Blog
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A typical night in Sudan
December 13, 2009
It was around 4am early Sunday morning when there were whispers outside the staff’s living area. “Victor, Vic, Vic” someone said softly outside Victor’s tent—the staff live in tents and an old shipping container—arousing the Clinic’s pharmacist, Victor. The day before, most of the staff had been in and out of the Clinic at various times. Saturdays aren’t a typical day for operations, but the Clinic is always available for emergencies, and hasn’t ever really closed in the three years since it opened. In the afternoon, the Clinic’s staff met to discuss its current funding and the Clinic’s new HIV/AIDS program, and most of the staff had sat around into the night, laughing and talking as the villagers played drums and practiced for Christmas celebrations.
Victor, accompanied by Abraham, one of the clinic’s nurses, went with the family to the Clinic by flashlight, opened up the pharmacy and pulled out some paracetemol (Tylenol in the United States). A three year-old girl was running a slight fever and had a swollen lymph node. After giving the child’s family the medicine, Abraham instructed them to bring the child back in the afternoon so they could check on the child’s condition. Abraham, who was born in Duk Payuel 35 years before the Clinic was built, was back at the Clinic the next day treating several other children who had come in with various conditions. He casually administers IV fluids, bandages, and a thermometer, yet it’s hard not to take a pause and appreciate the fact that these basic, essential things are here, treating people who came back after surviving a vicious 20-year civil war in Sudan. All in a place so remote that supplies come in on the small dirt airstrip near the Clinic, and traveling by car to the nearest city takes a full day, even under the best conditions.
And so the staff continues on, day after day, and sometimes night after night.
