The UGLY Face of Malaria

“Good, its Thursday morning,” I thought to myself, “Habtamu will be coming today and tomorrow so I can finally plow deeper into verb conjugations” (Habtamu is by far my best language helper when it comes to this). He showed up close enough to on time and after greeting him at the door, I began by asking him the name of the little lizard I had captured while he was swimming in our large water tank, a new word that I promptly forgot. We had bigger business today and so we quickly gravitated to the back patio where we dug right into the work. After about twenty minutes, I was pressing hard to find a word in Gmz for “must,” “need to” or “obligation” because up until this point, I have only been told the word “want” or “desire.” Unaware of the haunting irony that would soon surface, I started to explain a hypothetical situation to him: “Let’s say that a very close relative of mine dies, then I MUST go back to my country and…”

 

In the middle of my sentence, a woman’s voice broke in from outside the patio door, just out of view, “Habtamu, Habtamu.” Now, I prefer my workers to remain focused and so I’ve shut out other distractions pretty well, but this was a first, as normally a Gmz person, especially a woman, would not be so bold as to interrupt like this. Habtamu, remained seated, yet turned to face the doorway from which the voice came.  After a quick 30 second conversation, he turned back toward me and his facial expression alone told me that something was terribly wrong.

 

“My sister is dead.” Sharing in his surprise I asked a few questions. “When did she die?” “Just now, my wife ran to tell me.” “Was she sick?” “She just started to get sick last night,” he replied staring past me. “You must go,” I said pointing at my paper where I had written the Amharic word for “obligation.” Habtamu got up immediately, leaving his pen and notebook behind. Letting him out the door, I stood and watched as he ran up the path.

 

There are many different types of malaria, but the grand-daddy of them all is P. falciparum, which quickly develops into deadly cerebral malaria. Habtamu’s sister, a young girl of about 4-5 years old, was one of many children in Habtamu’s village who very recently came down with malaria-like fevers. That same morning I made a run into the nearby town to bring another three feverish children to the doctor/pharmacist (one of which was the brother of the girl who had just died). The next day, when another child from this same village came down with high fevers to the point of seizures, our co-worker jumped in her vehicle and rushed to the doctor. The city health department was notified and, much to their credit, they immediately sent two guys hiking up the mountain to take samples of six additional fever-stricken children. Word came back the next day that all six of those blood tests showed P. falciparum malaria. That very afternoon, the government health guys motor biked in with a dozen or so treatment packets, which they gave to any child who even felt feverish.

 

Walking down the mountain back from the “funeral” for Habtamu’s sister on Friday afternoon, I couldn’t help but thank God again for the good health he has given our family, realizing anew that the beautiful landscape I saw all around was not a rose without it’s thorns. I recalled an article I read recently in TIME Magazine that said that malaria is the number one killer of children in Africa. I knew that this was only the beginning of its ugly face darkening the community in which we live. As the card which I wrote to Habtamu said “My soul find rest in God alone…He alone is my rock and my salvation…I will not be shaken.”