Sunday 27th June 04

 

Sireeni

 

Just after seven o’clock on Sunday morning I was on the road. People on their Sunday best, Bibles under arms, were striding to church. Church services range from 6 o’clock in the morning till 6 in the evening, depending on the nomination and many people attend at least twice on Sunday. The market was also awakening, piles of cassava and sweet potatoes, bags of charcoal, dried fish and tomatoes were quickly coming on display. Only dogs were sleeping, but they were the ones who had been working whole night. The amount of barking and howling they produce must be exhausting.

 

Sireeni and her mother were already waiting when I arrived to Mrs Mhenga’s house. Sireeni looked weak and in pain. Her thin arms were clasped inside chetenze, head resting on mother’s back. She had been brought to see me in Upile on previous day, maybe in the hope that I would give money for feeding her malnourished body. But she needed more than food and we agreed that I will take her to the nearby private Clinic. It is run by the 7-day Adventists and therefore closed on Saturday, but now it was Sunday morning and should be open. We walked along narrow, stony paths asking directions and greeting people. I felt a need to apologise to the treasure of Upile who was accompanying us, for taking her from attending church.

“Oh’ no, I am praying on Friday as I am a Muslim. That’s why they sent me”, she said. I am always delighted to see people helping each other regardless of different political or religious views. Even Joseph, whose life is devoted for converting people to Christianity, always emphasises how important it is to forget differences and work as a united group for helping the needy. And I can see here that those communities where this rule applies, are getting forward. So maybe there is still hope for Malawi although it seems less and less likely in the other parts of the world. 

 

The Clinic door was invitingly open. It looked clean, but empty. Beyond the waiting hall, four rooms spread into both sides of the corridor, but apart from the benches for waiting patients there was nothing to give an impression of a working Clinic. There was nobody to be seen either; how very different to the Clinic I took Frocy last year.

I got a bit apprehensive, but patience is a virtue of Malawians, even if not mine and after not too long a wait, a doctor (if he was a doctor –who knows) arrived and we could step into a little room. The doctor took Sireeni’s temperature, listened her chest and examined her tummy before dispensing tablets into small plastic bags: Quinine for malaria, iron tablets for anaemia caused by malaria and antibiotics for the chest-

and bladder infections. No wonder poor Sireeni felt ill. I was wondering in my mind how the doctor knew she had malaria as there was no temperature and no testing was done, but as I am by no means a malaria expert, I just  hope the quinine wasn’t given unnecessarily. I also wished the doctor had given multivitamin tablets instead of plain iron, as poor girl is certainly lacking all sort of things, but if my parcel from UK

ever arrives, I can give Sireeni Tesco’s ‘Children’s Multivitamin/mineral tablets’ myself.

 

The price for all this had not gone up from last year, if anything it was less as the pound is stronger and I can all but hope that spending £ 1.85 on Sireeni will get her on the road of recovery.

 

Half way to Heaven

 

Diary