IFP Sénégal 2009: Tambacounda, part deux

Muttons trying to keep cool in the shade

When it rains in Tambacounda...

A trip to a village, Gambi, far removed - to visit health posts. We had to drive through a forest for 30 minutes to reach the village, of only a little over 300 inhabitants.

True beauty is a feeling. In the midst of poverty and destitution, I have found astounding beauty that is, raw, untainted, and free… strong eyes and a gaze full of force and strength, surrounded by an aura of African gold.

The last two weeks in Tambacounda were nothing short of an emotional roller coaster. Research and interviews conducted in the field lead to a daily, sometimes hourly turnover of stories, and realities, that continued to haunt me in my dreams. My research partner, Antoniette, and I spent a week working at the Tambacounda Regional Hospital in the maternity ward. Tambacounda Regional hospital serves the entire region of Tambacounda (the largest region in Senegal) and has extremely limited staff, i.e. only 2 general surgeons. We spent our time uncovering records, hunting down statistics, interviewing doctors,coordinators, surgeons, mid-wives, and also interviewing the reason of our study – women who have been hospitalized during delivery for obstetrical complications.

The rooms in the maternity ward are very small, and there are usually five women, or girls, to a room, whom have just given birth, or experienced a problem with delivery. The there is no AC, it is over 100 degrees outside, and even warmer inside the rooms where there is no air circulation. There are not enough cribs to sustain the amount of women that deliver at the hospital. In the delivery room, after a baby is delivered, he is placed on an open table, resembling a desk in a science lab, in the center of the room, with the other babies of the hour, unattended (except for me, somewhat frantic, constantly running back to make sure they were still on the table and not experiencing anydifficulties). In the maternity rooms, some new born babies lay on the floor, wrapped in a piece of cloth, on a plastic mat because there are not enough cribs. Attending nurses are few and many areas of the hospital are pure, chaos. Although I did notice that African, perhaps Senegalese babies, rarely cry. They are relatively happy, curious, and excited. Welcome to the world…