Monika Paločková is currently on a mission in Kenya. Photo: archive of the respondentShe works as a doctor on a mission in Africa, but also helps with education, the adoption of children at a distance, the organization of collections or the implementation of projects aimed at greater independence of locals. Monika Paločková also tries to motivate people to help through social networks. He claims that thanks to donations from Slovaks watching their work, great things have already been done in Africa.
In an interview for Forbes.sk, Monika talks about the medical mission, life in Africa, the culture shocks, the curiosities she experiences here, and job satisfaction. "Every day in Africa, a 'miracle happens,'" says the young doctor.
What week are you behind?
Like every single week in recent months, this one has been challenging but beautiful. At our clinic, where we provide healthcare for the second largest slum in Kenya - Mukuru, we managed to put a new laboratory into full operation. Patients will thus have access to examinations for which they would not have the funds in other hospitals.
On Tuesday, we managed to save a child with complicated cerebral malaria. We also received sportswear for our slum children, who will no longer have to play sports (and represent the school in competitions) in school uniforms.
According to Instagram, you also started building a farm for the locals.
It is said that if you want to feed the hungry, teach him to catch fish instead of buying him fish. We hired the so-called "Streetboys" - children from the street who earn money for school fees and learn the craft. On Friday, they got a pizza for their job, they ate it for the first time in their lives. The humble, grateful and happy children were touching.
Is this something you've dreamed of since childhood?
From an early age, I dreamed of helping where there is no help. As a child, I sat on a large couch watching documents about malnourished, HIV-positive orphans in Africa. I didn't understand why the same kids as me have almost nothing, while I have everything I need, even more. I couldn't sleep.
Why do we just sympathetically talk about these topics, but the interest is only superficial? Professor Krčméry definitively gave me the answer, whose statement accompanies me throughout my "African journey". He said, "To the question, God, where are you when there is so much poverty in the world?" God answers, "And where are you?"
Hakuna matata
What were the beginnings of a recent medical graduate in Africa?
My perception at the time was very idealistic. Without clinical practice, I was sent to a functioning hospital, where there was only one doctor - me. But when you have to, you learn fast. I was very helped by a colleague - an infectologist, who taught me everything I needed to do for three months in the hospital on my first mission in Burundi.
The work of a doctor on a mission is probably quite different from that in Slovakia.
The undeniable advantage is less documentation and more time with the patient. Not only do we not have a computer, we often don't have enough plain paper to write. Patients are often on foot from the hospital for several hours or days, so they only come here in a very critical condition. In South Sudan, we "rescued" dying patients, especially children, daily.
I work more hours in Africa than in Slovakia, but the work here is less exhausting for me. On the contrary, I feel like I'm recharging my energy every day and I'm looking forward to the hospital every morning. It's such an African paradox.
What do you think it is?
I think it is thanks to African "hakuna shida, hakuna matata" (no stress, no problem) thinking, a very good interpersonal relationship and a strong community life, which is an absolute privilege of Africa.
Is this something Africa has given you? Do you look at life differently today thanks to those experiences?
Yes. Africa has taught me to distinguish what is important and what is useless. Less to complain about. Talk less about work and work more. She taught me my potential and my talents to be valuable and full. When I'm in Africa, I'm perfectly happy. I focus on projects, less on myself and at the same time I am much happier than when I invest time only in myself.
In Sudan, people taught me to live in the present. The reality with them is that they really don't know if they will live to see tomorrow. "If you didn't know if it would be tomorrow, how would you live?" They live that way every day. And it's a beautiful, life-changing experience. I lived in Sudan for three months on rice and beans. When it rained, no electricity. In the shower with cold water and Turkish toilet for 20 people. It was the most beautiful time of my life. Before Africa, I looked at material differently than I do today.
African curiosities
Which part of the country stuck in your memory the most?
The whole of Africa is a different planet for me. Ever since I first landed at Rwanda Airport, I knew that Africa would be my new home.
And what about culture shocks? What surprised you?
There are more experiences and curiosities. In South Sudan, for example, love is proven by physical strength. A bleeding woman, beaten with an iron rod by a "loving" husband, was not a rarity in the hospital. I even experienced such a demonstration of affection for myself when I liked my colleague Nyoch (Ňok). He tried to show me his love by habiting to kick me or punch me in the shoulder. Calm even during the operation in the hall. When I tactfully explained to him that I was not used to such practices, I was the first woman in the bush to receive a bouquet of artificial roses. So far no one knows where (smile).
I was also surprised that everything counts for cows in Sudan. If a man wants to marry a woman, he needs 50 cows for her father, if he rapes her, he needs 7 cows. He can even redeem cows from the crime of murder. At the beginning, I was also fascinated by the distinctive blond color of men's hair and their pure white teeth, until I found out that they use cow urine for coloring and cow dung for brushing their teeth.
Men drink cow's milk or blood to be strong, women pull out their front teeth for beauty and cut their bodies to keep their scars of beauty. Despite many differences, when I think of the South Sudanese people today, I am smiling.
Do you remember other curiosities?
Interesting are, for example, their stroller replacements - handbags made of goatskin. A child in a purse? Timeless! (Laughter) Moms also don't use handkerchiefs, instead they pull the squirrels out of their children's mouths. It was also very funny when I went for a run. If you run in Burundi, you probably have a good reason for that, probably someone is chasing you. When I ran, the whole village ran in panic with me.
A big curiosity for me was that if I wanted meat for lunch in South Sudan, I had to go to the yard, catch my rooster, machete and just make it myself. I caught only those who kikirík me under the window from five in the morning (laughs).
Do you have similar events from the hospital?
A lot. For example, when looking at a hospitalized person, I am always surprised by their community way of life. The patient sleeps on one bed plus his whole family and their dog is under the bed. It was funny and bizarre to carry patients in a coma to the hospital - the family tied a plastic bicycle chair and tied a patient in a coma to it.
Or the determination of a patient in Burundi, whom I told she would not give birth naturally because she has a small pelvis. So the nurse got on her bike and stepped on a caesarean section to a hospital five kilometers away.
Access to health care is probably not comparable to ours… Does health insurance work there, for example?
In Kenya, where I am currently located, insurance works, but not everyone can afford it. Definitely not my patients - slum dwellers who earn one dollar a day. Examinations or operations in the hospital are thus an absolute utopia for them. Often the hospital returned to my clinic a patient who needed an amputation or blood transfusion just because he didn't have the money.
This must be difficult for the doctor. How do you experience such situations?
I consult my patients online with specialists at home, we do projects and collections for their treatment, I work with local doctors and nurses. For me, every patient is a project. Human and medical. I only do what any doctor would do. The days when we could have saved the patient were painful for me, but we lacked basic medicines or an oxygen device in the hospital.
What is the position of a doctor there?
In Burundi or South Sudan, it's quite interesting. The patient got to me there only after the failure of the shaman's treatment. These folk healers still have a great deal, if not more confidence, than a doctor with a medical degree. The shaman also went to treat our hospitalized patients in South Sudan at night, which did not always have a positive effect on their health.
What did such "treatment" look like?
I remember an eight-year-old boy brought to me with kidney failure because he drank a "potion" from herbs from a shaman. In Burundi, they believe that every disease must be expelled from the body. The "potion" thus acts as a laxative. Unfortunately, they also use it for malaria, which is in the blood, laxative has no hypothetical chance to help. What's more, the drink also damages other organs, which cannot always be saved.
In Burundi, shamans used to circumcise a still painful area with small, centimeter incisions with a scalpel. If the child had pneumonia, the whole chest was cut.
Tears of happiness
Have you experienced situations where you were worried about your life?
I have experienced more dangerous situations in Africa. I felt a little discomfort when we ran out of oil in my car in Burundi in the woods around ten in the evening. At night there are killer groups training in the woods, we heard their screams from the car. It was a dense monsoon and the locals began to gather and pushed into our car from all sides. We were waiting for a miracle.
He finally came thanks to two drunken villagers who took us another 200 kilometers home with their means of transport. The driver had probably never seen a white man before, so he had his hands on the wheel all the way, but his bulging head was turned back at me.
I also felt insecure when a high-ranking dignitary in Burundi sought me out and told me that I would be his wife. He was, of course, very irritated by my refusal and vigorously announced that he would return after me - and he would not be alone. At that time, I left the country for two weeks as a precaution, you really never know about them. There was also a lot of shooting in South Sudan. But we had no choice but to get used to it.
The feeling of satisfaction when you help will probably overcome these situations, right?
Yes. For every patient who is cured and leaves the hospital with a smile, I will say that it makes sense. I have seen the worst conditions in South Sudan. Burnt bodies, cruel bites by monkeys, severe brain malaria, extreme malnutrition… When I do a visit to the ward in the morning and see that my baby is better, it is satisfaction. In Africa, I cried from happiness several times.
When did you feel the strongest?
It first happened to me in Sudan when I donated my blood to a dying child and it survived. When I returned to Kenya a year later and my patient still wore the prescription glasses I gave him. Last week, a patient who managed to save his leg after not walking for a year came to see me at the clinic. He thanked him and spoke passionately as he opened his dream car wash. Every day in Africa, a "miracle" happens, and I am grateful to God for this blessing.
Is there something you are missing in Africa?
Honestly, when I have internet and family connections, nothing. I didn't have a varied diet at home in Burundi or South Sudan, but I can get used to it. In South Sudan, we only had the basic equipment to survive, so after three months I was starting to miss the washing machine, iron, ceramic toilet and a normal bed.
Something we can't appreciate until we lose it is freedom. I couldn't go jogging or going for a walk because there was still shooting in Sudan. In fact, I had not been anywhere else for three months, only in the hospital and in my compound (a fenced and guarded set of houses in which the mission staff lived).
What would you advise people with a desire to help like you. Where to start and what to prepare for?
For people who would like to effectively help from the comfort of home where it is most needed, I recommend the adoption of a child at a distance. You pay him a few euros for tuition, boarding school and food. Education is Africa's path to independence. For those who would like to physically travel and help in the field, I have a clear message - do it! Your life will take on a completely different dimension.
Working on a project is specific to each organization, country, type of work. It is necessary to prepare for teamwork, flexibility, tolerance, less time to rest… They need a person with potential, ideas, initiative, effort and especially sacrifice. Should readers have more questions, they can easily contact me on my social networks.
Did you find a mistake? Write to editori@forbes.sk
No comments:
Post a Comment