Volume 7
August 11, 2004

Hello, everyone.

Been a week or so since the last update, and there's not much new to report. Allyson is dividing her time between the feeding clinic and the local hospital. Because of a scarcity of local resources, Doctors Without Borders has taken over the operation of the local hospital in Garsila. So in addition to feeding kids, Ally's taking care of them, too, in the hospital. She said in an email to me last week, "I am trying to become a pediatric nurse."

But becoming one is not without its difficulties. Ally said she had a particularly rough day last Wednesday. I'll let her tell the story:

"I had my first malaria patient. She was about 4 years old, and her name was Naiema. She was so incredibly sick and got sicker all day, with fevers and diarrhea and vomiting. The local nurse, Margaret, and I spent the whole day nursing her, starting IVs, putting in nasogastric tubes, cleaning and feeding her. But she died around 3 am. I don't feel like there was anything else I could have done. It was blowing my mind that I was caring for someone with malaria. She was so sick and thin. When she was conscious enough, she kept saying 'mama' to her mother. At one point, when we were putting in the NG tube, her mother started crying. Now I want to cry; it's kind of just now hitting me. I'm seeing her little skeletal frame and face. Life here is so hardcore for these people. Life is just lived like it always has been, no electricity, phones, plumbing, or even toilet paper."

There's nothing I can add to that story.

Allyson is seeing a variety of cases -- people with stab wounds, children with a wide variety of conditions, and worse (I'll spare you guys the details). But every now and then, she and her colleagues get to have some fun. Some people from Doctors Without Borders in Germany came to Garsila, and evidently brought with them enough food to fix everyone in the house where Allyson lives a nice dinner. Allyson was put in charge of making deviled eggs, which the Germans promptly began referring to as "bedeviled eggs." And one of doctors actually had brewed up some homemade ginger beer to wash everything down. I reckon they needed a drink. Evidently, the evening ended with everyone singing folk songs from their respective native lands. Ally said she and the one other American in the house sang "O Susanna" and "Oh My Darling, Clementine."

"How square is that?" Ally said. "But it was actually very nice."

I should, however, point out that such meals are rare in Garsila. "The food is the same every night," Ally says. "Some kind of really tough meat stew, rice, and lentils. I have actually dreamed about tacos and McDonald's. How sad...."

When she gets home, I'm gonna buy her as many Big Macs as she can eat.

Ally sends her love to all of you.

Until Volume 8,
Chuck

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Links to Aid Organizations
Doctors Without Borders   UNICEF   International Red Cross

Informational Links
 CIA Sudan Factbook   United Nations   Passion of the Present  New York Times (Africa section)
NPR "Fresh Air" program on Darfur   The Guardian's Darfur Diary

Last updated Wednesday, January 19, 2005