People die here

I know, people die everywhere, but, people die here a lot. But the thing is, it's happening SO often, that my reaction to hearing about a death or a funeral is becoming numbed.

Just this morning, when I asked my teaching assistant how her weekend was, she said, "Oh it was pretty good, except I had to go to a funeral of a friend."

She only told me a week ago that a friend of hers died, so I asked if it was the same friend, "no, another one."

A few weeks ago, she told us the story of how two boys (aged 20, 22) had found a gun on their street, and were playing with it. They thought it was not loaded. Then, the one pretended to execute the other, and "oops" shot him through the head, because the gun WAS loaded.

Before that, she went to the funeral of her cousin.

And this is only since coming back from Christmas break.

Another thing is that infant mortality is REALLY high here. In fact, it seems that all of the locals who work at school and have been pregnant in the last two years, have lost their babies- either by miscarriage somewhere between 3 and 6 months, or by stillbirth. They even started having a bit of a conspiracy theory about how it was something AT SCHOOL that was causing this to happen- something in the food, or in the water. Needless to say, I got pretty freaked out.

Before Christmas, one of the gardeners that we know was gone for a few days because his brother was shot and killed. His response to Joel's words of condolence? "This is Angola. This happens here."

We have collected money on several occasions through the front office- once because one of the gardeners or maintenance guy's one year old died. I forget the reason other times, but I'm pretty sure it was to help out with someone else's funeral.

The thing is though, when you get an email or hear a story EVERY week, that someone else has died, you really do start to get numb to it- which is sad, because when you think about it, you think, the person who died left behind a mother, a father, siblings, friends, perhaps children, perhaps a wife or a husband. And that makes it real, and devastating. But, then, when you hear someone who is experiencing it, tell you about it, without much emotion, you're left wondering again, if being kind of numb about it, isn't kind of normal. Maybe even the locals are so used to having people die that they are numb to it as well?

Someone who lives in town near a maternity hospital (the GOOD one, so they say) says that she sees at least one big body and one little body carried out every day. Every day.

At the beginning of the year, we heard a story about a guy who was supposed to be teaching tennis after school. He had just had to bury his 2 week old son, because he got sick, and needed oxygen. The hospital they were at didn't have oxygen. So then sent an ambulance to pick him up to take him to another hospital that did have oxygen. But they sent the ambulance without the oxygen, and the baby died in transport.

So you start to get numb to it, unless you think about it. And of course, there is a privileged voice inside me that reacts right away with, "Why don't they take better care of themselves?" For instance, one of our TAs is pregnant right now. About a month ago (when she was maybe 5 or 6 months) she went to the doctor, and the doctor told her that she is leaking fluids. She came back to school the next day, and said that she would continue to work for another two weeks, until the end of the month! Of course, in America, Australia, lots of other places- she would just be put on immediate bedrest, no questions. But here, they let her work two more weeks, as she slowly leaks away her baby's fluids. The sad thing is, she already lost one baby (stillborn) a few years ago. God forbid it happen twice!

Anyway, so, in her instance, I don't know what it is that stops her from taking the time off right away. I think it is a combination of ignorance and needing the money (but she and her husband are better off than the average Angolan).

I was talking to my co-worker today about this, and she agrees that in a lot of these cases it is some combination of lack of medical care, ignorance, lack of nutrition and desperation.

The only thing that also happens often, is that people die in car crashes, but this, we agreed is their own fault. People drive SO CRAZY and SO STUPID here, it's a wonder there are any people left at all. The way people drive here makes all the drives in Latvia and China seem like top of the line safe drivers. Of course, this is also why the school has to train and fire a lot of drivers- because none of us will accept drivers driving like a local, so they have to be taught to drive safely.

Now, don't worry- if and when *I* or Joel needs medical care, we get it at the clinic that the locals can't afford. At the clinic where they will tell you pretty honestly that they don't have the doctors or the equipment to take care of you- and they will send you to South Africa right away. And there are other expat teachers who have been pregnant here, carried to term, and are now living here with the babies, safe and sound. Some people say that they would never live here with babies- but, these are people who don't have kids. Needless to say, if I ever feel that I am putting myself or my child at risk by being here, we will leave, no question. But for now, we're here, and planning on starting a family while we're here (don't forget, we plan on being here for two more years most likely).

So, there you go. Death. Something to get used to?