If you comment on or share this article by poet Cameron Conaway you will help save a life. If that sounds too simple… read on.
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I’d been in Chittagong, Bangladesh long enough to have fallen in love with it, which is to say a few days. I was there as part of my research for Malaria, Poems, the first full-length poetry collection about malaria’s impact on the world. The scientific research and global health figures about the parasitic disease were and are great, but it was my belief that they were rather impractical until they were fused with the humanities. With emotion. “To eradicate malaria,” I’d tell whoever was willing to listen, “we must go beyond bar charts and into human hearts.”
The frustration was building within me. I’d paired up with several groups on the ground for my research, which in their minds had me in various laboratories looking at slides, examining sporozoites and comparing this year’s malaria season to that of last year. It wasn’t until I joined up with YPSA’s Malaria Control Program that I witnessed the “heart” piece I’d been looking for.
Her name was Bibi.
She lived in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a remote area known as much for the beauty of its land as for the devastation of its malaria.
She barely had the strength to hold her body upright as her newborn clung to her shoulder.
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I had trudged across rivers and hills half-expecting to stumble into another lab. Eventually, barefoot and covered in mud, we arrived at a makeshift malaria clinic, the first in the area. With notepad and pen I walked through the doors ready to see lab test strips and a few doctors in their crisp white coats floating around helping people. Those things were present, of course, but burned in my memory is the woman who was slumped in the corner. She barely had the strength to hold her body upright as her newborn clung to her shoulder. Her jaundiced eyes looked up as the doctor called her name.
“Positive. Both.”
A colleague nudged me to give confirmation. Both Bibi and her baby were suffering from one of the most deadly forms of malaria. And she still had to walk nearly two miles just to get back to her village. Yes, she walked two miles across dirt roads in her broken sandals (with a burning fever) just to get here. Which also means she lost money because she had to leave work to get here. Which means she won’t be able to afford meat for at least another week. Back to rice and whatever greens she can scrounge up, if treatment works.
But then a smile came over her face. At her smile a perplexed look likely came over my own face because my colleague nudged me again:
“She’s smiling because if this had happened a few month ago this clinic wouldn’t have been here.”
In other words, Bibi and certainly her newborn baby would have died.
She and her baby had malaria, but so what.
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With that she stood up, readjusted her child, and although she carried the seed of fear within her she flashed a smile as bright as I’d ever seen and began to cry tears of happiness. She and her baby had malaria, but so what. They were both living and now, for the first time in their lives, they had access to help against a disease that months prior would have meant an almost certain death.
Bibi smiled not in a condescending way at fear, as though it were separate from her, but with fear. It was a smile of such beautiful depth that it brings me to tears even years later.
No parent should lose a child to a preventable disease.
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While there is no proven vaccine for malaria (yet), there ARE vaccines to prevent diseases that can be just as dangerous, like measles, polio and pneumonia. Parents like Bibi deserve the chance to smile even in the face of fear; the chance to provide their children with beautiful firsts. No parent should lose a child to a preventable disease. That’s why I’m part of #Blogust and that’s why I’m asking for your help.
During Shot@Life’s Blogust 2014—a month-long blog relay—some of North America’s most beloved online writers, photo and video bloggers and Shot@Life Champions will come together and share stories about Happy and Healthy Firsts. Every time you comment on this post and other Blogust contributions, or share them via social media on this website, Shot@Life and the United Nations Foundation pages, Walgreens will donate one vaccine (up to 60,000).
Blogust is one part of an overall commitment of Walgreens donating up to $1 million through its “Get a Shot. Give a Shot.” campaign. The campaign will help provide millions of vaccines for children in need around the world. Sign up here for a daily email so you can quickly and easily comment and share every day during Blogust! For more information, visit shotatlife.org or join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.
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–Photo: WorldBank/Flickr
No parent should lose a child to a preventable disease. – See more at: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/smiling-fear-wcz/#sthash.nRJzWE01.dpuf
Thank you for sharing this, it’s hard to comprehend this is happening in 2014. I pray that this cause gets the money it truly deserves!
oh my stars.. thank you so much for sharing this. #blogust is so amazing for what it does, but I also discover wonderful new writers and people through it
thank you
I love this and I think Bibi will be on my mind and in my heart for a long time now. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing such a powerful story from your trip in honor of Blogust!
You are an awesome writer. Thank you for sharing Bibi’s story with us and for caring to write the malaria poems — well done!!!
Awesome 🙂
I am grateful for the work of Shot At Life and others advocating for healthy children across the world! We can sometimes take for granted that many of our ailments are quickly cured with a Shot. But often, we don’t stop to think about what happens to children in countries where those shots aren’t available! This is something with which many us can help, but it is also something we can’t afford Not to!
It is great what you are doing,I just wish there is something I can do.
Amazing!
I’m so proud of you, Cameron! You’re doing such great things!
God bless you for helping Bibi and her angel, you are such a blessing to many
+1 on the good work
Thanks!
Thank you for sharing this. I hope Bibi and her baby survived and are thriving today. Maybe Bibi’s child had a baby and now she’s a proud grandmother. I hope and pray so! God bless all
No parent should lose their child from a vaccine preventable illness. Thank you for taking part in blogust to raise awareness and gather up vaccine donations
Thanks for sharing for such a great cause.
What a wonderful story of hope
Stunning. Thank you, Cameron!
Very heart felt post. Thank you for helping!
Thanks for a wonderful post and for supporting such a wonderful campaign.
Thanks for sharing and for supporting SHOT@LIFE’s vaccination campaign and BLOGUST 2014.
Thank you!
Thank you for your great work, and thank you for sharing Bibi and her baby’s story. May many be inspired by this and help spread the word about all the work that we can still do to keep children from dying of preventable diseases!
Every child matters!