Mufindi March 2010

One year has passed since I wrote my previous report. I had planned to write my report last
autumn but I travelled three times from Tanzania to Finland. First I had my annual leave in
July-August and I took Vicky and Geoff Fox to Finland. We visited The Kuhmo Chamber
Music Festival and enjoyed ten concerts in two and a half days. In October I travelled back to
Finland to see my father who got ill and finally I attended my father´s funeral in January. My
father was 97 years old when he passed away. My mother is still alive and turned 90 in
February.
In September 2009 we were lucky to get
Annie Gibbs, a physiotherapist specialized in
children, to work with us for one month.
Hezron who has cerebral palsy lives in the
orphanage. Annie worked with him and
taught a house mother, Yasinta, to continue
with his daily exercise. Annie brought a
wheelchair to Hezron from the UK. It was
quite touching that Hezron, who is a HIV-
positive orphan, a handicapped child and the
poorest of the poor in African society got
such personal daily care from an experienced
professional like Annie. Annie helped many
handicapped people in the villages as well and we provided walking frames and special shoes
for people.

I have continued my monthly clinic days at

Mdabulo, Ibwanzi and Luhunga clinics. In
Iyegeya I see sick people in the simple
church and usually more than a hundred
people come to ask for help there. In
Ikaning´ombe I see patients in the village
office. I pay home visits together with Jenny
Peck and Susan Vinton. On my way to
Mufindi I buy drugs at Makambako
pharmacy, which is a bulk store where I can
buy all drugs at a cheap price. For instance,
a tin of 1000 paracetamol tablets for fever
and pain only costs about $6.

I Mufindi I have quite a substantial mini

pharmacy in the room where I sleep and off
I go with many different bags, one
containing all drugs needed to treat diarrhea,
one having skin ointments, one antibiotics
for children and another antibiotics for
adults etc. I had to expand my drug store to
include drugs for mental disorders, peptic
ulcer, strong pain of cancer patients, drugs
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 to treat the heart insufficiency of elderly
people and so on. I am privileged to have
good colleagues both in Tanzania and
Finland who I can consult whenever I feel
the need to do so. What a blessing it is to
have mobile phones working even in
remote areas where I can consult my fellow
dermatologists and psychiatrists in Finland
or a surgeon working in Iringa.

In Finland there are many active women

knitting nice blankets and clothes for babies
and I get a large number of parcels every
year. I had great fun one day when I collected different items from different parcels making
the colours of all articles match each other. From now on babies born in Mdabulo, Ibwanzi
and Luhunga clinic will get a set including a warm blanket, sweater, cap and socks. This time
I took these baby clothing sets to almost fifty
babies who will be born now that it starts to
be cold.

In Mufindi we can get high altitude

excercise when visiting people in their
homes. We have always village leaders or
secondary school students escorting us and
they know the way across maize fields into
the houses where we should go. We carry
along drugs, dressing material to treat
wounds and sometimes blankets and clothes
for people who need help. We are always
warmly welcomed to go into the simple houses but
we sometimes have to come out with tears in our
eyes due to smoke because the fireplace is usually
in the middle of the house.

In most cases the children can stay at home with

their parents or grandparents but the families may
need some help to get school uniforms, beddings or
food. In this picture six year old Margaret is peeling
potatoes with a big knife. She was staying with her
old grandmother, who took care of six
grandchildren and who did not have enough food or
money to feed the children properly. Margaret had a
swollen face and legs, the condition called
kwashiorkor caused by lack of food containing
nutritious protein. The girl was taken into the
orphanage and she has recovered from malnutrition
even though she is going to need an operation
because she has some other health problems.
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 One day we went to visit Peter and his
grandfather. Peter`s grandmother had died
a few months ago and his grandfather took
care of seven grandchildren. Peter is an
HIV-positive boy getting AIDS-
medication. The oldest grandchild is a 14-
year -old girl who is able to cook food.
Grandfather said that he will manage to
keep all seven grandchildren in his house
if he only gets school uniforms for the
children. I do appreciate these poor
grandmothers and grandfathers who do
their best to keep the family members
together.

I have already paid twelve visits to Mufindi. We sometimes see extremely poor houses and
difficult life situations, severely sick people and many different kinds of suffering but still
this work is so rewarding that we come back from the village visits happy and ready to
continue the next day. People are so nice and they give us the energy to continue to work; it
is the mystery of meeting poor and sick people in their homes. I am thankful for this
possibility to be a member of this team which is working in Mufindi.