Reaching Out

I am going on a safari today. A 4WD is involved, but it has nothing to do with wild animals. I am following the health outreach team to a remote village to carry out the childhood immunization program and adult HIV education program.

Lubwe may be a rural village, but it feels like a metropolis compared to Chamalawa, the remote village we are heading to. After over an hour of bumping along a pothole-ridden dirt road and down an overgrown trail, we arrive at the village shaken, but not at all stirred. The day’s activities will be carried out under a tree and inside the “church” built of bricks with a grass roof. We drive to the village school so people know that we are here. They must not get too many foreigners coming through, because at the sight of my camera, the children instantly go wild. To avoid causing too much commotion, I start taking photos discreetly around the clinical officers who are weighing the children and giving them vaccines and vitamin supplements.

The Welcome Committee at Chamalawa Village

Babies are weighed on a scale hung from the tree

Women waiting in line with their babies

Clinical officers giving out vaccine shots and vitamin pills

At around noon, we start the HIV education program. A group of about twenty pregnant women gather in the rudimentary church. The two HIV educators from the hospital take turn explaining to the women what HIV is, how it is transmitted, how it can be prevented, and the importance of knowing one’s status, especially for pregnant women. At the end, the women are asked whether they would like to get tested and are given the option of refusing the test. Without much deliberation, they all agree.

So we start an assembly line: one nurse registers the women, I take their blood, and another nurse drops each woman’s blood onto the rapid test strip. Some clearly shows their anxiety, both at seeing the needle and at the thought of finding out soon whether they have been infected with the virus; others are very relaxed and barely show any concerns. While waiting for the results of the tests, we proceed to give the women tetanus shots and examine them. The examinations take place on a thin foam mattress placed on the ground behind the pulpit. Almost all of the women are clinically anemic. Afterwards, they receive iron supplement tablets, de-worming tablets, and malaria prophylaxis.

Soon, the HIV rapid test results are ready. I take a glance at the tray of test strips. Fortunately, none of the eighteen women tested today is positive. The women are asked to wait outside. The two nurses each takes a corner of the room, the women are called in one by one to have their results disclosed and discussed with them.

With that, the day’s session comes to an end. We eat a meal of nshima and beans prepared by the women in the village. And then we start the long and bumpy journey back to Lubwe.