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May The World Live In Peace |
Soroptomist Award for Dr. Jill SeamanDr Jill Seaman received this award in October 2009. Her response is below: So many greetings and so many thanks from half a world a way! Late one night after clinic, I managed to get email while sitting with a cup of tea in my lovely termite infested mud hut. The geckos were not eating their quota of mosquitos, but the mosquito coil worked well. I got a letter from Dr. Jack Hickel saying that the Soroptomists had chosen to honor our work here, half a world away. My colleague Sjoukje de Wit, a Dutch nurse practitioner, was thrilled. She tells me that the Soroptomists are well known in Holland for their wonderful work. I am still in a daze after hearing this news, and can hardly think of how to say thanks. As a child I heard how hard women work everywhere, but especially in places with poverty. Women, after all, grow most of the world's food, carry most of the world's water, help with chickens and livestock, cook most of the meals eaten, and of course bear all the world's children. I thought all these tasks could be easier and the women could be stronger if women only could chose to have fewer children – and go to school. Less mouths to feed, more time to laugh and play with their kids. I thought perhaps I could help with that if I went to medical school. But, surprisingly, I am doing just the opposite. Here in South Sudan, I found that having children makes you a woman and not having children makes you worthless in the eyes of a society that has a long way to go before women reach equality. And who will care for you? Who will feed you – because of course the food you grow is only on the land organized by a man. I have come to consider a man exemplary if he does not "throw away" his wife because she can not have children. And now, for the last 18 years, every Saturday morning of my life in Sudan I have a class for women to explain female reproduction and help women get pregnant. We have lots of fun. Much to my embarrassment, there are lots of baby Jills running around our compound. Now my hope is that some of these babies will live. For as sure as the sun comes up and goes down, most women will lose many of their children. And who am I to think that fewer children are easier? Especially because no matter how many children a woman has here, there is no guarantee that any of them will live to bear their own children. My speciality is the diagnosis and treatment of kala azar. Kala azar
is a deadly parasitic disease transmitted by a sandfly. It causes fever,
and wasting. It is almost universally fatal unless treated by a toxic
injection given daily for a month. I’ve traveled all over south
Sudan to help organize treatment for kala azar, and visited villages
that are empty because everyone has died. You should see the eyes of
the mothers and fathers as they push their febrile, wasted, sick children
forward in hopes of treatment. Even now our little clinic is overwhelmed
yet again by an outbreak of this deadly disease. Certainly, better,
sandfly-free housing and better nutrition would have decreased the problem,
but treatment is the only way to manage this disease in this setting.
It is interesting that many places I go to help, when sitting talking
to the community they mention their biggest needs: treat our children
for malaria and diarrhea; please we need help with TB and kala azar;
and please let our women be pregnant. Amazing. Slowly change is coming. The kala azar outbreak is as fierce as ever, yet the death rate is decreasing. Mothers bring their children with hope. They even donate blood for their severely malnourished child dying for want of blood. This would never have happened in the past. The South Sudan government sent officials to visit, and asked the World Health Organization to send us medicines. This is really amazing for a place without the least bit of infrastructure. And this week our first woman qualified for community health worker school will leave for her schooling! In order to participate in formal health worker training, students must be able to work in English, and to have some skill at reading and writing. During the war years any basic education was possible only for those who ran far from home, thus only for the boys. Now we have a young woman ready. She will return to work with us when she completes her training. We and the rest of our staff could not be prouder. It will be very interesting to see how the position of this woman changes when she returns from CHW school. Although there have been offers over the years of many cows as a bride price for me (but no way to get them across the ocean to my family--so no deal!), I am still considered a different sort of creature--a woman who is skilled at something other than women's work. And I am valued for my skill and my role in the community, not my childbearing ability. When I first came to Sudan in 1989, many Sudanese had not seen modern devices like mirrors and ball point pens. It was quite acceptable to not wear clothing, since many people had none. There was no cash economy at all. One day while working our male staff mentioned that I should not hire another woman – why? Because women did not work hard. Well that was quite a comment. I said they only did not work as long because they had to go fetch water for the staff and families – and then cook. And I said I was a woman and thought that I worked hard. Oh they stammered, but Dr. Jill, you are, well you are almost a man! What a difference 20 years has made in Sudan! And what a long way we still have to go! But there are things that never change. The mothers still come with pleading eyes every day in hopes for medicines and health for their babies. We send you many thanks, and hopes for sisterhood across the oceans.
CrossCurrents International Institute |
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