A week ago I met Mwajuma, a woman who is extremely poor. She lives on the porch of someone’s house – outside, on a rope threaded cot with no blankets or walls. A few months ago, she was bitten by a rat and became infected to the point of elephantitis. Her foot is swollen 3 inches deep on the bottom, 4 inches on the top. Only the first two toes are still there, the rest are indistinguishable from the swollen foot. We took her to the hospital and she needs to go to the national hospital in Tanzania. She has no one to take her there – her daughter died from cancer, has no husband, and her 4 grandchildren are in boarding school (secondary school at a government school so it is free for them).She said to me today, my last visit with her, that sometimes she wants to give up. She thinks maybe it is better to die than to live in pain – she has just now developed a fungus that is eating the skin between her fingers on her right hand. This breaks my heart, not because I haven’t heard people that might feel that way, but it was the first time someone said it to me, and meant it. I told her never give up, and to keep trying. She is a very friendly, jovial woman and she is not HIV positive. I hope to hear her future improves even as I leave Tanzania.
Picture: Mwajuma cooking in front of her porch
No comments:
Post a Comment