Bahai Beach 46

Bahai Beach 46

Visitors

February 26th, 2007

Scores of people want to come and hang out at our beloved Bahai Beach. Political activists, donors, observers, exploration teams, humanitarian workers, ambassadors, journalists, photographers, cameramen, movie stars and philosophers.

Amongst the quoted reasons for a visit to our beach resort:
Quality of the beach at lake Carriari, funky nightlife, exquisite gastronomy of the region, fine market, tons of sand for kids to play in, proximity to Sudan, proxy for Sudan and lastly the wild life. As Sudan or rather Darfur is impossible to visit nowadays the media visits the camp closest to the Sudanese border.

Our friends at UNHCR double as innkeepers at times with between 2-10 visitors. Some of the visitors have huge expectations of the Bahai experience and expect high maintenance care. After all they are big fish. And fish in a desert need good care.

Yet it also brings an opportunity for the refugees to present their story to the world. To assure that their present status remains an embarrassment to political leaders worldwide. How many years more of talks of intervention of UN troops? The refugees are very articulate in expressing their needs for protection and their hopes and expectations for a peaceful future. If only world leaders could some a similar passion and interest to do something about the shame beyond shame talking place presently.

Spates of visits, high profile or not also give the impression that something might happen. What I find admirable is that the refugee community does not give up despite hollow words a plenty and little action taken (by governments around the world in a concerted effort) to ameliorate their urgent problems.

Yet normal life continues and so the Bahai hospital received a patient from Bao. She had delivered her 7th baby but she did not deliver her entire placenta. When the family managed to come to our hospital after seven days she had a high-grade fever and signs of sepsis and shock. Despite maximal efforts of the team in the hospital the lady died.

Maternal deaths remain a huge problem in this part of the world for a plethora of reasons;

Lack of access to obstetric care (this lady traveled about 140 kilometers over non existent roads)
Lack of nutrition (many of the women are anemic due to lack of proper nutritional practice)
Frequent deliveries in short periods (No time for recuperation)
Female genital mutilation, in this part of the world many women have their vagina sutured so a delivery requires a cut always (risks of infection, bleeding, prolonged delivery, obstructed delivery).
Unsafe delivery practice with infection like tetanus as a consequence.

In the camp in the mean time we had a similar case. It was a lady with a retained placenta. Due to custom she preferred a delivery with an untrained traditional birth attendant. That is her personal choice. However when a complication developed things were less good. For hours out midwives had to argue and insist that the lady required further medical care. Her placenta was eventually removed manually but it was a not so easy scene for our midwife who got threatened in the process

There must have been something in the air because there were miscommunication and arguments all over the camp. At least it is not cooking hot with the sturdy wind to flow a steady flow of sand in your face. I am dreaming of snowy slopes. Perhaps I should go to Dharamsala this April. Hang out with the Dalai Lama.

On that note,

Om shanti

Ashis