Also last week

While people here are ill in one way or another, and lost in the cities of isolation and desire, I got a note from Marina, who wrote in part....

also, last week there was a
serious affair that has, to put it mildly, ruined my
relations with several of my chief collaborators at
the hospital. basically, a little girl of 6 years was
tied up and raped on her way home from fetching milk
one thursday morning at 10:30. the rapist is a
20-something year old first-year medical student. the
first in his very powerful family. so, when the girl
was brought to the kapenguria district hospital to be
examined, it was ever so brief, and though lab samples
were taken, no forms were completed correctly; and the
next day, as she started bleeding again, it was
realized that the lab samples had been destroyed. by
the rapist's uncle, my dear friend, the district aids
and sti control officer for the west pokot. paul
rumosia. and rumosia was able to corrupt everyone
else so much so that even the district medical officer
refused to fill out the form necessary to bring the
guy to trial. until baptiste returned with a police
inspector who had been ordered to arrest whoever
refused to fill th eform on the spot.

it's worse than appalling. i feel like i've been hit
in the stomach several times over - like my world has
just been thrown over and dow ninto some cavernous
hole that leads to hell. needless to say, it's been
difficult trying to figure out how to continue working
with these people, trying to develop 'sustainable'
programs by working within a system where this is, i
must admit, the norm, not the exception.