27th Birthday Invitation Message

Diary Diary Diary

Khartoum, Sudan
July 19, 2009.

I get up at six thirty this morning just for the sake of hanging on to
breakfast from just looking at the river crossing Edgar as yesterday, but
Sauro, the very nice bolognese that comes close to sharing
these moments of peace. We talk softly without realizing it. Then off
: Kalipha, the friendly driver attempatello
(hear that from the pulpit, will my younger readers!)
charge me to cross the border and 16 km to Mayo. There is almost
solution of continuity between Mayo and Soba because this huge underground
belt made of poor villages and refugee camps gripping
Khartoum as a straitjacket. We leave the paved road in a couple of points,
thrown onto the ground bare and dry, through which pass the binary
train: they go out, up and down like a dune, which is one entering
customs in Khartoum. Forgive me of those in the know
these things all the trucks and containers from Port Sudan and Uganda are direct
brought here, in this piece of wilderness to be examined by the financiers
Sudanese comunquue is called the body or officer
here. We pass in the middle of lines of trucks, long stretches of container
and wagons, a quantity of military industry in a blue uniform, then for
emerge on a large paved road that goes to Mayo.
orient me well enough by now and know when it's time to dive into the market at that time
is full of people, donkey carts, scraping,
coaches from all other districts, get to a crawl in that
'jam in which all curses, the sound clacosn,
whip the ass, and then turn around the hole at a time dellla
track that marks the border between Mayo and the empty fields all around.

At 8 I was accurate at the clinic: are sketched to connect the PC to the network
and then I started to visit. Twenty children in three hours, a good media
taking account of the translation: now a few words of Arabic and chew the
"hal, Humm, COHA, Nesle" have no mysteries for me. Here, as in Italy
, those are always the reasons why we wear them, diarrhea,
fever, cough, runny nose. Children are all equal: the smaller
sitting in arm to the mothers who look at me
amazed and try to grab the glasses: the biggest, but fearful that they dare not
protest and those who just can not make it and burst into tears
wriggling like madmen. I will try to change the system in Prato and at least
those in which I must not make a true balance in health
leave their parents' lap, who knows, it works with small Kawaja.
These however are certainly much more respectful, and bear the
fear and pain as it is not normal to us. Culture? Accustomed to the privations
? Fear, simply? I do not know, but I see the difference.

Of course today it looked like the festival of malnutrition, with all collectors
of malnourished children coming to exhibit their best products
. A kind of circus of horrors, I'll have seen six or seven
, the most serious of which have made him take the exams after I put in
ward: I did not dare put them in contact with others outside.
are children who seem to be made of crystal, it is difficult to understand how
may be alive: to look sullen, her eyes huge in
blondish hair, giving the feeling of dust in touch:
dug out the bodies, those little arms you could surround them with a fist
. Fall ill with anything, they seem to wait for the bacterium that
give them the coup de grace, are attached to life as a
a windshield suction cup old under a shower, and you like to see it slip away
slowly, inexorably. And most are irritable, querulous
, everything disturbs them, puts them in a crisis. This is why I put them on
one hand, in a quiet and sheltered, away from other children
, stubbornly refusing to believe that out of here
are thrown to bacteria and infections, sick brothers, sitting in the mud for hours
. I give them antibiotics, vitamins, zinc, preclude
hope that we can make it, that by some miracle someone will give him to eat and
follow our heartfelt advice that the Health Promoter
able to reverse the descent slow and inexorable that sucker
slipping.

Finite visits continue to work on my final report, and meanwhile
give a frightened look to the mail folder of Pediatrics: 1500
mail to read. This is the online forum of pediatrics, in which a couple of thousand pediatricians
crazy like me
discuss their clinical cases. I get a pair of hundreds of emails a week and I soon
store it ... Check if any links

responded to my request for help for the child that brought me safe to visit

yesterday in a tent, a case by the court of miracles: a boy of 11 years
who was well until 7, when the palms of
hands and soles of feet began to have strange thickening of the skin. Now is
become a sort of monster, the skin is cracked like the earth
under the sun, walking hurt. I took photos, we'll see what I say
colleagues. Elisa

I call and ask me advice in the hospital, when I finished
. Salaam I am still going over the account of how different are the
Salaam Center and Mayo, the two sides of the same thing, but two very different faces
. This is a UFO spaceship, surrounded by nature, my
a trench from the First World War. And the work is different:
hospital here in the cool, the cafe, canteen, let me
trying to spit blood boil as little as possible and arrange for dovendomi
lunch. Yet all the internationals when they have a day off
ask to come and spend some time with us, and not for the thrill of horror
. And 'who are conscious of doing a job here
very similar to what they do in Italy: it is rightly so, that's what
Emergency want the highest quality, but also means that you do not have a real contact with the
that is out there. I, however, between
obvious inconvenience caused to the structure, which is still the maximum possible in that situation but
is not a clinic on the border of Switzerland's glaciers, including the
families with which they are in touch with the bets on the field, I live a very strong experience
.

as he walked back home to meet Angela. Angela, maybe there
I have spoken, is a retired nurse, as there were those of a
time sergeants of iron able to shake all the ancillary
primary. E 'Voluntary Emergency for a lifetime, and has long been the
Salaam: here is a little' factotum, follows the kitchen and the laundry,
oversees a bit 'of everything. It 's a special person, like so many here:
gruff, but able to soften with nothing. Skip
alone much of his time, tends to shy restaresene, but agrees to open
if someone approaches her. He tells me
two children that he has special affection in the hospital,
playing for months, trying to help. One of them did not have it done, and she vowed not to bind more
to a hospitalized child: I can understand it. The
I asked them to tell these stories in detail: I promised to Isa

back with some stories about children that could be useful in

ago Emergency meetings in schools.
I promised on Friday to address the issue now behind

the mess of the day: I will certainly. Inshallah, of course.