Patience in Tough Times

http://www.phrasebase.com/countries/niger/

Fertility rate= 7 babies per woman

Birth rate= 49.95 births per 1000 people

Infant mortality rate- baby deaths per 1000 births= 122.23 babies die per 1,000 births

Those are the statistics.

Right now is rainy season and with rainy season is hunger season. Right now it feels like everyone is sick in the village….malaria is sneaking up on everyone.

This past week I went for a walk to the Fulans (a nomadic ethnic group) that that live behind my village and chatted with them for a few hours. They told me I had to see the little Fulan twins that were only a month old. When I walked in, they showed me the first baby- a girl who was small, but still moderately healthy. Then the mom pointed to the other little boy who she told me "didn't have health." But this little boy was beyond not being in health- he was on the verge of dying. When I asked, they told me his mouth hurt and he couldn't breast feed. What? This child hasn't been able to breast feed for a month except what you've forced upon him? Looking at this child just killed me- reminded me of the commercials of "the starving kids in Africa" on TV. He almost appeared as a skeleton lying on the bed, every bone popping out of his body. When I asked his mom why she hadn't taken him to the doctor at all for medicine, she told me she had no money. But you have cows, chickens, sheep and donkeys, go sell an animal and you'll get money! Finally after me yelling at everyone including the child's grandparents, father, and father's brother that afternoon they brought the child into the doctor's office.

Distraught as I was, I started asking my villager about it. "Nigeriens, we like giving birth! We like babies!" But why have more babies if your babies will die? "We'll give birth again!" And from the mind of a villager, why nurse a very sick baby back to health when it would be very expensive when you could just give birth again?

I started explaining to my friend how in America we like all of our kids to live and how our health is so important. But with every explanation, I got nearly the same answer "She will give birth again." That same day a baby that was just a month old died in my village. Then, 2 days later the little Fulan boy died.

All that and the next morning I woke up to three of my villagers knocking on my door to let me know that Sophie, my neighbors 2 ½ year-old little girl, died of malaria that night. While the tears streamed down my face, they looked at me and said "Patience, Kadija. Have patience."