Sisters of charity

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The Americans at the NGO have talked about the Sisters of Charity in Jimma a lot. They send some of their patients to the sisters for care. A future post will explain the circumstances, but the Americans have a very serious patient that they sent to Jimma and they asked us to act as a liaison between the sisters, patient and a surgeon (the Saint from my previous post) who has agreed to see the patient. They were planning on sending the patient on a bus to Jimma with a note and money saying, “take me to the Sisters of Mercy.” Since I have not been to the Sister’s facility nor met them, I decided to go and visit. This way I will have some prior experience with them before the patient arrives.

The facility was actually on the road that we observed Timkat/Epiphany from. I had seen the buildings before and wondered what it was. Their compound is gated and the entrance is towards the back behind the main road. Outside the door people were begging to be admitted. I entered and was shortly greeted by the Sister Superior? She was very nice. I told her about the patient, but she didn’t know about her even though the Americans had told me they had agreed to admit her. The Sister took me on a tour of the facilities which were quite immense. They had several buildings, inside of which had row after row of beds. She explained that they currently have something like 150 patients, but their main wing is empty for demolition and reconstruction. Normally they have 300 patients at least.

There were several different wards for women, men, severely sick patients, mothers and children and of course TB patients. They have their own grinding mill, kitchens, eating areas, a tailor/seamstress program that takes 2 years to complete after which they are given a sewing machine and told to go forth and prosper, and their outpatient clinic with 1 doctor, 3 nurses, and the sisters of course. The Sister Superior said their outpatient sees 1,000 patients per month.

Walking through the area with the sister was great, she really reminded me of the Saint and how he treated his patients: teasing them, making them laugh. I was at this facility with Joseph, because I didn’t know where it was. He told me that everyone is scared of the Sister Superior. I asked why, but he didn’t know. After seeing her with the patients it was clear that it wasn’t a true fear, but rather they didn’t want her to spank them or grab their ear. She said to me, “I think laughter is the best medicine,” to which I agreed. I asked if she knew who the surgeon was, but she did not. He stated he was a missionary before, and the two are obviously cut from the same divine cloth.

During our tour she took me to one man. He had zero body fat and zero muscle. His eyes were sunk and the bones in his chin were easily visible. She moved his blanket to show a large football sized growth on his lower, left stomach. The Sister Superior said that his stomach was much, much bigger when he first came. He said something and the sister translated, “you are always bringing people to see me, but none of them can help.”

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Comments

[charity travel]

Blog Cooperation
Dear Sisters of Charity, I contact you because we are both blogging about our responsible travels and hence we target the same audience. We could share that audience. Are you interested? My project in a nutshell From October 2009 - October 2010 I will travel around the world and find and support deserving causes (such as orphanages, streetkids projects, refugee camps, ngo's) by working for them, offering publicity and donating some money. I organize it primarily through couchsurfing and understand Charity Travel as a humanly rewarding way of traveling while helping the neediest people on our planet. I hope you like this idea - you are welcome to read more about it on http://charitytravel.blogspot.com I will globalize independent volunteering/donating by creating an example and proving it is perfectly possible to remain independent of the large bureaucracies ngo's impose - because the internet (couchsurfing, facebook) allows us to establish secure contacts. Interesting side-effects are the cultural exchanges between our different projects and the sensitization for the state of the world of the travelers themselves. So, if this idea appeals to you - and to the readers of your blog - we could cooperate. To start with, we could simply place a link to each other's blogs to share our audience. I would place a link to your blog on my affiliates page that has a growing number of visitors, interested in responsible traveling. Looking forward to your reply, kind regards from Zimbabwe Kamiel Verwer kamielverwer.blogspot.com (personal blog)