We left this morning @9am to the Hospital Fatebenefratelli…in Tanguiéta (top left on the map).
It is so bizarre, since my father has worked all his life in this hospital located in Naples; and now I found myself in the same hospital but in Africa!
It is impossible to explain, impossible to describe what my eyes have seen today.
I am very quite, silent, wordless trying to justify to myself what I am going through…
Babies, kids, sick people everywhere in dirty conditions…
“Babies” having babies…
Every free spots outside and inside was taken, by either sick people or relatives (majority women) doing the washing, cooking and cleaning.
Our photos were somehow creating an excitement although I wasn’t feeling comfortable.
I feel guilty…
I don’t realise the extent of appreciation I should have….I don’t realise how thankful I should be…
How much these days, I am valuing WATER and COLD WATER from the fridge…
If you think about it-weird enough how things can have a totally different value from what their worth is back home….never water meant so much as NOW!
11.00am
We went back to the centre managed by the nun where we slept, parked the car and went walking to a village opposite to us…
It looked like a tiny village with a couple of “houses” but by the time we started entering the village and walking through it, we had realised how huge it was.
Kids coming out from everywhere and each corner…
Extremely unique way to live or I would say ‘survive’….one or two houses with few things for sale, i.e. from salt to biscuits, from batteries to rice, from dried fish to clothes.
The more we walked the more we were seeing people resting under shade, working with grains, feeding small kids.
Everybody was engaged in an activity and/or no activity at all…in an ‘immobility’ mode. I was initially thinking at the word ‘relax’ but it was not fitting the context. The image instead is of time stopping or passing by…everything around seemed static, not mobile…stiff.
It’s a world living in a different dimension that is not familiar to us and hard to grasp: our daily lives we hardly manage a moment in the day to pause…the hectic routine we are immersed in takes an activity being followed by another with a ‘frenetic’ rhythm.
There is neither overlap nor similarity between these two radically different way of going through life with one substantial difference: we have the possibility to choose ours, they don’t!
3.00pm
We left Toukountouna to go back to Dassa to stay with nuns again. Long journey during which another storm of new emotions and reflections.
We got back at 8pm quite tired with some dinner waiting for us…
One of the nun looked after me with some natural problems as I wasn’t feeling top; she gave me an aloe vera pomade made by the girls in the centre.
Anna was next to me massaging my belly with it-how lovely when somebody you actually just crossed path with by chance, is showing you genuine love and care.
This is the sort of ‘true’ relationship we all should aim for realising the privilege to meet others, exchange, learn through them and leave our mark in their life.
Inspiring! This story made me think how the way of living especially the convenience of living is connected with happiness. Some folks on the pic look very happy. I guess it is all based on relativity.
This is what I think. What’s important to grasp is that we are empowered to set our standards of happiness based on essential rather than frivolous…its up to us being happy or not…..