Disease and poverty plague African nations

Everyday, 20,000 people die of preventable diseases - 15,000 of those people die in Africa. We know this. We study it, analyze it and each do our small part to cost-effectively fight killers such as tuberculosis, HIV, malaria and diarrhea.

These numbers are harrowing.

Chances are the pictures you have seen are even more heart-wrenching. But no matter how many documentaries you watch, speakers you hear or books you read, the magnitude of these issues - the human suffering and apathetic approach of the world's wealthy - is not adequately felt, unless you travel.

I read books by Jeff Sachs and Paul Farmer, but until I was able to smell, hear, taste, touch and see someone lying in his bed in a mud hut dying of malaria (when a mosquito net costs less than $1), the gravity of these issues did not add up.

This summer I lived in Nairobi, Kenya, and worked for a nongovernmental organization named Carolina for Kibera Inc., which is housed in the University Center for International Studies.

CFK works within Kibera, the largest slum in East Africa situated in the shadow of the Nairobi skyline. Nairobi is home to approximately three million people, half of whom live in shanty towns.

In Kibera, roughly 700,000 people live within an area the size of Central Park. These are the people who die of preventable diseases and don't make it to our nightly news.

"Man!" I thought before leaving, "Half the population is under 15 and 80 percent of people ages 16 to 30 are unemployed." I was told it's unsafe to be outside after dark. In my youthful naivete, I was prepared for the worst.

Soon after arriving, I realized that once charts and figures become faces and friends, you can't just read the final chapter and sigh.

On a visit to some of the home-based care patients I met Linda, 30, who grew up in Kibera.

About 10 years ago she was married to a man from the same tribe. For nine years, they tried to have a child, but Linda was unable to conceive.

During that time her husband was unfaithful and began seeing other women.

Finally, because Linda could not get pregnant, he left her for another woman. Soon after, Linda fell ill. When she returned from her check-up, all her possessions were gone; her husband had taken all of their things, leaving her with only HIV.

Linda now lives with her sister and her sister's three children in a 12-by-12 mud hut with no electricity or plumbing.

After listening to her story, it took all my strength not to break down and cry. As I left she sat up and said to me: "I don't live as HIV positive. I live positively."

Go figure.

When compared with what I whine about, it didn't make sense. At times I worked on "sustainable development," but usually I was irrelevant.

CFK runs a project called "Taka Ni Pato," Swahili for "trash is cash." As part of their program they do community outreach and clean- ups. My third day there, I volunteered for a clean-up.

Rake in hand, armed with my conspicuous white skin, I was told to rake the trash into a pile that would be burnt. But, in a place that has no sewer system, little running water, no paved streets and no garbage removal, how do you clean?

As I was raking, I quickly learned where people with no toilets go to the bathroom. On either side of me were 12-year-old boys working twice as hard as me; they were wearing flip-flops. I was trying not to vomit.

"I'll start a program to recycle and decrease pollution," I thought to myself.

"Dorothy - we're not on campus anymore."

There was nothing I could do. The infrastructures that I assumed would be in place didn't exist. I was weaker and far less resilient than any of those people. There was no forum to organize about this issue.

Finally I just started dancing and singing like an idiot. If I couldn't help, at least they could laugh at the crazy white guy.

I have been home for one month now. Most of this still doesn't make any sense. I still have a lot of questions and find few answers no matter whom I ask, what I read or how much I think.

I spent a short amount of time in one place. I don't know the "African story," and I certainly don't know the true impact AIDS is having on our planet.

Ask yourself: What would it be like to wake up tomorrow and find out that the entire undergraduate population died of malaria, HIV or tuberculosis?

I had always thought myself a fairly well-rounded person. After this summer, I understand how much I don't know.

Above all, I understand that life's most lasting lessons are not written in books.

 

Contact Aaron Charlop-Powers at acp@email.unc.edu.