How do people survive like this?

I have only had a taste of life in the village.  Two days ago I stood feverish inside a grass thatched hut alone and the impact of darkness, loneliness and neglect covered me from head to toe.  In that moment, I tried to imagine the thought of being ill here. The heat inside during the midday sun was stifling. My fever began to create a sickening sweat that covered my back and forehead. I struggled to get a full breath while coughing incessantly. All I wanted was water and even though the vehicle was only 20 feet away I didn't know if I could bring myself to go and retrieve it.  Every smell was heightened.  The man who lived in the hut is trapped inside for hours at a time because he is blind.  It is so very dark and the inside diameter is only 6 feet wide.  The mat that I stood on was bamboo and it made a crunching sound when I shifted from being dizzy.  I could smell his body odor and the mattress is holding smells I didn't even want to recognize.  I looked up and saw the grass moving; more wasps that are building nests everywhere are here working their hardest to create another home.  It is beyond my ability to stay one more moment and I leave seeking refuge from my imaginations.

Returning home to the city ill I knew that I needed to see a doctor.  I had no idea if malaria had begun its work in me or something else.  I could barely walk into the clinic.  I laid down on a gurney and heard voices speaking in hushed tones but I could not understand the language at all.  I could hear a definite sense of concern.  Someone was pulling my jacket off to take my temperature under my arm.  Another person pulled down the skin beneath my eye.  To have someone take your blood in a foreign country is very worrisome.  I was wondering if the needles were clean.  But I heard someone else opening a package for me alone.  It put my heart at rest a little.  The nurse left the needle in me for an I.V.  It was not plastic like the ones in the states.  I felt the metal moving around in my vein.

Apparently I had a raging bacterial infection in my lungs: something completely foreign to my body. Third generation and fourth generation antibiotics were injected intravenously twice in a 12 hour period; Steroids too.  I was left to rest in a hostel alone while I insisted Ben continue the work.  Our time here is so short I knew it was necessary.  It was there that I began to worry if I could even survive the walk to the toilet.  The fever was draining me and I could barely eat the bread I had.  There was no electricity.  No way for me to communicate to the people around me or to Ben who was in the village and unreachable.

You may be wondering why I am saying all these details so let me say this: I have never been so keenly aware of the unbearable struggle of normal African life.  If water is a 5 hour walk away, if a doctor is out of the question due to finances,  if medication is not available, if you are an orphan or a widow alone without support - how do people survive at all? I could barely get up to move to the toilet let alone to a water well!

Today I am a little stronger.  I am still exhausted and of course I am expected to be worse off than Africans who are exposed to these germs daily - but I am completely overwhelmed by the difficult situations these people live with daily.  I asked God today, "Lord, why am I all the way here to be this sick"?  There was no audible response and honestly I have felt a little far away from God so I looked to His word to speak to me which said, "I am with you.  I will never leave you."  Today I am choosing to believe that even while I am alone - I am not alone.  It is a fact.  I am sure that many Africans have felt this way and have come up with the same conclusion.  It is the little things God did yesterday that blessed me: I asked for water from someone outside and they brought it. I felt a breeze through the window and I was relieved.  I had a mint to coat my throat.  I had a book I could read to distract myself some.  All of these small things blessed me.  I was grateful even in pain. Maybe this is why Africans are so joyful.  All the little things are blessings.