My mon, Claudia, wrote me tonight. They are coming back from Angal for Christmas, I guess sometimes they are very tempted to say “to stay forever”. Of course they won’t stay far from Africa for more than a few months, they just can’t, possibly because here - from many points of view - is even worse. Here women are cut into bits, killers become TV stars and children are not just abandoned before hospitals, they are thrown directly into trash bins. Rubbish. It is a harsh letter, but it seems to me that some things need to be shared

Dear Piero,

Our time in Angal is getting to end soon. We have already sent you and the Friends of Angal a brief report on the activities at the hospital, I would now like share with you all some events, which relate more closely to Angal people, about life at the village, the mentality of Alùr, our relationship with them.

Some things have happened that disturbed us deeply and which have made this period one of the most difficult for us.

A few steps out the Hospital some nights ago, a group of people armed with sticks killed a young thief who had long annoyed the village and who had become the shame of his family. Around this fact a wall of silence has grown, which left no space to throw light on this heinous settling accounts. No one has seen but many have seen, nobody knows, and everyone knows. This is the law that must be dealt with within the clan.

Every time I meet someone along the street who wants to shake my hand, I wonder if that hand, a few nights ago, was grabbing a stick. The day after life was going on as nothing had happened… but yet other things were on their way

Abandoned on the concrete floor of the little kitchen behind the women’s ward, one morning we found a baby who had just been born, with the umbilical cord ripped out. We know his mother is Oroci, a poor mad woman who lives around here, with no home, and who won’t accept any help. She was seen walking around the hospital some days ago.

Only Selsa, the midwife, took this child to heart and placed him in a corner of the delivery room (here there is no nursery), where Francesca and I came one after the other to feed and take care of him. He lived 10 days.

And then the children being born one after the other, one of them desperately seeking to survive attached to the oxygen mask, two out of four siblings died in a children ward which badly needs to be renovated and equipped with new beds… what a nightmare!

We decided to baptize him on Nov 15^th in the afternoon… we would have called him Luke, as the Saint protector of the hospital… bu instead at 2 pm I had just entered the delivery room with another bottle of milk and the nurse on duty was extremely offhand and just told me: “Ethò - (he’s dead!) - I have not noticed it because I was very busy“. And so nobody had noticed him dieing, nobody had seen him being born, this child with no name, perhaps the son of Oroci, the mad of the village.

He had lived 10 days between the indifference of everyone, he was accompanied to the cemetery by a crowd of mothers, hospital workers, nurses with more and more people joining along the way, the people of the village. I didn’t know whether should I laugh or cry. It was noon, the sun was shining fiercely and the workers who had dug the pit were sweating hard, children who had just finished school were throwing bougainvillea flowers… for a child who had not aroused the mercy of anyone before.

But more thing were about to come, the death of Kevina, consumed by AIDS and Kolbert, the worst kwashorkor I have ever seen, he seemed inflated like a balloon, with his skin completely ruined, and that of Nema, 10 years old, overwhelmed by a septicaemia started from cuts (tea-tea) made by the sorcerer on her long arms and legs.

Fortunately there is Consolata, (that’s her name!), who is slowly emerging from kwashorkor, she started to eat again and play, which is an unequivocal sign of recovery.

And then there’s Ali, a concentration of misfortunes, including a very bad temper, who is making himself unwelcome among his people, to whom we were able to procure a hut, securing food and somebody to look after him; a dramatic change from when he lived neglected and poorly supported by his clan.

And there’s Celestino, the old vagabond, who lived sometime under the roof at the hospital, sometime outside some hut, who came to grab something to eat every day at the nutrition unit. We built for him a small hut in a beautiful place, on the hill behind the hospital, from where you can admire the vast savannah and you can see - very far - the Nile. From there his independent spirit ranges. I went up there and a wonderful surprise was awaiting me, he has a neighbor now, a poor man like him and equally ill, but he helps Celestino and prepares food for him when he is down.

It is among the poorest that you discover the most authentic solidarity.

It is for them that, despite everything, we will continue to return.

Mama Klaùdia