More Self Righteous 1st World Guilt

I once read a blog by a Peace Corps Volunteer that described the most heart-breaking scenario I could never dream up. In her village in rural Niger almost everyone survives during the dry season on millet. Millet has thick, long stalks with little kernels at the top that get turned into powder, which can act as a type of flour. In West Africa, women are in charge of the tilling, the planting and the harvest. Farming is women's work. Harvest and planting seasons are exceptionally brutal as these women toil in the fields for hours on end. Their skinny frames are already wracked with malnutrition and fatigue from the innumerable chores she must do to keep her household somewhat clothed and possibly fed. The saddest part, the absolute worst part, is that nursing mothers who work in the fields, work so hard they stop producing milk for their babies. And it's not like they can just give the baby to someone else as at wet nurse, because all of the women work, and sometimes they all run dry.

The blog post was about this girl who was living in this tiny rural village in Niger, who had sat up all night with a family that was very dear to her. They were waiting for their baby to die. Their son, their baby, had been taken twice that week to a doctor in a village ten kilometers away, who told the Volunteer that there was nothing to be done but to try to give the baby some formula. Formula that the family could not afford. Even if they could, he was already too sick and weak. He was going to die.

When I read that, I had only just applied to the Peace Corps. Even as an infrequent crier, I couldn't hold it together and burst into tears hunched over my computer. Absolutely not, I thought. I cannot, absolutely cannot, do that. I will not do that.

I called my boyfriend, David, and allowed him to talk me down into rationally discussing the situation. I know that children die all over the world of diseases that never plague the 1st world. I know that children die of malnutrition and dehydration everyday. Some fifty thousand a day. I was only upset because it was something I was terrified would happen to me. It never occurred to me to be afraid of crime in West Africa, as I had seen crime in the United States quite vividly for many years. But I had never seen real, abject poverty. What was scary was, I wasn't going just to visit, snap a few pictures and press some coins into the palms of beggars- I would be going there to live. To be the person who might have to try to find a doctor for that baby. To be the last vestige of hope, because I would be the American with resources and money. I couldn't imagine that burden. I still can't.

When I peeled myself off of the mattress in Djougou this morning, my only concern was finding something to eat and procuring a water bottle for the 94 kilometers home. The remnants of a great night of drinking Sodabee- palm moonshine mixed with honey and citron- pressed into the backs of my eyes and felt sour in my stomach. I had a fairly enjoyable early taxi ride home, and was looking forward to cleaning and healing myself the rest of the day. But when I arrived at my concession, I knew that bucket shower would have to wait. In front of the yurt-like buvettes sat about twenty motorcycles. There was no one minding the stand by the road. After paying the zem, I walked up cautiously to see over fifty people standing and sitting, many of them with tears in their eyes. Very few of them talking. Oh no, I thought. Oh no no no no no. Not now. Not here. The faces of the children in my concession swarmed my head as my eyes searched frantically for them. Please don't let it be Mouda, I thought. He had been sick a few weeks ago and had lost so much weight.

I could feel myself making everyone uncomfortable, not speaking, standing there with my obvious white cluelessness, carrying unwieldy shopping bags full of bread and vegetables. I knelt down next to Roukaya, the second oldest of Mama's children, and asked her what happened. She told me a child had died this morning. I sank to my knees, involuntarily. "Who? Who was it?", I asked, trying to keep the panic in my voice hidden. She told me it was the boy, one of my students, who lived behind the concession. My stomach suddenly felt as thought it weighed fifty pounds, stuffed with pure guilt and a twinge of grief. Okay, so it wasn't Mouda. It wasn't the one of the children I play with. I was disgusted and dizzy with my own relief.

The rest of the morning we sat on door steps and ledges, barely speaking. Eventually I went in to scrub the dust and moonshine grime off of my skin. When I came back out there was a large taxi parked outside of Mama's house that would serve as a hearse. They would take him to Bohicon, about three hours south of here, for the burial. A wailing like I had never heard before, something I had only read about and seen in some movies, ruptured the solemn silence, ripping through me and my heavy gut. The parents walked with their child in their arms toward the taxi. The mother wept and shrieked, heaving her body from one step to the next. She barely made it past her front yard before she just gave up and needed someone to help carry her. The other women started wailing as well, aunts and cousins of the boy wrapped in a flowered bed-sheet. They put him in the back of the van. I watched from the edge of my stoop the procession to the family's house once it drove away. I had no desire to follow. I just needed a lot of time to think.

When an old person dies in West Africa, it is not a sad affair. Most people have parties with loud music, lots of food, a funeral procession with loud singing and tambourines, and of course- dancing. There is undoubtedly an initial period of grieving, but then the preparations for these fantastic parties must be made. Funerals are expensive here too, I read recently that they rival American weddings in proportion of income spent.

When it is a child, well, there's no celebration. There are no drums or tambourines. There is just a bed-sheet and parents with empty eyes.

Children are so fragile here. They come with these open mouths and tiny limbs and great big eyes, sucking in the sweet air past their gums. As they grow they are continually deprived of the protein a young, healthy brain needs to develop properly, and never get enough vitamins. They work in the fields or in the marche or in less desirable places to help pay for their own food costs. Little fingers picking tomatoes. Girls no more than six walking up and down busy roads selling oranges from a platter on top of her tiny head. They get sick; they get sick so easily. There is no such thing as health insurance here, if you cannot pay for a doctor he will not see you. There is too much need and medicine is expensive. When they get sick there isn't much that can be done for a poor family except maybe see a traditional healer, who can make tea out of sticks, herbs and prayer.

When a child dies in the United States, we see it as a huge injustice. Even if the problem is absolutely outside of the capacities of modern medical science, like an inoperable brain tumor. We shake our fists at God and the universe, demanding to know why this happened to us. It's not that way here. Not when child mortality is so high. Your child could die, your neighbor's child could die, and likely one of them will. There is no blame, just empty resignation. When the child's mother shuffled over to me this morning, I laid my head on her hand and professed my condolences. "We can't do anything, there is nothing we can do," she said, tears in her eyes, looking past me in her grief.

The worst part is she's right, there is nothing they can do. It's not their fault they're poor and their child got sick with dysentary. It's not her fault that there are people living with inoperable brain tumors, getting heart transplants and surviving lymphoma where I come from, and her child died of dehydration.

I recognize that this is part of living in the 3rd world. And if you can't understand that the world is a horrible place, and that people are terrible to one another, then get out of hell's kitchen. Children die. Bad things happen to good people. Life isn't fair. These aren't laws of science, they're the realities of humanity. The initial guilt over my relief that the child who died was not one I knew well is superficial because that's not a choice I can make. If I could no child would die in Manigri at all. Or in Niger. Or in the United States. And especially not due to malnutrition or diarrhea. But I didn't make the world, it made me. It will be here long after I die. I'm just a visitor, taking photographs.