Wednesday, June 22, 2011

the medical fire

Where did I flush my rubbish in the States?

In the compound I stay at, there is an abandoned well. Its where we dump our trash. I can release a trash bag and wait three mississippi seconds and "four miss-" before hearing it land.

At the school, all of the trash is burned. Today we cleaned out a shipping crate to make room for new bags of cement. In the back of the crate were boxes of expired medical supplies. You would accuse me of exaggeration if I told you how long it took to remove those things.

The adhesives and tapes holding the tools in their sterile environment had failed. Even the boxes were falling apart, so the children had to grab the medical equipment in armloads. They dumped it outside on the ground abruptly to escape the stirred cement atmosphere. Catheters, cast tape, gauze, blood sample cups, gloves, syringes, braces, respirator tubing, rubber pipes, patient gowns, splatter masks, biohazard bags, and pipette tips were strewn like entrails from the open crate. The crowd of children, adorned with doctor robes and neck brace crowns, piled the powdered gear into scrub-colored curtains and hauled it to a trash fire.

I helped in the collection with much confusion. My biggest concern was the safety of the children, but the teachers showed no lapse in confidence about the situation. At first I worried about the cement haze, but in Mukono town I see the hardware store workers loading cement bags onto the backs of the trucks. Their whole bodies are dusted like the surface of the moon.

A major fret was more inherent-- the mix of children and syringes. But these kids had enough sense not to take the caps off and prick themselves.

Today I helped children collect and burn mounds of expired medical equipment. I feel like the fire smoke still hangs around me as I regret not introducing the perfect solution. I want to pray to God for forgiveness, but I'm not sure what sins to confess. I pray to understand my guilt first.

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