Re-entry shock
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I work in Africa and live there three month out of the year. My neighbor recently gave her son a US$ 700.00 cell phone for his 10th birthday. I did not know it was possible to pay so much money for a cell phone. In Africa people struggle to find the US$ 2.00 to pay for Malaria drugs for a sick child. We had just lost two children to Malaria when I arrived.
When I am home in the US and talk about “reentry shock” my friends think I am talking about going to Africa. No, it is coming home that is so shocking. Having just lost two children and hearing about a $700 cell phone for a ten year old is more than I can bear. How obscene has life on earth developed? Why is it that a child’s life in Africa is not worth two dollars? Or as Steven Lewis, former head of UNICEF once said: Where you are born should not determine whether you live or die. But is does.
Picture taken by AIDSfreeAFRICA volunteer Ann Higgins.
Another neighbor complained of having gotten a doctors appointment at 6 AM in the morning. I said: “you are lucky you have a doctor that sees you”. In Cameroon if a woman develops complications while in labor they wheel barrel her 20 miles to the next hospital. Can you imagine surviving that? They don’t. 1 out of 13 women die in childbirth.
However, we don’t see how much we loose and how much we have lost in the quest to get more, faster, richer. We lost perspective on what is important in life. I can honestly say that people in Africa are happier than any of my friends here in the US. Africans are warm and help each other. When I asked they told me: “I breath, I am happy”. They remind me of us New Yorkers after September 11th, when people were reminded on their own mortality and that friends and family are more important than the latest layer of paint in their living room or that the carpet needs to be replacesd.
Life in Africa is intense. You do not know who is alive tomorrow. Although we do not know that in the US either we sure pretend to be immortal. It is not until someone’s funeral that people remember how nice and precious that person was.
My wedding gifts paid for my first trip to Africa, Kenya and Cameroon. We told our friends to give us cash and checks. My friend Mike was so cute. He begged me to be allowed to buy something. He really wanted to have a gift in this hands and bring it. I told him “OK buy something that you like, bring it and take it home after the Wedding”. He got it that I was serious. I really wanted nothing but have my friends enable me to start this work.
Birthdays and Christmas are just like that. Request donations for your favorite charity.
If you like to read more about my work in Africa please click here.
