Frontline Diary - by Brigette Stark-MerkleinBrigitte Stark-Merklein, a native of Germany, has recently been seconded from UNICEF New York to Luanda to work for a few months as Communication Officer in the UNICEF Angola office. She reports from her first field trip to Huambo, Angola’s second city, located 600 km South West of Luanda.
Today we are heading to Dende, a small village 20 km South of Huambo, to visit a primary school built recently with funds from UNICEF Germany. We want to see the finished building and speak to some of the school children. Just a couple of years ago, the dirt road we are traveling on could have been a death trap. Huambo was in the firing line throughout the war and surrounding areas were heavily mined. But since the fighting fractions signed a peace agreement four years ago, recovery has begun and mines have been cleared out of the region. As we bump along in our 4x4, I think about Huambo’s ubiquitous bullet-ridden buildings. Out here along the road, we see reminders everywhere of how things were before the war: bombed-out factories that used to manufacture construction materials, textiles, leather goods and alimentary productsfoodstuffs. This region used to be the country’s breadbasket, but now people find it difficult to feed themselves. Our driver carefully negotiates large stretches of mud puddles as we pass women with children tied to their backs, walking towards Huambo, now 10 km behind us, to sell the wares they carry on their heads. Men on bicycles or motor scooters are braving the rough terrain and are overtaken dangerously close by petroleum trucks coming from the coast. Schools for Africa In Dende, we are greeted by dozens of children playing outside the new school building. They all want me to take their pictures and the boys push and shove to get into the foreground. It takes some convincing to have them make room for a few girls. Most of the kids remember Peter Kraemer, a German entrepreneur and sponsor of the Schools for Africa Initiative (a partnership between the Nelson Mandela Foundation and UNICEF to build or rehabilitate schools, initially in Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, …South Africa and Zimbabwe)), who visited Dende last year. Then, all that existed were an empty lot and children’s dreams of an education. One year on, the new pink school building stands as a beam of hope for a better future of for the 262 boys and girls who are enrolled. In the last 12 months, UNICEF has rehabilitated/constructed 142 schools in the country of with 50 are in the province of Huambo. I speak to Joaquina Munga and SCeverina Kachicusa, two 13-year-olds whose story is representative for many in this area: tThey were born here but had to flee the fightings and returned only recently from Huambo where they and their families sat out the war. They didn’t go to school before and, now in grade 2, hardly know how to write their names. The girls are very shy but with the help of our driver who speaks Umbundo, one of the local languages, they tell me about their aspirations. “I want to learn everything they teach us at school,” says Joaquina. Her dream is to become a teacher and live in Huambo. In isolated areas like this one, female teachers are often the only role models girls see, so it is not surprising that SCeverina, too, wants to be a teacher. Back in Huambo, I meet Rosalia Zita, also 13, who attends Escola no. 103 in São João, another UNICEF-supported primary school. I will spend Thursday with her to document a day in the life of a typical girl from around here.
A nurse at Huambo’s Central Hospital confirms that malaria is by far the most common cause for admissions at the hospital Since there is very high prevalence of malaria in Huambo, we want to use the opportunity of this trip to see firsthand the impact on children. We don’t have to travel far. Talking to Rosalia, my young friend from São João, I find out that her father died last year of malaria. Her 14-months-old nephew had an episode of cerebral malaria last November and the family had to buy chloroquine at a private clinic for 4,000 Kwanzas (50 US$), the equivalent of her brother-in-lawthe boy’s father’s (her uncle’s??) monthly salary. Malaria continues to be the leading cause of mortality in Angola, for both adults and children. About 3 million clinical cases are reported each year. Thirty-five per cent of deaths among children under five and 25 per cent of maternal deaths are due to malaria. Every day, approximately 40 children under five die of the disease. A nurse at Huambo’s Central Hospital confirms that malaria is by far the most common cause for admissions at the hospital. He leads us to the Intensive Care Unit where 12-year old Aliciena Manuael has been laying in malaria coma for 22 days (Intensive Care Unit by local standards means rows of beds crowded into a bare room where patients of all ages are attached to IV drops, the most high tech equipment I saw in the room). Aliceiena’s sister HiElaria, who is holding vigil outside the hospital together with her two grandmothers and an aunt, tells us that Aliceiena had been complaininged about headaches for a couple days before the family finally brought her to the hospital. “She walked to the hospital by herself,” says EHilaria, “but since she’s been admitted things got worse.” EHilaria and variousying members of the family have been camping outside? out under trees facing the emergency unit entrance since Aliceiena has beenhhas been herehere. They, like several other groups of women who have family members in the hospitalin the hospital, will go home only when their loved ones are discharged, dead or alive. As we watch the coming and going of motor scooter taxis dropping off patients and mothers rushing freshly prepared food to the ill children inside, I’m thinking about the upcoming campaign and wonder where Aliceiena would be right now if she had slept under a mosquito net the night she got infected
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