Asante sana, Afrika.

“Nime furahi kukutana nawe.”  I’m so happy to meet you. I said it quietly to child after child, waiting for the sparkle in their eyes as they looked up shyly, realizing I was trying my best to speak the broken Kiswahili I was quickly learning.  These are children who know pain.  They know suffering.  But they also know joy.  Their young lives have been permeated and punctuated with death and poverty, but at their core, they are just children, pleased that this mazungu—white person—was happy to meet them.

 

Many of these children have never seen a doctor.  They have no medical records.  For many of them, the opportunity to have eager nursing students from America call them over for their comprehensive health assessment was the first time they’d seen a health care professional.  As we navigated their varying levels of English proficiency, their unique health concerns, and did our best to use their native tongue, we learned more than we could have imagined.

“Unaumwa popote pengine?”  Does it hurt anywhere else?  As we completed our 227 assessments, we learned a great deal about the health of children in rural Tanzania.  These kids are lucky—they have been accepted at the City of Hope, as day scholars, boarding students, or residents—they are receiving a quality education and have caring adults who look after them and ensure their health and wellness.  They have resources available to them many of their neighbors and family members in nearby villages are not afforded.

 

At the local clinic, the staff delivers health care with what little they have, showing compassion and kindness to each patient who enters their door.  They have no electricity or running water.  Many basic supplies—things we throw away without a thought in US hospitals and clinics—are luxuries they use sparingly.  They never know who or what awaits them in the groups of people needing to be seen each day, and they welcomed us as members of their healthcare team without question.  It is comprehensive patient care in it’s simplest form—the patients are interviewed and tested, results analyzed in the makeshift laboratory under the light microscope in the next room, diagnoses are made, and treatment arranged or delivered while they wait.  Each day clinic staff navigates cultural situations we can hardly imagine, and they do it with dignity and respect for each and every patient.

“Hawa ni marafiki zangu!”  These are my friends.  Everywhere we went, from our daily walks through the village to the hospitals we visited, and everyone we met, from the sellers in the fabric markets, to our charismatic safari guides driving us through the magnificent Serengeti, to the villagers and children we saw every day, welcomed us with open arms.  Whether we were playing cards with the children, working in the fields, kicking the soccer ball, teaching health education classes, attending the children’s church on Sunday mornings, performing assessments, or joining in dance parties, we were a part of their community.  We arrived in Tanzania hoping to make a difference, but as the tears streaming down our faces as we said our goodbyes would attest, it was the Tanzanian people who truly made the difference; our lives will never be the same.  Asante sana, Afrika.  Thank you.