Life and death

Friday morning I walked over to the Iganga district hospital with Medi (our Ugandan friend and translator for this project) and Karly to meet with the hospital administrator and take a tour of their facility. As we were crossing the street, we heard a sickening thud and scream and looked back to see an older woman lying in the middle of the street with her bags strewn all around her. The motorcycle which had hit her was long gone. I let out a gasp and stood there stunned as Medi grabbed my arm and pulled me back off the road, out of the path of an oncoming van.

A man ran out into the street to help the woman and as far as I know, she was okay.

But that was not the case today.

Apollo, Mary, Karly and I had just finished eating lunch outside. We were chatting and enjoying the breeze when we heard another sickening thud, this time much louder than before. We all jumped up to see what had happened. A crowd had already begun to gather around the car which had hit someone trying to cross the street. We watched as he laid in the middle of the road convulsing and drawing his last breaths. Someone lifted him into his arms and jumped on the back of a motorcycle taxi to take him to the hospital but I am certain it was too late.

I stood there shocked, trying to process what had just happend. This is life here. And death. No one seems surprised, and that is the hardest part. It is very dangerous crossing the roads here, particularly this main street. Pedestrians are on the bottom rung. We DO NOT have the right of way. People drive way to fast and don't care who or what they run into. My immediate instinct was to rush over and try to help this person dying right in front of me but that would have potentially meant death for me as well.

In a span of three days, I've witnessed two people being hit or "knocked" as the Ugandans term it and this was right after Medi told me the story of a friend of his, whose burial he had just attended. This young man was hit by a matatu (or taxi van) which subsequently backed over him to make sure he was dead so as not to have trouble with the law later. Furthermore, many times when people are hit, not only will the driver flee, but that person will be left to die alone because if someone takes him or her to the hospital, the innocent, good samaritan will be accused of being the cause of the accident as someone must pay.

Hopefully my next post will be more uplifting. :(