Untold Story

As I was putting together some photos and memorabilia for a poster presentation that I'm scheduled to give this coming weekend, I came across a bunch of stuff from Congo. Like my well-worn dog tag, hanging from a bumpy silver chain, that allowed me to get into embassy-owned properties. There was my ELFP handbook. Some special cards and notes from friends. Lots of photos of students and other teachers. It felt good to see these things, revisiting some of my experiences, and reviewing the history of the country.

I found a story that I had hand-written, but never wrote on my blog about because I needed time to process it. It concerned a two-year old girl, the only daughter of one of my friend's workers. The child had gotten very sick with malaria, which is quite common in Congo. They don't take prophylactic antimalarials, like us temporary folks, because they would have to take them for too long of a time, which isn't a good thing. So instead, they treat the disease, once it manifests itself, with high doses of the same medication that prevents it from occuring. In this case, the parents took the child to the clinic, where they were told to give her quinine, twice a day from a small bottle, that had an eye dropper in it. The child was to receive two drops twice a day, but for some reason the father did not understand the dosage and gave her two teaspoons the first day. By the second day, she was dead. Quinine, in large doses, it turns out is highly poisonous.

It is surprising to me that this type of tragedy doesn't occur more often; maybe it does, but you just don't hear about it. After that episode, teaching English to medical students became even more important to me.

Captions: Several young kids at a picnic just ouside Kinshasa