Well, I can still see my breath in my house, but it is no longer painful! Spring looks like it may come early this year, but you never know what is around the corner. The BBC is still calling for snow. We shall see. In the meantime, over 1000 people have died as a result of the coldest winter on record in Afghanistan, and over 300,000 livestock have died, with as of yet unknown repercussions. Here are a couple of links to download video of this Afghan winter.
Last week, a friend, "F", who runs a kindergarten here called and asked me to see a couple of siblings of one of her students (ages 3 and 1.5). She said that their hands and feet were black and swollen from frostbite and one had a blister that was open. My heart froze, and the chill ran through my entire body as I thought of having to take small children to the hospital to have their fingers and toes cut off. I gathered all I thought I would need to try to thaw them out, along with some ibuprofen and codeine for the pain. As soon as I walked into the room, I could tell it was an extremely poor family. They had next to nothing. And there is a certain smell that a room picks up with the family is poor. I can't describe it. I call it the smell of poverty. It is the same smell that was in the orphanage I worked in in China. It is a smell that I am becoming more and more familiar with.
F brought them some cushions to sleep on and a blanket and some coal for heat. I brought a thermos of warm water to thaw out the children (it takes fuel to heat water and I was afraid that they wouldn't even have that.)
I looked at their little hands and feet. They were black, and they were icy, but they didn't seem as bad as they had been described. F said that they weren't as bad as when she had seen them earlier. So, I gave them both some medicine, and placed their hands and feet int he warm water. I also took out a bar of soap to wash them (some of the black was simply dirt). As we waited for them to thaw, I passed out gummy bears to all of the children (lost count when the whole family was in the room), and we sang children's songs to them in both English and Dari, and told stories. When the two that I was treating started to cry, I went to plan B and brought out the beanie babies I had brought them. They really enjoyed that too.
It takes a long time to thaw frozen body parts, so as we continued to wait, I went around the room to feel everyone else's toes and fingers...There were at least 6 children and 4 adults in the room (the size of an American bathroom!), and not a single one of them had a pair of socks...need i remind you that the average temperature during the day in the month of January did not get above the teens? It was too late to address that issue, but the next day, we sent them all socks and gloves. We also reinforced that once the children's fingers and toes were thawed, they had to keep them warm, or it would be even worse, and they would lose them.
In the Afghan culture you are not supposed to say anything bad may or will happen. They think it will cause it to happen, and if they do say it, they preface it with KhudA nakuna (God forbid!) But I have found that they simply will not follow my instructions unless I scare them into it. So, I told them that if their hands froze again, they could get infected and would lose them and if they weren't cut off in time, they could die. Harsh, but true. I can only hope they listened. When we left, the little fingers and toes were warm and pink. God was smiling on those children that night. I have no other explanation.
Today, as I was walking to the office, I GOT HOT! I couldn't believe it! The sun was shining and I got hot! There is hope.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
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