Celebration and Mourning

There has been quite a mixture of joys and sorrows in the community since I arrived.  On Saturday morning I was given a three hour tour of the hospital complex by Felix, the nurse in charge of the ART clinic. I met many people; nurses, nursing students, doctors, med students, pharmacy, laboratory and x-ray techs, the head of the kitchen and housekeeping. Too many faces and too many names to remember, but a good start none the less. It was fun to see that on the adult wards (male and female) all the patients had hand made comforters on their beds. I'm sure these were made by people in North America and shipped here by MCC.

The pediatric unit(under age 6) was in a separate building divided up into many smaller rooms/wards.  I was surprised how full the TB unit was (perhaps 8-12 pts) and the malnutrition unit was similarly full. Apparently if the child doesn't improve after a month of special nutrition, they will start treating them for TB. The rooms were crowded with the beds only perhaps two feet apart from each other and a mother either in the bed with the patient or sitting or standing beside it. After the peds unit, we went next door to the Maternity unit, also in a separate building. We spent perhaps 20 minutes inside reviewing the logs where I would be gathering information for my work. When we exited the Maternity unit, there was wailing outside the pediatric unit. A child had died. I had not noticed while inside that any patient was so near to death. I found out later that the baby had pneumonia and they were considering surgery to drain the lung and place a chest tube.  The surgeon was just checking on staffing in the OR. The wailing could be heard throughout the rest of my hospital tour and it was heart-wrenching.

Later in the afternoon, I was invited to a wedding reception. I went with Mr. Mabeta, the hospital administrator coordinating my stay here, and his wife. The bride was a nurse in the hospital who had grown up in Macha and nearly the whole vilage came.  It was quite the event.  There was lots of dancing!  The child attendants, two boys in dark suits and two girls in white dresses danced in.....they were perhaps 5 or 6. Then the bride danced in with the groom dancing from the front to meet her half way down the aisle. Next the whole bridal party danced in. This was all a long choreographed dance that took probably 20 minutes for them to get to their seats at the big table at the front of the hall. Mrs. Mabeta said they practice for several months ahead of time.  I asked Mrs. Mabeta what would happen if one's friends did not know how to dance, and she laughed and said you would have to hire someone. The joy was infectious with those of us watching shouting and clapping and taking lots and lots of pictures and videos. Sometimes you couldn't see the dancers for all the people taking pictures. Unfortunately the lighting was not good for my camera.

There were songs and speeches. Then there was the cutting of the cake with, you guessed it, more dancing. A young boy and young girl, perhaps 11 or 12 danced in holding knives.  The boy came from the front and met the girl half way down the aisle. Then the bride and groom danced out from their places and cut the cake and then presented smaller separate sections of it to the guests of honor and their parents. Then the bridal party again came out and danced the rest of the cakes out of the hall to the kitchen to be sliced. The bridal party was dressed in western attire (men in suits and women in bridesmaids dresses) the women, however, were barefoot, much more conducive to the required dancing than heels! In the midst of all these festivities, people were bringing drinks and plates of food to all the guests.

At one point during the festivities, the master of ceremonies made a call out to all of the nursing students.  I found out later, that this was informing them that a classmate of their's who had been very sick in the hospital had just died.  What a juxtaposition of death and celebration.  I had noticed the bride was not smiling much and was wondering why.  Perhaps she had  been friends with the woman who died. The bride was a nurse at the hospital and the other a nursing student. I imagine they had worked together. How hard to go on with your own celebration, knowing that a friend was dying.

Towards the end, it was time for folks to bring forward their gifts and greet the bride and groom, this of course was done with more dancing! Hundreds of people came forward in along line to greet the new couple and celebrate with them.