Tableau

Ground into the dirt and faded by the sun, the three disparate elements of NGO label tape, bullet casings, and looted drugs tell the whole story. 

We are at a health center about an hour and a half by pitted road from the the main town. It is our first time visiting this place with our mobile clinic, although we have passed through twice before in the last two months. We sent someone yesterday to tell the population, who is hiding in the surrounding wilderness, to come for free medical care today. No one is around. The health center stands eerily looted, forlorn and silent. 

I reflect on our luck that this still life of three conflicting elements is not splashed with another difficulty. There is no rain soaking in to the soil, no rain keeping potential patients away from life-saving care, no rain turning the clay soil to mud to trap our vehicles. There is no blood dotted among the debris on the ground, no evidence of life force bled out on this site. 

We clean for an hour as first one, then three, then 10 people show up. By the time the first sick child arrives, we have swept, cleared, and mopped all of the rooms except the pharmacy. The pharmacy is 30 centimeters deep with looted drugs, all destroyed. Hundreds of dollars of drugs ground to dust in a country in desperate need.

Six hours pass in their usual blur of mobile-clinic-activity, and by the end, we have some patients left waiting. "Tuesday, inchallah" is all that we can tell them. Hopefully. Hopefully we come back Tuesday. 

We pay the cleaners, water carriers, watchmen, and translators for their work with us, and their faces light up. Most of them cannot sign their name, but they clasp our hands and say thank you. Yes, we have treated over 100 people with free medical care today, but we also gave a dozen people a job and a cash payment. I allow myself to daydream how the cash influx will change this old woman's life, or feed this man's family. Maybe this young woman will only tell her husband about half of it, and keep some money for a rainy day fund. 

We say goodbye, and I hope to see every one of the staff next Tuesday.