Living With the Questions

Living in two worlds can't help but pose many questions

I have been spending a lot of time at the Cancer Center in Ottawa the past few months as TEMBO Co-Founder, Marian, has been undergoing six months of chemotherapy for breast cancer, and now is in the first of five weeks of radiation.  Marian is being treated in the new Cancer Center on the property of the Queensway Carleton Hospital. It is an incredible place in every way – the services, the technology, the beautiful location, and the exemplary care.  We’ve sat in many different patient care rooms talking with some of the most expert health care workers in the world.

There have been days when Marian and I have looked around at these rooms as we waited for the Medical and Radiation Oncologists to arrive. State of the art would be an apt description. We agree that any one of these meeting/examination rooms – with individual computers, porcelain sinks with running water, overhead lights, panels of outlets to plug in any number of medical devices, chairs, an electronic examination table, and disposable gloves, masks, sheets, and much more – conceivably could have cost more than the entire clinic in Longido. Complain as we often do about the Ontario Health Care System, we are so fortunate to live in Canada. We’re blessed and I feel nothing but gratitude.

The lab in the Longido Clinic

The medical clinic in Longido is probably no different than clinics in other rural villages the size of Longido, Tanzania. The town itself has about 8,000 people who are scattered over many kilometers, and the 3500 or more people who make up Kimokouwa are 13 kilometers down the road. The buildings themselves were built many years ago and are showing signs of years of use and being exposed to the harsh environment. There is no money to repair them. The few small rooms that make up the clinic contain furnishings and supplies donated by other countries that are upgrading their hospitals or replacing what they have. I have been to the clinic many times with staff or villagers in need of care. I have also been the recipient of medical care myself as an out-patient. The few clinicians and care givers the clinic can afford to hire do good work with the limited resources they have. They are able to treat minor complaints like malaria and respiratory problems and refer people for surgery or other treatments to Arusha, 100 kilometers away. Nothing is free - except a consultation for children under 10 years of age - and many people die from preventable and treatable diseases.

I can’t help but see the glaring differences between medical structures and services in Canada and those in a part of Africa I have come to know well. Some days I don’t know what to do with all that I see and feel because of the opportunity I have been given to experience two very different worlds. Many times people have commented to me that it must be very difficult returning to Canada after I have spent weeks in Tanzania. It is. My country of birth is close to the top of the Development Index and Tanzania is near the bottom. It’s not just related to health care and services – that was just the catalyst today. It’s related to almost every aspect of life beginning with the most basic - water.

There are a few things I know:

• Tanzanians, like us, have basic human rights and some of those are not being met.
• Everything costs money.
• Resources are limited.
• Lasting change must happen from within rather than being imposed.
• Feeling guilty is utterly useless and won’t result in anything good.

And I know this, too:

• Change happens slowly and progress is often imperceptible until we look back later.
• Small actions do make a difference.
• Positively changing one person’s life can have far reaching effects for generations to come.
• The gift of empowerment is a very great gift.
• We can't change everything but we can do something, and each of us gets to decide how we will make the world a better place for ourselves and others.

Children delivering a message in Longido

"Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart," said Rilke, a long time ago. "Learn to love the questions themselves." And the questions seem to abound even if they are not in the form of questions. How can it be any other way for someone living in one of the most developed nations in the world? Rilke ends by saying, "One day, without knowing it, you will gradually live on into the answers." I believe this to be true. Thanks for the reminder, Rilke.