Going To Die

I arrived in Malawi July 31, after a long stay in Zambia. Aside from adventure activities which included a lot of jumping and screaming, I spent 3 weeks in the capital volunteering.

On a whim, I was invited to Lusaka. It turned out that my friend and host lived nearly next door to a Catholic Mission with a school, orphanage and hospice. In Texas I spent years volunteering in similar places with children and adults, and even ended up doing my Master's thesis at an AIDS hospice. I went back to Livingstone, visited Zimbabwe, then returned to Lusaka to stay with my friend and volunteer.

I spent the majority of my time in the male ward of the hospice/home. But several times a day I would visit the women and when I felt down I would see the dozens of babies- usually at the end of a day. They were in small cribs, 20+ to a room, and often they were alone. However, every time I saw other foreigners they were with the babies or toddlers. The children were lonely. They barely cried, even when 3 or 4 others in the same room seemed inconsolable. Without discretion, they wanted to be held, and those tiny grips echoed on my fingers and neck every night.

I felt more needed with the adults. In Texas, my volunteer work there included bed baths, changing catheters and diapers, wound care, cleaning the deceased, cooking, anything and everything. Soon I was "Sister Maya" ( I am not Catholic), but the job was easier than before since women did not touch or see unclothed men. So, I held hands, asked questions, made jokes, helped serve food.

Remember that film, "The Shawshank Redemption"? Everyone in the prison was "innocent". Everyone at the Mission spoke of TB or Malaria, no one spoke of HIV/AIDS; no one was HIV-positive.

The average life expectancy in Zambia is 42 (up from 37 a few years ago). In the United States, 78.

There was a young man, L., aged 26. He had been a teacher. We talked a lot my first two days at "Mother Teresa" and planned to put a letter together for his 7 year-old daughter. On day 3 he seemed to have deteriorated rapidly overnight. He no longer spoke and vomited blood, bile, water. I left early that day to hold babies- he died in the afternoon. That same evening a man nearby- S., with a beautiful, glowing smile died too. We didn't talk much, but I had spent time with him. The next morning when I arrived I found out the news and decided to accompany the bodies to the mortuary. I was glad to see their faces one last time, to say goodbye.

In a van packed with L., S. and some assistants to carry them, as well as people with hospital appointments, we set off. First we stopped at a police station. This procedure was common and quick, and the forms stating cause of death were soon stamped and signed.

At the hospital we pulled up to an unmarked room. There were drunk and somber people milling about and two waiting bodies already inside the room. We moved L. and S. inside and waited. Once the room was full a doctor was summoned to confirm the deceased. Then we moved the bodies down to one of the several mortuary rooms.

L. and S., not large, were hard to lift and the assistants struggled to push their limp bodies onto long, high shelves.

I stood alone in the ice cold tomb and said a secular prayer. The room was the size of a large classroom, rectangular and sparse, long rows of stacked shelves ran along the walls. There were about 40 adult bodies and 15 baby and toddler-sized bodies mixed in. All of the bodies were wrapped in sheets, feet and hands sticking out, sometimes a torso bare to the cold.

A week later I spent some time having a one-way conversation with a man who was "active", actively dying. He listened to me and I tried to listen to his eyes and small movements. He managed to only say a few words to me. I leaned in, guilty at his effort: "Going. To. Die... I am... going to... die." Those were his last words and he died a few hours later.