On our first day in Guinee-Bissau, we find a place to sleep in the catholic mission of Ingore. Two Italian nuns run the place, one as a nurse and the other director of the large mission school. They are friendly and have a bed for us, dinner (with a creative Baba-au-rum desert because it is Easter) and even a shower. We feel very lucky.
After we have rested a bit, the nurse asks if I would like to see the hospital. Of course I would. In a mixture of Italian and Portugese, she tells me how this is not really a hospital. There is one so called doctor who has been educated in Cuba for four years. The 69 year old nurse is the only nurse in the region, apart from the few women that she gave instruction to. The hospital has a few rooms with beds and one examination room with an echo machine and one cabinet with supplies.
There is a real hospital in Bissau. However, to get there, you need to cross a river with a boat. The boat crosses during daytime hours. If you are in urgent need for a doctor, you can also cross the border into Senegal, to Ziguinchor. The border closes at six. If something happens to you outside office hours, there is only God who can help you, the nurse says.
We stroll to the building that they call a hospital. The garden is nice, with green grass and flourishing trees. Inside the building it is nicely clean. As we enter the woman claps her hands. The people in the building know that she is around. The rooms are empty, the children must be outside so we walk to the backyard. As we walk through the corridor, I see two hospital baby beds by the wall. It looks like these are empty as well. Suddenly I realize what I am seeing. A tiny baby, almost invisible in the dark cloths. "An orphan", the nurse says as she walks on. The mother died while giving birth, as happens to a lot of women in this village. An immense feeling of grief falls over me. This little baby, an orphan. (Children whose mothers die are orphans in this culture, because fathers do not care, according to the nun.) Outside are the women with the children. Some of the children are with their mother, the orphans with a family member. The orphans stay in the hospital for a couple of months, because it is hard to survive when there is no mother to feed them. Later they go to the family where they grow up with aunts and grandparents. The other children are here because they are underweight. They are less than sixty percent of what they should be and stay in the hospital until they are eighty percent of what is normal. With help from organisations in Italy, the nun who runs the hospital is able to buy extra milk for these children.
She tells me how they have their way of treating illnesses. How they use an absorbing, black stone to clear out snake bites. When I tell her that I find it so strange that there are so many children in this world, who cannot be fed, she says that she actually stimulates women to use hormonal anticonception through an injection. But this stops the menstruation and that scares the women. They do it once but never come back for a second dose, in spite of it being as well available as affordable.
In the capital Bissau we meet Johan, who works in the hospital in Bissau. He gives us a tour through the hospital area, which is comprised of many buildings. We walk through the maternity ward, where more than twenty women give birth every single day of the year. Outside the building is a trash belt. A volture is sitting on top, waiting for the placenta once another baby is thrown into this world. We walk through the children`s wing. Two kids jump on top of Johan. One of them is a heart patient, the other one has bad kidneys. Both have been in the hospital for almost a year. In Guinee-Bissau they will not be healed. Meanwhile Johan tells us about a sixteen year old who died this morning because his family was afraid to give him their blood. On to the next building. We enter a room with four beds. Mothers and children fill the room. The children are severely burned over most of their bodies. With open wounds they are sitting on their mother`s lap. I feel nauseated and have to focus on Johan`s face in order not to faint. Children get hurt by fire all the time. People cook on open fire and there is not much supervision over the many children that are around.
It is busy in the hospital. Even in this section of the hospital doors are open and anybody can walk in and out, moving bacteries around from one place to the other. We do not see a single doctor. The nurses are selling oranges in order to make a living, since their salary has not been paid for two months now. The buildings smell the way a veterinary practice would smell in the Unites States. It is noisy, but surprisingly I do not hear anyone crying. The people in the hospital barely look at us, although we must stand out as white tourists, checking the place out. I am overwhelmed. The people, the sounds and the smell. I feel like I am walking around in some documentary, shown on t.v. late at night. Later I regret that I did not play with the children, that I did not try to make them laugh.
Then I realize that what I have seen these last couple of days has made a huge impact on me. My brain has not been able to process what my eyes were seeing as quickly as my hart did. It takes me several days to give the picture of severely burned children and babies without mommy a place in my memory.
I realize how long it’s been since I have written and am sorry.
I am overwhelmed by this narration about these babies and children without mothers. It is hard to comprehend how terrible life is for these people. I know how difficult it must be to see all this and feel so helpless. I admire your strength and fortitude.
Love, Dottie Ragouzis