Dispatches From the Edge_ A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival - Anderson Cooper [34]
“We saw it coming in February,” Dr. Tectonidis tells me later. “We sent out a press release saying, ‘Watch out! We need free food and free health care.’” February. Now it’s July. Help is just starting to arrive.
“Maybe it was the tsunami,” I say. “People unable to focus on more than one crisis at a time.”
Dr. Tectonidis shakes his head. “It’s always like this,” he says. “The less politically important a country is, the longer the delay.”
According to Dr. Tectonidis, the UN wants to raise a billion dollars for a reserve fund. That way, every time there’s an emergency they don’t have to go around begging, and exaggerating the scope of the problem. That’s basically what they do now. The figure they’ve been using, the one I heard on the BBC—“3.5 million Nigeriens at risk of starvation”—is carefully crafted and somewhat misleading. You’ve got to read the fine print. “At risk”—that’s the key phrase. What exactly does it mean? We are all at risk in some way, aren’t we? If no aid arrives, if no attention is paid, 3.5 million Nigeriens could starve. True. But it doesn’t work like that. Kids start dying, then some reporters pay attention—usually freelancers, men and women looking to make a name for themselves. They arrive first. Their pictures motivate someone from a network to come and do the story. Then more aid arrives. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s what the market will bear. The problem for Niger is that not enough people are dying. A few thousand children isn’t enough.
RASHIDU IS LAID out on a plastic mattress. In the intensive care ward, there are no sheets on the beds. It’s too messy for that. The room is actually a tent several hundred feet long, with a single row of beds on either side. The mothers share the mattresses with their children.
When a child is severely malnourished, his body breaks down, devouring itself. The fat goes first, then the muscles, then the organs: the liver, intestines, kidneys. The heart shrinks, the pulse slows, blood pressure drops. Diarrhea dehydrates, the immune system collapses. Starvation doesn’t kill the child; infections and disease do. No layer of fat between flesh and bone, nothing to pad the pain. His little heart simply gives up.
I’m standing by Rashidu’s bed, watching doctors work to save his life. I feel useless, a bystander, doing nothing to help. I check on the cameraman, make sure he’s getting tight shots of Rashidu’s scared face. I think about how to incorporate Rashidu into the story I’m writing in my head, the one I need to get on air in a few hours. It all feels so stupid. More than stupid—it feels inappropriate. I’m a shark picking up the scent of blood. This little boy is dying, and there’s nothing I’m doing to help, just taking pictures of his misery. I hold his tiny foot in my hand. It’s swollen with fluid.
“It’s water in the tissues,” Dr. Tectonidis explains. “Sometimes it’s only in the feet, sometimes the hands, sometimes even around the eyes. It’s called kwashiorkor, and it was first discovered in Africa in the twenties, but it’s been seen everywhere since, even in the concentration camps in World War Two.
“I think we’ll get him,” Dr. Tectonidis says, inserting a tube into Rashidu’s nose. “We’ll give him fluid, give him sugar right away. Just a little, because their heart overwhelms quickly. And we’ll give him antibiotics. And milk. If he makes it through the first day or two, you’ll see him running around in another week.”
Rashidu is crying, but he has no tears. In his eyes there is only terror. He lies on his back, arms outstretched. He is naked and shivering. He looks like a tiny, wrinkled old man. When he cries, it sounds like a baby bird being smothered.
I ask the cameraman to make sure he’s getting the audio levels right.
“JOURNALIST, YES? HELLO.”
The voice was young, enthusiastic. I couldn’t see who was talking, however, because