Invest In People

It was afternoon. The sun was out of my sight, blocked by the thatched roof of the hut I was seated against. The village was mostly silent. The men were all sitting beside me speaking quietly to each other. The women were seated outside a hut opposite ours. Some were wailing in the distance. I sat there trying to comprehend the scene. In front of me was the son of the agent I was visiting. He’s no more than 3 feet tall and was wearing a little league soccer uniform. Out of my days in the village this was the first time I saw him stand silent. His tears were clearly traced through the dust on his face. I wondered if he just learned that his little sister passed away in the morning.

Throughout my time in Kalanje I kept trying to understand the barriers to business, agriculture and development. My questions were about access to capital, travel times, communication. That day changed the context. My questions were no longer about supply chain or information exchanges surrounding transactions.

I questioned what could have been if there was an infrastructure where a vehicle could easily bring someone to hospital instead of waiting for an NGO off-road vehicle to provide transport. What if travel time to the hospital was minutes instead of hours. What if medications were only 5 km away and not 50 km. What if the local clinic had ample electricity, diagnostic equipment and supplies instead of having to send people into town to receive treatment. What if there was access to information in the village; the ability to realize that the symptoms may have been malaria and not the cause of eating something bad as suggested by the village healer. What would the result be? Would it be that more people would be healthy? Would there be less death? Would it mean that a 7 month old girl would still be alive? Would it mean that a father wouldn’t have to bike 50km to the hospital to see his child? Would it mean the time they have together be extended by minutes, hours, months or years?

The day prior was the sixth day of my stay in Kalanje. That morning I was woken up by the brothers of the agricultural agent I was visiting and researching with. They told just told me, “We received a message that the chap has passed”. What can you say to something like that?

We said all we could say. “How are you this morning?”, “I’m fine thanks, I’ll find you outside”.