A Thousand Sisters_ My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman - Lisa Shannon [69]
“Complications from cutting something here,” she says, pointing to his throat.
“His tonsils?” I ask.
“It’s a traditional treatment for a cold,” she says. “The action provoked a chest infection.”
“It’s serious?”
“The baby will die without treatment,” she tells us. “Severe malnutrition, an infection in the chest. He will need to stay here.”
Mama is exasperated. Maurice translates, “She wonders what will be the life of the other children at home if she must stay here.”
I ask, “You still live with your husband, right?”
“Yes.”
“Can he help?”
The look on her face says “no chance.” She shakes her head. “My husband is jobless. I am the one who is working.”
“Maybe the husband can stay here with the baby?” I ask. “She can stay at home.”
She looks at me blankly, as though I’m speaking the absurd.
“It is very difficult,” Maurice says.
“It is just not done, okay,” I say. “She understands if she doesn’t stay here, the baby will die.”
Now I am staring at the real Mama Congo, facing yet another Sophie’s Choice. I watch her make the calculation: If I let this one go, the other seven will live.
Dr. Roger adds, “He’s very fragile, Lisa. The level of treatment he needs . . .”
“How long does he need to stay?” I ask.
“Seven days of treatment.” Dr. Roger responds.
“Do you have friends or neighbors who can help?” I ask Mama.
“They can take care of the babies. But no one will accept to feed them.”
“We’ll buy the food,” I tell her. “What do you need? Rice? Beans?”
She gives us the list: Beans, rice, fu-fu, salt, onion, lamp oil, vegetables.
Dr. Roger says something to Mama two or three times, something about aksanti (Swahili for thank you).
She smiles and quietly says, “Merci.”
WE DASH ACROSS TOWN to the local market, where we pick up twenty-five-pound bags of beans and rice; piles of cauliflower, onions, potatoes; flats of eggs; bananas; and maize fu-fu (“the right kind for ones who suffer from malnutrition”). Neighbors help us carry the food back to Bonjour’s home. I’ve tried to buy enough so that I can bribe the neighbor women to watch the children in exchange for food.
While we’re in the neighborhood, we cram in some quick house shopping. Now all the locals are happy to show us their houses. They quote us prices US$2,000 and up, despite our repeated attempts to clarify that US$1,500 is the budget. There is no more money.
Finally, we look at land instead. We find a modest plot, about the size of a plot in Portland, for US$600. We ask the local real estate mogul to estimate the costs of constructing a simple wooden house with a cement floor, finished stone-stuffed walls, and a tin roof—built quickly. We ask him to show us a house he can build for US$900. He says it can be done in ten days.
It looks like it’s doable.
I turn to one of the locals and ask, “Do you think it’s a good deal?”
“Ask this guy to think about all of the material, write it down, and bring it in the morning,” the local advises.
We do.
“The woman will be in the hospital for two months,” I emphasize. “It needs to happen quickly, but it is more important that it happen exactly as we’ve talked about and that we stick to the price. And that Generose has the legal document to the property—that it is hers. We can’t have anyone come back and say, ‘Oh. Sorry. It’s going to cost you more.’”
“Stone on the ground,” the developer says.
“No—cement! She’s on crutches.” I laugh and say, “People who deal with real estate in the United States and the Congo are the same.”
Sure enough, when we meet him in the morning, he brings a long, itemized list, with the new “after calculation price” of US$2,300.
“Ah. Then we have no deal.”
“The problem is they saw only a muzungu,” Maurice says.
Maurice offers to manage the construction, in cooperation with Generose’s brother, for the stated budget.
BACK AT PANZI, Bonjour rests in his white dress