Ugandan Hospital

No cause for alarm, but Maggie was recently admitted to a hospital in Uganda. Many of you have been informed of the news and are awaiting an update. Unfortunately, we don't have one. We are making the assumption that if something terrible had happened, we would have been notified. But again, that is an assumption. We have attempted contact, but it is not always as easy as a phone call. Things happen over there. No cell service, no minutes, not the right time of day, phone cuts out, no internet service, no power and on and on. Seems that when all you want to do is hear that your daughter is back at home and is getting better, that is the time when things just don't work the way you want them to. Go figure.

Based on our past experiences with sick children in Uganda, one is only admitted to a hospital if one is in dire need of care. Many children suffer for days on end, getting worse and worse each day, while the parents exhaust every avenue of aid. A hospital is the last resort. And to complicate things even more, medical care does not necessarily mean everything will turn out fine. I can't say for a fact for all hospitals, but the ones I have visited in Uganda do not seem to be offering top notch care. No disrespect intended, it is just the unfortunate reality of trying to run a hospital with limited funds and limited resources in an impoverished nation. The haunting truth is that most parents in this part of Africa can't even afford medical care and will often, literally, have to watch their children die. In Uganda, coffin shops are just as prevalent as American coffee shops. It is a common sight in markets and roadside vending...and we're not talking 6ft pine boxes, friends, we're talking small ones, like the size of a suitcase.

Malaria is the number one killer of children in sub-saharan Africa. We mentioned to a Uganda friend of ours that malaria doesn't even exist in America. He doubled over laughing. When he finally stood up and looked us in the face, he realized we weren't joking. He was in complete shock. It is a way of life for them. Disease and death are rampant.

A quick memory: our first year in Uganda I had a similar task as I do now, I interview and photograph the children that are entering the sponsor program. It was our second day of work and a family came with two young children. I photographed the first child, noting that it was difficult to get him to focus on the camera and pay attention to what was happening. After his photo, he slumped in a white plastic chair and his father handed him an orange soda with a straw. I also noted that an hour and a half later, he was still in the chair, head propped on the back rest with more than half his soda still in the bottle. Something is wrong. You give a kid a soda in that country and it is sucked up before you have time to wipe the sweat of your brow. He left with his family shortly after that. We received word 8 hours later that that little boy, Mike, had died. His funeral was the next day. I was invited to attend. I couldn't bring myself to go.

Many people ask me if, in a country like that, where death is an every day occurrence, if people just get used to it. Like if the emotional impact of your family dying gets easier with every child. My answer is an emphatic no. No amount of death eases a mothers pain in burying her own child. She still covers her ears at the sound of dirt clods thumping the coffin. She still sings Amazing Grace in a deep alto as if she has never sung it before. She still mourns and wails and cries out to a God who seems to have forgotten her. But He hasn't. He cradles her in the orange dirt she kneels on and wipes the tears of the child who is coming home to Him. We want to think she's stronger because of it, but she's not. Each death tears at the seams of her heart. Her eyes cloud over a little more and she makes a deeper footprint when she walks. But she is to be regarded carefully. It may not be she that grows stronger from each death, but those of us who chance to pass by as the burial commences. We are forever changed.

From Uganda with love,

Ali