Notes from the Field

Ben Whitfield '04 is currently working for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Zimbabwe.

Greetings from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. I am doing well and having a wonderful time here in gorgeous Zimbabwe. From the minute my little 12-passenger plane flew over the green hills and landed on a field in Bulawayo and I opened the hatch and I lifted my head and pulled my lungs full of the fresh air and peered across the tall wind dancing grass I knew this was a fine place.

 
This is a damn lucky time to be in Zimbabwe. The country is currently experiencing the greatest hyperinflation ever recorded in human history (the last unofficial exchange rate was several trillion percent), the local currency is literally worthless and I often see Zimbabwean dollars scattered across the abandoned streets as no one will even pick them up including the recently printed 50 Billion and 10 Trillion dollar bills. Because of the worthless currency, nothing has been imported from outside the country. This has wrecked the markets, especially the importation of desperately needed food. The country has now started trading in foreign currency using US dollars and the South African Rand. This is presenting its own problems, as we now have to walk around with 3 currencies in our pocket with exchange rates dramatically changing daily. The rule is to never exchange currency unless you will spend it the same day. What can buy a car one day, will not buy a tire the next. With a prior population of 12 million inhabitants, 3 million have left in the Diaspora breaking for South Africa or Botswana. Of the 9 million left behind, 7 million of them are currently receiving food aide for the UN, Concern, or USAID. Zimbabwe, once the first provider of food aide for Africa, is now the first recipient of food aide in Africa! Combining that with a current unemployment rate of 95% and you can get a sense of the problems that are snowballing here and making it harder for everyday Zimbabweans to get by. Zimbabwe is quickly hemorrhaging its people, its money, its food, and its infrastructure at such a rate that we fear that it may soon crash into a failed state.

 
Because of the collapsed water system, cholera is rampant throughout Zimbabwe leading to even more residents fleeing the country, unknowingly taking the bacteria with them into neighbouring Zambia, South Africa, and Botswana. Our team is tracking down the new cases and trying to treat and contain them before the outbreak explodes in the yet untouched western urban areas. Already 4,000 are confirmed dead by the World Health Organization (WHO) with the number climbing daily. Over the past few weeks, I have been travelling through the Gokwe, Kwekwe, Zvishivane, and Mberengwa districts to find cholera outbreaks. Armed only with a nurse, a driver, and a land cruiser loaded with medical supplies, we have scouted the bush for 3 weeks covering hundreds of miles hunting for cholera in the bush. We often arrive to a village to find no cholera but may hear of a rumoured outbreak in another village 100 km away. So we scramble to the truck and log countless hours on the dusty road traversing through rivers, over hills, under mountains and into the mud to arrive at the village and either find only a few dysentery cases with nothing serious, or worse…cholera patients dying on the floor of unprepared clinics in their own vomit and feces. The villagers are terrified and will often hide in their huts during the outbreak. Other teams have had far worse experiences of arriving in villages to find masses of dead cholera victims laid in front of the small clinics like cars in a parking lot.

 
Cholera is a biologically and evolutionarily brilliant disease, which commands respect for its simplicity in transmission, its speed in which it attacks, kills and multiplies, and its resistance to ever being fully eradicated. You will often have cholera where you have a failing water and sewage system, both of which you have here. In the rural areas there is no running water or latrines. The residents drink the water from the river because it is the only water source, however they are downstream from a city that dumps all of its raw sewage directly into the same river only 20 km north. In the dense urban areas you have a water system that has so many leaks that half of the population never receives water. The sewage system is totally collapsed so that all the lines are backed up and raw sewage either bubbles up into people’s homes or it flows down the streets and into the children’s shoes.

 
Zimbabwe has not always been like this and there are signs everywhere whispering of a wealthier and more prosperous past. It is clear that God once smiled on this country. The cities have beautiful tree lined streets with luscious gardens albeit they are now overgrown with tall foreboding grass rising though the concrete. The business districts display the trophies of past capitalism, high-rise office towers but in the high windows, the curtains blow with the wind through the shattered glass in a hauntingly similar resemblance to post Katrina New Orleans. However, in the signature theme of so many African countries, the people are known for their smiling throughout their suffering. I have come to respect and befriend many of them.

 
While my experience in Zimbabwe has been great, it is quickly drawing to a close. A massive measles outbreak is wrecking the Muslim population in Northern Nigeria, and I have been asked to redeploy and assist in the mass vaccination effort because of my knowledge of the area. I am scheduled to ship out on Tuesday, March 17th. After many MSF sections were kicked out of Darfur last week there was a plan to relocate our team to southern Darfur to assist with the growing congress of displaced persons, however after the latest hostage situation with 5 of my MSF colleagues being kidnapped, that movement seems unwise.

 
That is all from here. I hope you are all doing well and enjoying Spring in the US.