were also very forthcoming about their own backgrounds and the issues they were having with raising so many children (42 at the moment).

We began the session with introductions and then Mary invited each staff member to share with the group their greatest pain and their greatest happiness. I, as the guest, was invited to go first. I began with my greatest joy - my family - I discussed our close knit family and how supportive they are of my choices.

But then, I couldn't really think of a greatest pain. Every family has illness, the death of grandparents, the passing of a much loved pet - the basics. I spoke briefly of what has been a more recent pain, the painful departure from my parents and brother in light of my trip here to Tanzania.

Ok, all done, onto the ten staff members. Well, imagine sitting in a tiny concrete room for two hours listening to the most heart wrenching stories you can imagine. First in Swahili and then, to make sure I understood every word, Mary translated it all into English.

Every single staff member had suffered the loss of a parent early in life. The lack of a father. Step-parents who did not accept them as their own. Physical abuse. Starvation. Loss of siblings to disease. Lack of funds for education. Poverty. Alcoholism. Being uprooted from one location to another. Feelings of abandonment. Lack of love. On and on and on ...

The guilt of not having pain in my life to even begin to compare with theirs was palpable.

We, as the western world, so often wonder why places like Tanzania can't get their act together. I am not sure that with backgrounds like theirs that I would even know how to get out of bed in the morning. Much less help my country get its act together.

On the walk back to the clinic, Mary and I discussed the enormity of the situation. We decided to start with soap.

1 comment:

Katzenivy said...

Dear Meredith,
The GMAG met last Sunday the 7th for the first time since last Spring, and we talked about you and missed you.

I hope you have found enough soap for the hygiene challenge with the children and that the medical supplies are getting well sorted and put away.

You spoke of dust. No dust here. It has been raining for 2 days. We have the very edge of hurricane Hannah. Your news is so very interesting. Best wishes for everything.