Bahai Beach 13

Bahai Beach 13
19-09-2006

Ramadan

After Hilel ( when the moon disappears ) and reappears on either Friday or Saturday this week Ramadan will start. This has many consequences for the project. Working hours will be reduced for our refugee staff from 07.00-12.00 with emergency services only. It is said that only the really sick people will come so the workload will be less anyway. To be followed up. Let us pray that during Ramadan there will be relative peace in the Darfurian conflict. It coincides with the departure of the AMIS (African troops) on September 30 leaving Darfur completely open to warlords (janjaweed) and Sudanese rebel groups (JEM, SLA fraction) and the Government of Sudan to do as they please. From time to time I get really sad tiding of civilians being slaughtered in villages not so far away (<200 kilometer).
Today our first confirmed HIV patient entered the camp. He was staying at another camp (Iriba) but his parents were in Oure Cassoni so with the last energy and funds he had he came to our camp. He refuses treatment (intravenous perfusion) and looks severely dehydrated. His father is blind and his mother very old so they were looking for a third person to take care of their sick son. Traditional healers had come and given him certain amulets and cuts to his chest to purge the illness. Not unlike we were doing in Europe until perhaps 100 years ago. This healer (uruk) instructed the young man not to use Western treatment. The next days we will try to respect his wishes but try to at least alleviate his suffering. He has near continous diarrhoea and is too weak to eat or even drink. Perhaps with an iman and a local leader we may help him suffer less.
While I am writing this I am in the souk (market) smoking a sheesha. Due to the security situation there are two convoys per day back to Bahai. We missed the first one. In our vehicle are two malnourished children as their mother does not have breast milk so they are fed goat milk. The human intestine is not prepared for this so both kids have diarrhoea. One is severely malnourished and dehydrated. The other twin is also weak. Another lady had a fight with another lady and her four front teeth were smashed loose. There is no dentist here so I will consult with the doctor in the hospital of Bahai ( if he finally makes it to a plane, he was on the passenger list but has not been in his hospital for near three months now) If not perhaps I will extract the teeth before she swallows one of them at night.
Yesterday afternoon was a big framework day for IRC in which the programmatic framework was explained to the international and local staff. The format was a group discussion. IRC mainly works with refugees in conflict areas and has several principals. Just to mention some; building capacity, collaborating with local institutions, preparing to hand over, saving lives. The program components include; Gender Based Violence, Education, Protection, Environmental Health, Reproductive Health, Clinical Health and Public Health. We talked about the context of the conflict in Sudan and Chad to make sure that the philosophy of our organization is understood by all.
In the camp this week we had a vitamine A mass distribution, a bed net distribution to the orphans and close monitoring of the quarters where two suspected meningitis cases were found two weeks ago.
My break is coming up and I am looking forward to meeting all newborns, friends and family in the Netherlands and the UK. Once I get the confirmation of my tickets I will inform all so I can see a lot of you. Also fruit, fish and sleep are high up my list of things to do. After the mini break in the capital I realized how stress out and tired I really was. Still the majority of my health staff is out of the project the next weeks and the past weeks due to poor planning. Well it is at it is. Next year the holidays shall be more evenly spread. Then again one of my assistant managers has taken liberty and has returned back about 10 days late. He is not the first and for sure he will not be the last. So this afternoon I shall have to have a nice conversation with him. Perhaps he has found another job. I shall see.
Sancho Yoda has returned and I shall hope to hear that he is getting married soon as he went down on his knees in France.

Be healthy,

Love to all,

Namaskar,

Ashis