Malaria spreads more suffering for the country's rural poor<\/p>\n
Years of spousal abuse and poverty finally took their toll on
\nSariati, a mother of three from Kalisari hamlet, Margoyoso,
\nMagelang in Central Java<\/p>\n
After 16 years of marriage, the 38-year-old woman decided to
\nleave her husband, who took custody of her two older children.
\nShe returned to her mother's shack in a neighboring village where
\nshe suddenly found herself as the breadwinner for her elderly and
\nailing mother, her sister, nieces and her own youngest child, 19-
\nmonth-old Rama Desta Ariani.<\/p>\n
It takes treading carefully on a slippery footpath, ducking
\ntree branches jutting here and there and negotiating the flimsy
\nbamboo bridge across a small stream before reaching the wooden
\nhouse surrounded by palm trees where she now lives.<\/p>\n
\"I got tired of being beaten up for no reason,\" Sariati said,
\nbreastfeeding her baby while sitting by the hard wooden bed with
\nno mattress, covered by an insecticide-treated bed net that the
\nlocal puskesmas (community health center) gave her.<\/p>\n
Following the separation, Sariati no longer had to work hard
\nselling tofu cakes to supplement her husband's meager income as a
\nfireworks vendor; now she has to work hard selling tofu cakes
\nfrom a village factory, sometimes also palm sugar, to feed
\nherself and the six others in the household.<\/p>\n
She makes palm sugar -- which means days and hours of hard
\nwork cooking the sap tapped from the palm trees -- and sells it
\non market days. She makes less than Rp 5,000 (less than US$1) a
\nday.<\/p>\n
One day, in late 2002, Sariati began to have dizzy spells,
\nmuscle pain and fever that she first blamed on being caught in a
\ndownpour. She felt nauseous, had a bitter taste in her mouth,
\nvomited repeatedly and suffered from painful headaches. She
\nsimply had to stop working and care for her baby.<\/p>\n
\"I was really badly off... and my baby was demanding
\nattention,\" she said.<\/p>\n
After three days of being laid up with adem panas (cold and
\nhot spells), Sariati forced herself to get up and go the village
\ndoctor -- which meant walking many kilometers from where she
\nlived to the main road.<\/p>\n
She was told she had malaria, just as many other villagers at
\nthe time, and was given some medication.<\/p>\n
Three days later, the juru malaria desa (village malaria
\nworker), a man known by the name of Mas Adhi, visited and began
\nto treat her.<\/p>\n
\"The puskesmas was closed at the time because it was Lebaran
\n(the Muslim holidays marking the end of the Ramadhan fasting
\nmonth), so I had to stay at home,\" she said.<\/p>\n
\"I couldn't work, but my family had to eat so I had to sell
\nthe last of my jewelry, some eight grams of gold rings and a
\nnecklace, that I managed to purchase and keep while I was still
\nliving with my husband.\"<\/p>\n
The money did not last long, but after weeks of feeling so
\nweak she could not leave her bed, she managed to get well soon
\nenough before she again had to work for her family.<\/p>\n
\"I am now completely cured of malaria,\" Sariati said. \"I can
\ngo to work again and feed my family.\"<\/p>\n
Sariati works as hard as she ever did and thinks she would
\nnever be \"cured of poverty\", but she says at least she is now
\nstrong and healthy enough to earn money for all members of her
\nhousehold. She has hopes that she will remain strong to raise her
\nyoungest child and someday be able to send her to school.<\/p>\n
In another house, Urip stares at a person standing over her
\nbed, and a slow, pretty smile begins to light her fair-skinned
\nface. She then does a trick which people call \"clever\", doing the
\nsplits so that her body forms a T.<\/p>\n
The smile and the trick, however, are about all that the
\nthree-year-old child can do -- so malnourished that she weighs
\nonly 6 kg, is unable to talk or even lift her head.<\/p>\n
Indeed, Urip, whose name means \"life\", has stayed in the hard
\nwooden bed almost from the day her mentally ill mother,
\nMuhamsaitun, gave birth to her. Almost nobody is available to
\nfeed or change her when she wets or soils the bed until her
\nfather, Sutadin, comes home from his work of tapping the sap of
\nthe palm trees for other people.<\/p>\n
The bamboo hut is dark, dirty clothes strewn about the place
\nand the dirt floor unswept. In the kitchen, Muhamsaitun sits
\nbefore the fire, feeding it hay and small pieces of wood, while
\nstirring the palm sap that slowly thickens and turns dark brown.<\/p>\n
How long does it take to heat and stir the sap before it
\nhardens into palm sugar?<\/p>\n
\"From morning to noon,\" Muhamsaitun answers shortly when asked
\nhow long it takes, before starting to mutter to herself again.
\nNot once does she stop stirring even when visitors are at her
\ndoor. She is oblivious to all, including Urip, who does not make
\nany sound at all.<\/p>\n
\"This is one of her lucid days,\" said Yohana, the village
\nmidwife, who for the past 10 days has been feeding Urip with food
\nsupplement. As the result, Urip's skin has begun to look rosy and
\nsupple.<\/p>\n
\"Most of the time, Muhamsaitun does not talk to other people.
\nShe talks to herself. But funnily, she knows enough to be jealous
\nwhenever another woman, including the village health worker,
\ncomes to help take care of her baby,\" Yohana said.<\/p>\n
Yohana is possibly the only woman that Muhamsaitun does not
\ndare to be jealous of, because the midwife exudes such authority
\nas she strides into the house to check up on Urip.<\/p>\n
Other women in the village would not take the risk because
\nwhen Muhamsaitun is jealous, she would rant and rage and throw
\nthings around. Her husband would then have to stay put before
\npeace is restored in the small household -- which would mean no
\nwork or income, especially when Muhamsaitun also stops making
\npalm sugar that he usually sells for less than Rp 10,000 every
\nother day.<\/p>\n
Late 2002, however, Sutadin's family life fell into disarray
\nwhen he first felt the signs of malaria. The hot and cold spells,
\nthe headaches and muscle pain forced him to stay in bed.<\/p>\n
Several days later, their nearest neighbor, Sabilah, who has
\nbeen trained to take blood samples from suspected malaria
\npatients, came to take his blood and minister to him. This was,
\nunfortunately, also the time when his wife fell into yet another
\nfit of rage-yelling at the top of her lungs and telling Sabilah
\nto stay away from Sutadin.<\/p>\n
\"Urip became even more neglected and she fell really ill, just
\nas her father was laid up with malaria,\" said Dr. Yuniar of the
\nSalaman II community health center. \"We had to bring Urip to
\nanother's village health center where she was admitted for
\nseveral days. Thank goodness, she did not have malaria\".<\/p>\n
Indonesian villagers are resilient folks. Thanks to the hard
\nwork of Mas Adhi, who took Sabilah's place delivering drugs from
\nthe clinic, Sutadin recovered several weeks afterward.<\/p>\n
He then began the new habit of sleeping inside the
\ninsecticide-treated bed nets that the local administration
\ndistributed -- for which he had to pay Rp 10,000 -- to prevent
\nanother malaria infection. He is now back at work, Muhamsaitun is
\npalm sugar-making again and Urip has new hopes of survival.<\/p>\n
-- Santi W.E. Soekanto<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/malaria-spreads-more-suffering-for-the-countrys-rural-poor-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }