Today I got an urgent facebook alert. One of Tom's colleagues' children has a long term debilitating illness. She's needed a range of blood transfusions, and now she's got severe malaria, so she needs blood platelets, urgently. But for her to get the blood, her dad needs to rustle up the donors, to give earmarked donations in her name. And you can only give blood every three months, and lots of the likely suspects - friends, colleagues, relations - gave during the last crisis, less than three months ago.
Her dad was coordinating the blood donors from her bedside in intensive care. You don't want too many people on day one, and then no one in reserve for day four. Maybe blood platelets need to be fresh? Or maybe there just aren't the storage facilities at that hospital?
When I got to the Blood Donor Unit, four of the security company guards from Tom's work were there too. Young, freshfaced, burly lads. We winced together as the needles went in. Fellow feeling. Chatted and sipped the sugary sodas together afterwards. Ascertained that we were all there to give blood for the same little girl. And looked on proudly, as her dad came to take away the seven pints of blood that had been collected in her name.
Kenya is a stratified society. We live behind electric fences and razor wire. My guard friends don't. Yes, of course I chat beyond the fence, work with and alongside Kenyans, - but since leaving BigCorporate its rare for me to be the sole mzungu in the room. Certainly rare for us all to be chatting on equal terms, contributing to a joint endeavour, a common purpose, something important which needed the input from each one of us.
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
John Donne
More blogs on this topic
http://www.onthethresholdafrica.blogspot.com/2011/03/bare-necessities.html
Her dad was coordinating the blood donors from her bedside in intensive care. You don't want too many people on day one, and then no one in reserve for day four. Maybe blood platelets need to be fresh? Or maybe there just aren't the storage facilities at that hospital?
When I got to the Blood Donor Unit, four of the security company guards from Tom's work were there too. Young, freshfaced, burly lads. We winced together as the needles went in. Fellow feeling. Chatted and sipped the sugary sodas together afterwards. Ascertained that we were all there to give blood for the same little girl. And looked on proudly, as her dad came to take away the seven pints of blood that had been collected in her name.
Kenya is a stratified society. We live behind electric fences and razor wire. My guard friends don't. Yes, of course I chat beyond the fence, work with and alongside Kenyans, - but since leaving BigCorporate its rare for me to be the sole mzungu in the room. Certainly rare for us all to be chatting on equal terms, contributing to a joint endeavour, a common purpose, something important which needed the input from each one of us.
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
John Donne
More blogs on this topic
http://www.onthethresholdafrica.blogspot.com/2011/03/bare-necessities.html
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