The Girl in the Road

The roads were mostly good. The dust was low. The temperature was not too hot yet. We passed by many large farm cooperatives growing sugar cane The view in the distant valley was dotted with plumes of smoke. Burning off the cane. While we were driving the traffic stopped suddenly. We thought there must have been a wreck. A few car lengths ahead of us a girl of about 13 or 14 lay in the road sprawled on the pavement. Her flip flops lay in the road next to her. A few people were standing around but it didn’t seem that anyone was doing anything to help her. We got out and approached. We heard “Mzunga” (sp?) among the people around us. It is not an altogether endearing term meaning loosely “crazy white people”. It was really scary. Strange. Surreal. The girl had foamy spit around her mouth and nose. The people in the nearby road crew kept on working. No one moved to touch her. Richard spoke to the people around her. Brandon and I kept back, near the car. When he came back he told us that she had had these spells before. It was a seizure. She was laying front down in the road, her face to the side. Richard explained that “these people” believed that a person with this sickness was contagious and that if you touched her while she was unconscious you would contract what she had (which I read as DEMONS). As bizarre as it sounds he said to get in the car and drive on. What could we do? I felt totally helpless. I wasn’t in a position to act. Still, driving away, leaving her on the hot roadbed was numbing. I felt guilty. Richard said that she would be alright. The people said to Richard that this had happened to her a lot of times. We drove about a half mile and Richard talked to two police to let them know so that they could keep her safe. There was some relief in that. All of this happened before we got to Ntarama.