Tuesday, february 2nd, Bodil, Gabriel, Eskil, Solo and I drove to Kwabenakuma, a little village which got clean drinking water and a clinic thanks to the Heart for Children foundation.
Only a few years ago, this unreached village had no clean water. Many pregnant women died due to the lack of health care, also babies died after being born on the mud floor of their hut, or alongside the road to the clinic in Nsoatre, 15 km away. When the women were about to give birth, they started walking the 15 km to Nsoatre. I think we can all image how hard. that will be.
On our way to Kwabenakuma, Solo told us that one day when he drove out that way, he saw a lady giving birth alongside the road. He stopped, gave her some blankets he had in the car and quickly drove back to Nsoatre to get a nurse and bring her back to the lady. After the baby was born they brought mother and baby to the clinic in Nsoatre. Fortunately both mother and baby survived, but often that wasn’t the case :-(
But now, Kwabenakuma has a clinic with live-in nurse. Pregnant women go to regular controls at the clinic and also give birth at the clinic, under clean and hygienic circumstances.
picture of the opening of the clinic in 2011.
They also have a water pump that gives the whole village and surrounding villages clean drinking water.
The road (or path as most might call it) to Kwabenakuma is long and dry now, but at least we can get there by car. In rain season the amount of water on the road is often too much to drive there.
In Kwabenakuma Bodil bought some fabric on the marked and after that we walked around the village. We had brought some baby clothes, which we handed out to the mothers we saw with babies.
On our way back we stopped at a coco farm. The coco is a big yellow-ish fruit. When you open the fruit, there’s a lot of coco beans on the inside covered in the fruit meat. This is delicious to chew off. The beans are dried to make chocolate of it. The fruit meat doesn’t taste anything like chocolate, it’s the dried beans that have a strong bitter cacao taste if you open them.
The owner of the farm gave us many coco’s to eat.
At the beginning of the coco farm there is a water pump. Just when we were on our way back to the car, 2 ladies came to the pump to get water.
Gabriel and Eskil pumped up the water for the women.
The young woman had a baby on her back, so we gave her some babyclothes. The older lady had a hurting tooth and her mouth was all swollen.
Fortunately, Bodil had some pain killers in her bag, so she gave the lady a bottle of water and some pain killers. We hope it at least helped her to get through the day and night, and maybe get to a dental clinic in town.
It reminded us to always have pain killers with us on the way!
It was quite a long drive to Kwabenakuma and back (since you really can’t drive that fast), I can’t even imagine having to walk that every day to go to school, go to the marked to sell your fruits or vegetables or to go to the doctor.
