Global Poverty Monitor

The next room was the worst thing I’ve seen on this whole study trip. There were four women in the room – three on beds, and one on a mattress on the floor. I don’t really know how to describe these women. It was the look in their eyes that affected me the most. The first woman we saw was lying on her back with a sheet covering her lower body and nothing covering her upper body at all. Her eyes were open, but she was just staring straight up to the ceiling, and didn’t seem to register that we were there at all.

This was the malaria wing, but the guide told us that these women were likely to have HIV/AIDS as well. Serena gently stroked this woman’s face, yet again this did not register on her face. We moved on to the next woman, who was lying on her stomach and propping herself up on her forearms. She had a small baby lying next to her, that she seemed to take no notice of. While the nurse was explaining her condition, I looked back at the first woman, and found that her eyes had changed focus and she was looking at me. It instantly reminded me of a photo in my baby album of Aunty Kitty, very ill, sitting in a chair and me sitting her to her, about 18 months or 2 years old. I am smiling for the camera, but Aunty Kitty is just looking at me. Mum told me that she used to like me to sit near her, and that she liked to look at me, since by then she could not speak. The fact that this woman brought back that memory really freaked me out.

I wasn’t listening to what the nurse was saying anyway, so I moved away from the group and after looking through my bag, found four bracelets that I had brought. I went to the second woman and offered it to her, and then traced my finger around her wrist and pointed to my watch and bracelet. I find it much easier to communicate in silence with gestures sometimes, especially in delicate situations like this, rather than trying to use my small Portuguese vocabulary or getting someone to translate. She understood what I was saying, and tried to put it on herself, but needed help, so I undid the clasp and put it on her wrist. I then went back to the first woman and showed her the bracelet. She looked at it and looked at me, but made no move to take it. I put it on the bed next to her, but then Serena came up behind me and said I would need to put it in her hand, so I undid it and put it on her wrist like I had done with the first woman. Again she just looked at me with a wide-eyed stare.