The Fires: a glimpse into real life in Zambia

After our interesting morning tour of the hospital campus, we went back out this afternoon to explore the village beyond the Hospital complex. Here we visited a place called 'The Fires,' there are no hotels in Macha, so this is where the family a hospitalized person will stay until they are able to take their family member back home. This is also where many women come when they are 8 and 1/2 months pregnant, to wait for the baby to be born near a hospital. One woman we spoke to with a very young baby had traveled 100 km (possibly more) to stay near the hospital until her baby was born, and then she was staying there until she was ready for the very long walk home.

Women at the Fires, note the swollen bellies of the pregnant women.

The area is called the fires because there are many small fires burning throughout the day as women from each family are making food for those waiting and for their family member in the hospital. I've included some pictures that we took when we visited there below. You can see that people are out in the open, but that there are roofs in some areas, and buildings as well. This is not official hospital grounds, so the water may not be safe (although there is a well nearby) and no one is caring for sanitation in this area, thus the conditions are not good, but, Dr. Thuma reminded us, are not that different than what these women are used to at home.

Mitchell with women from the fires.

Emily showing the women their pictures

Nevertheless, the people there were all very friendly, and all greeted us as we walked by. There were several women braiding other women's hair into a variety of interesting patterns. We stopped to look and took some pictures, which we showed to the women. Imagine living without a single mirror in your town, with muddy water, and with no nice shiny glass windows (much less not looking at yourself in the mirror 5 times before you leave the house in the morning). This is reality for these women who have very little idea of what they look like, so seeing a picture of themselves is one of the very few times they would have seen their own face! They LOVED it! Everyone wanted their pictures taken and then immediately to see the picture. Some of the students even took videos (with their cameras) of the women and showed them- the women were amazed, and we had a really fun time.

Me showing a picture to a women at The Fires (in the back you can see the fire)

 On the way home we walked past the well and saw women getting their water for the day, 20 gallon buckets full of water easily hoisted to their heads and carried back to the village. The lives of the women are very labor intensive in the villages. The lives of little boys are more filled with soccer, Evan and Michael decided to help them out with that!

Evan and Michael playing soccer with some boys.