The Water Child

Today I went to see Maman Marie, the social worker, and took the time to look at the pictures of malnourished children they saved over the years. What she told me was so upsetting I have to share it with you as well. I knew that children die today in Congo because of malnutrition but I had no idea malnutrition itself could be caused by pure obscurantism and stupidity. First I have to explain that Maman Marie and the social department only deals with extreme malnutrition. She can barely afford to help the most severe cases with the meager resources she has but she tries her best to help bring these children back to a healthy weight, back to life actually. She explained to me that malnutrition generate two extreme diseases in Congo, Marasmus (a wasting disorder of malnutrition and partial starvation which occurs in infants and young children as a result of severe protein deficiency and insufficient caloric intake) and kwashiorkor (/kwash·i·or·kor/) (a severe protein and caloric intake deficiencies. Symptoms include retarded growth, changes in skin and hair pigment, edema, immune deficiency, and pathologic changes in the liver). The two diseases were very easy to distinguish on the pictures. Some of the kids were pure skeletons and others were so puffy that they almost looked obese. I actually met a set of twins almost two years old who looked very very skinny, small with a head too large for their bodies. Their mum had come to see Maman Marie for some food. Sometimes, people here are so poor that they can't afford to eat every day (like Floriane) and this renewed state of extreme poverty generates malnutrition and sometimes death. At the hospital, the first time we went, we met a little boy, who, at three years old, weighted less than Mae at 8 months. He looked no more than a year old, couldn't walk and suffured from many ailments. We attracted attention to his case because he looked so bad and the staff agreed that he probably needed a transfusion which we paid for. But as many children in this hospital, it was very difficult to find a vein because of his state and and they eventually didn't manage to save him. It was my first encounter with death at the hospital and the first realization that even here in a country rich with oil, people still can't find enough money to afford to eat everyday. These deaths I can understand but the case of the water child I just don't. While showing me the pictures, Maman Marie pointed to one baby and said... this is a water boy. I asked her what she meant. She explained that there is a belief in Congo that there are other worlds than the living word. "Living things" dwell in the water for example and sometimes get lost into our world. People believe that when a child is sick since childhood, it is because he still belongs to the water world. That he hasn't left that world entirely because he still owes a debt. The family usually go and see a traditional marabout, medicine man, who can talk to the invisible world and instruct the family on how to cure the child. Usually the family needs to do ceremonies to appease the water world and to ask it to leave the child alone. Many rites are performed including dressing the child all in red. Other ceremonies (which were explained to me by Ulrich, my driver) involve paying the debt back. The marabout determine how much is owed: 30, 100, 5,000 or even 10,000 CFA. An important detail (mentioned by everyone I talked to), is that the sum needs to be collected in 5 CFA coins. The family then needs to bring the amount due to a specific place, again determined by the marabout (location from where the child is supposed to have come from) and have a "party". They dance, give candies, lollipops, popcorns (anything children like) to children (real ones hanging around) and at some point during the ceremony, they need to throw the coins and candies in the water. This ceremony is very nice and well but in the meantime, the family lets the child literally starve to death. Because they cannot determine what is wrong with the child and think that it has something to do with the invisible world, they just stop caring for the child and justify his/her state by the association with the fantastic world. So they stop feeding him/her if he refuses to absorb food, don't bring him to the doctor and of course don't give him modern medicine. 10,000 CFA thrown in the water rather than used for feeding the kid, this is madness! Ulrich also mentioned another stupid ceremony he himself refused to perform against his family's wishes. His older son was often sick when he was little, with fevers all the time. He was told that he had to perform the following rite to stop them. He had to go to 10 different dumpsters and collect a dirty manioc leaf (used to wrap around the manioc they eat as bread every day) in each one. He had to place them all into a basin (without cleaning them) and then dip his child into it! He flatly refused despite another man's assurance that this ceremony had worked for his daughter!!! Traditional doctors and social pressure are dangerous for people with credulous souls.