A Truly Unique Thursday in Tanzania

 Karibu! 

Yesterday, we went on a home visit with Happy, the social welfare office (social worker) and Dr. Petro (psychiatrist) to see a family living about an hour and a half away from the Ilula Hospital.  We piled in 8 people and then picked up a community health worker along the way into the ambulance. I laid on the gurney...it was definitely an experience to be had! We were on paved roads from about 15 minutes I think. We also got stuck in the mud on the way out there which is pretty par for the course for our group at point! Luckily, our driver, Petro and some local farmers were wonderful and got us out fairly quickly. Of course we took pictures of our newest mishap :) 

Upon arriving in this very remote rural village I think we all were immediately reflective of our privilege and fortune. This family consisted of a grandmother with 4 adult children, her oldest is 51 and experiencing psychosis. About 10 years ago she developed visual hallucinations and starting wandering away from home. They began tying her to a rope to keep her from wandering. Fortunately, she is not violent or verbally abusive it seems. Her second child, married a women who is blind and they have two children. A 4 yr old who also has visual deficits and a 1 yr old who seems healthy and normal vision. The 4 yr old boy, Rahema, was insanely cute and seemed to be able to see large shapes at least as he walked up to each of us as the group was talking and Petro and Happy were assessing. He enjoyed Janet's singing and like any small kid was very interested in my Apple Watch. I took it off so he could check it out himself. He brought it very close to his left eye so we think he has some nearsighted vision. Her other 2 children +/- spouses seemed to be around also. 

Happy had visited twice previously and arranged for them to be brought clothes, bedding and helped improve their housing. I estimate the house was smaller than a US college dorm room just with a thatch roof, walls and dirt floors. It's hard for me to imagine what the situation was before Happy helped them. Thank you to the family for giving us permission to take photos.

Ultimately, they decided to take the women with psychosis and family member and back to Ilula with us and then on to Iringa for two weeks of in-patient psych treatment. Happy has found a school for Rahema to be enrolled in and hopes to get him into ophthalmology. However, she has to raise money for clothes, book materials, etc. first. Then she'll return to their home and bring him to school for assessment. 

As we starting walking back to the ambulance to leave we stopped and found Rahema had been following, he wanted to come with. John tried to take him back but he wouldn't leave so eventually, I picked him up and carried him through the field back to his family. When we got about 5 steps away from handing him off he started to whimper and then cry. It was the saddest little noise and made me shed a few tears too. He needs to be with his family but I would've taken him with in a heartbeat. To know how we live our lives in the US - the housing quality & cleanliness, clean purified water, over abundance of food, access to healthcare, resources available for blind children, paved roads, CVS on every corner, reliable electricity, technology, toys, tv/movies, DisneyWorld, etc, etc, etc. 

Poverty and homelessness is undoubtably a problem in American but I think the lack of systemic support through government infrastructural and public health initiatives is what's truly staggering about their level of poverty. The dirt roads, unclean water, growing your own food to survive, no plumbing or electricity - very simple but important structural things that I think we often take for granted in America. This family is trying to do their best with what they have but how much progress can they ever really make? And now that we've experienced this, what do we do with it? What can we do?