Hope, Our Health!
Hope is powerful. I came to realize its full power when I visited Kalimedzako village in Neno, Malawi in my work with Partners In Health. One morning, our monitoring and evaluation and clinical teams went to the village to check on our Screening for Health and Referral in the Community (SHARC) Program. I was also tasked with implementing another program called Linkage2Care, a software application that would run on Android tablets to help monitor whether referred patients visited the nearest clinics.
Before we started our journey, our driver, Mr. Ganizani Chateka, warned me that we were traveling very far and should pack lunch boxes and at least two bottles of water. We left the office at noon. As it was my first time traveling with the team, I relished every moment because it was like an adventure for me. I imagined this far off place, picturing women ululating, men talking in groups, a community free from materialism and content with the life God gave them.
Along the way it dawned on me that we had traveled for over an hour and there was not a store or health center in sight. I started to think about being starving, dying to have bread and butter and having to walk an hour to find a supermarket. I thought about having a migraine or a bad cold and having to travel 50 miles to see a doctor.
We were somewhere up in the mountains, on a very bad gravel road. Thick bushes slapped the windscreen as the car forced its way through. The majority of the road was stony and almost impassable, but we had to get there no matter the cost. Our conversations died down. Everyone was quiet and I guessed they were thinking what I was thinking — “The trip was loooonnng!!!” I reached for my phone in the pocket of my bag as I wanted to send a few Whatsapp messages updating people about where I was. To my dismay, there was no network connection.
As if to break the silence, the driver announced that we were driving along the border of Mozambique. This meant we had come a pretty long way. My comforting image of women ululating and men talking in huddles was now replaced with concern about the community’s survival in this remote area.
After another two hours, we finally arrived at the village. As I had imagined, we were greeted by the joyous ululations and songs, handshakes and greetings. Little children, most of them barefoot and dirty after a morning of play, crowded together at a distance in evident excitement as they shoved and pushed each other. The huge smiles on their faces beamed out at us.
We spent the day with Mr. Atupele Phiri, the Palliative Care Clinic leader of SHARC. Intrigued by his dedication to serving the people of the village, I sat down with him to hear more about his work. He explained that he wished he could visit the people in the village more often, but the bad roads make it difficult. “The rainy season makes it worse for me to come here. The river that we cross to get here floods and I’m forced to turn back and reschedule the home visits to patients and postpone SHARC events,” he explained.
“But I’m not the only one in the area that comes to help. Many organizations such as Save the Children, USAID, and Action Aid have stepped in to provide healthcare services. But they all face the same problem — bad roads,” he said.
A long line of people filed before Atupele to wait for care. He referred one patient after another to the nearest health centre for further assistance. Most of them, used to his presence, greeted him and said, “Muli bwanji alangizi. Mwasowatu!” (How are you, nurse? We have missed you around here!)
As I walked around the village, I saw young men playing football and a group of children chasing each other around the field. These children were fairly clean with shoes on their feet, probably because they were older than the ones I first met.
I played a bit of football with the young men then moved to play with the children. As I stood alone at the other end of the field, I felt inspired by all that I had seen — the genuine joy the women had as they received us, the huge smiles on the children’s faces, the chatter and laughter of the men playing soccer, Atupele’s motivation, and life as it was around here.
“I cried when I had no shoes. But I stopped crying when I saw a man without legs.” -William Shakespeare
I felt a pang of guilt when I thought about the things I complain about like not having internet connectivity because I am used to having it. Yet these people struggle for something as simple as two tablets of painkillers. They don’t need my pity, but they do need my support. In the face of struggles, these people manage to survive and move on with their lives. They never lose hope and faith that things can get better.
“Hopeful people tolerate pain better than their less hopeful peers.” -Paula Davis
Hope is indeed a powerful expression that can bring happiness to life. A child’s level of hope is a significant predictor of those who actually follow what the doctor says. From the smiles on the children’s faces, you could tell that their prayers had been answered as help was at their door step. Partners in Health/Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo brings hope to the people of Neno.
When it was time to head back, I didn’t feel as dismayed as I did on arrival — I was going back with fresh perspective and renewed vision.
Khwima Brave Mkandawire is a 2016–2017 Global Health Corps fellow at Partners in Health/Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo in Malawi.
