Facts of Life and Death

I left Meheba a week and a half ago for a FORGE staff retreat. I had been told that I could get a ride to Solwezi, where I could then catch a bus to Lusaka, from a UNHCR vehicle that would be passing my compound around 7:30 in the morning. Vehicles are on time about two percent of the time here, but when it's the only vehicle that will be going to your destination and it won't stop if you aren't out waiting for it when it passes, you can't really chance it.

 

So I went out to sit by the road around 7:00. After about an hour, Augustine, one of our guards and a friend of mine arrived and kept me company while I was waiting. Auggie, as we call him, acts as a guard, a friend, our bicycle mechanic, vegetable supplier (he and his brothers operate a large garden), and my Swahili teacher. I wanted some words and phrases to study for my long trip to Lusaka, so I drilled him about how to speak in the past and future tenses. I practiced with him a bit.

 

"You work very much now," I tried to say.

 

"Yes. Leon is still out sick." Leon, another guard, had been out for over a week. Auggie had described his illness as pimples that had broken out over all over his body, as though he had been burned. I took it to be some kind of severe rash or something. Leon was at the nearest clinic in the camp. Auggie had used the word "critical" to describe Leon's condition a couple days earlier. I had asked if that meant that he could possibly die. Auggie said, no, that it was just very painful. But he also said that nothing they were doing for him seemed to be helping at all.

 

I had considered going to the clinic to see Leon, but I was very busy and didn't really see what I could do about a severe rash that they couldn't do at the clinic. So I decided not to go see him at the clinic before I left.

 

Eventually, my ride - a huge truck that they use to transport people during repatriation - came about an hour and a half late. I hopped in and left for my long trip to Solwezi.

 

Two days later, another FORGE staff member received a text message that Leon had died. That was all I knew. Later, I found out that he had died on the way to the hospital. Cody, the American who I am living with in Meheba, saw Leon the day that he died. He described Leon as being entirely covered from head to toe with oozing, open sores. His eyes had swollen shut, he was talking non-sense, and was in an incredible amount of pain. After the treatments at the clinic had proven to be no help, they took him home and had an "African doctor" come try to heal him. That hadn't worked either. Cody had been the one to insist upon his being take to the hospital in Solwezi, but it was too late.

 

I arrived back home today. I offered my condolences and asked Auggie about it. "The illness he died of was nothing from God," he told me. "It was African's black magic that killed him. Someone cast a spell on him. There was nothing anyone could do to help him."

 

Leon had three children. He had gotten remarried about one month ago. The wages he earned as a guard supported them all. Auggie is currently looking after the children.

 

This situation has flooded my head with questions. I'll share some of them with you. What did Leon die of? Why didn't I take an hour out of my day to go see him? Why did I interpret "pimples like burns" as a rash instead of as open wounds all over his body? Could he have been saved if he had gotten to the hospital a couple days earlier? Why couldn't they help him at the clinic? If they couldn't help him at the clinic, why didn't the people at the clinic take him to the hospital? Would he have lived if he had gotten this same illness in the United States? How much is considered "too much" to spend on saving a poor African refugee's life? What will I do differently next time? What systemic problems contributed to his death? What will happen to his children? How can I help now? Is it helpful to believe that African black magic is responsible for his death?

 

In many ways, we young Americans living here in Meheba have a lot of power and influence. Our presence sometimes means the difference between things happening the way they are supposed to and not happening at all. Sometimes we can do great things with that money, influence, and power. But, often, we miss opportunities to do great things that we could do. Could I have prevented Leon's death simply by being present at the clinic and demanding that he be taken to the hospital? Moreover, are there more deaths that I can prevent? If so, how?

 

I wish there were a little, pocket-sized book that told me how I - Damon Luloff - could make the greatest positive impact on the world. It would have directions written in simple English, maybe some diagrams too. This book would be a great help.