Last Sunday was different from the outset. I woke up a little earlier than usual, having gone to bed prematurely the night before. Usually there isn’t an option; the day requires a larger than typical breakfast and vast amounts of coffee, grown in the fields north of where we reside. This day however, fruit salad sliced into small cubes along with some orange juice was the request. The mangos are sweet; so sweet in fact that they make you question whether the meal could possibly be classed as healthy at all. This breakfast was the first indication that this wasn’t going to be a regular Sunday and definitely not one I’d spend worrying whether mangos are good or bad for my body. What a shame, I’d quite like to ponder that on my day of rest.
Something was up: half way through my walk around the dam, checking for little kids dipping in and out of the water with bright green, meshed mosquito nets, I felt different. Not good or bad, yet out of the ordinary, astray from routine. Routine isn’t healthy; I can’t stand the thought or people eating the same thing every evening, or brushing their teeth in the exact same way each day. The consistency of a big breakfast on a Sunday must be classed as a ‘want’ not as OCD. You think I’m in denial, right?
On my return to the lodge, having found no law-breaking children with a bucket load of fish, I was met by a small, yet large man holding an envelope loosely from his strong, outstretched arm. The letter inside included a request, signed from a good friend of ours.
The decision was simple: I accepted. Whilst changing my shoes, that feeling of unfamiliarity that had lingered around me all day returned but it was now outweighed by a strong sense of must. I loped out of the office door towards the coolness of the bar and lifted a couple of bottles out of the rusting, lukewarm fridge. As quickly as I was in, I was back out with Laura in tow, fumbling to put her shoes on and run to the car at once.
Already perched on the back of the familiar vehicle were two lodge employees who dwell at our target destination. Their faces twinned, brows falling away at the edges, eyes locked on the ground. I didn’t speak to them whilst mounting myself on the driver’s seat. With a nod of approval toward Yamikarni, the talented guide who accompanied my previous journey to Mzuzu hospital, he checked the oil and water. A circled thumb and forefinger indicated all was well. There was no room for words; his underwater sign seemed appropriate and supportive, it said all it needed too.
Pulling out of the car park and through the wooden frame of the main gates we headed to where I had been just a day earlier, checking the progress of a project. The atmosphere had changed drastically within a day. I don’t believe in all that ‘it was in the air’ talk but I’m learning to. The journey was quiet. The car held four bodies but it was lonely.
Our original destination, which was so familiar to me, was no longer necessary; a message had got to the car through the village headman that we needed to keep going along the road. I heard no such message. It could have been the unfamiliar tongue or just my lack of attention. We headed onwards. The only words muttered from the back were confirmation of directions and, although the route was a familiar one, the reassurance was welcome. My memory seemed hazy.
The way was slow, painfully inadequate for what seemed an emergency. I wanted to lighten the mood by commenting on the lack of competency of the government employees who are paid to keep the place in shape, however, it all felt so irrelevant and insignificant. The road by this point seemed endless; a familiar course which was accumulating interlocking sections as if by magic. My grip on the wheel tightened, my calves shortened when eventually there was a cacophony of colours ahead, signifying we had reached the first stop on our route. Blues, greens and yellows mixed in various patterns, used as skirts, tops and cleverly designed child holders. It was my next sense which still haunts me.
As we pulled up, I turned the ignition key towards myself and the engine juddered awkwardly to a halt. It needed to be quiet. All around us were quiet, except one. The lady was dressed in a bright green chitenge, wrapped around her young, slight frame, enveloping her to the ankles. Her haunting cries screeched through the air, engulfed by the low wall of cloud surrounding us, and echoed through the still woodland that had united in our silence. Each short burst preceded a groan and each time the breath ran out there was a delay before it all regained momentum, filling the ears and sinking to the soul. Friends and family around offered support with the gentle touch of a shoulder; others began to join her cries of desperate song. She was holding the lifeless body of her son; there was nothing to say.
The health practitioner’s records show a referral to the district hospital on 2nd January 2011. Understanding a person who does not seek help when they are ill is difficult. Deciphering a parent’s decision not to take their child to a hospital, when they have had the assistance and advice of a professional, is damned impossible.
Death in Africa is very real. Infantile death is regular and lingering. A community does not forget, yet why they will not learn from mistakes is astonishingly confusing and heart-breaking. Tradition needs to be overcome by education of the wonders of science and medication. Future generations of Africans need that knowledge to move forward; they need the capacity and open-mindedness to learn and change.
I will never forget my Sunday, nor will they.
