A miracle in danger

Mwanza hogged the limelight on the wings of the birth of quadruplets to an unknown woman last year. But miraculous as their entrance into the second year may be, they remain a successful story on a knife-edge of existence. JAMES CHAVULA writes.

She is not a diva, but she has tasted what it means to be a media sensation and a crowd-puller everywhere she goes.

Nearly a year ago, the woman from Thambani hills in Mwanza almost stopped going to the district’s main market because she had become a centre of onlookers’ attention and questions, with throngs of curious ones following her and businesspeople showering her with freebies.

But the tale of the 24-year-old mother of seven began with details highlighting her plight. According to an SOS from the hospital, she needed clothing and other urgent relief items after giving birth to four children at Mwanza Hospital on June 16 last year.

“Her husband is not employed and the couple is already struggling to raise three children—a five-year-old and three-year-old twins,” read part of the calls for support which  eventually moved people of all walks, including President Joyce Banda, to come to the rescue of the quadruplets, who were se future looked bleak.

The call for individuals and organisations to help might not have been news in a country where triplets and Siamese twins face a high chance of dying due to their parents’ financial constraints, but the wife of Charles admittedly shivered to imagine herself helplessly watching any of her four babies become a dead statistic nearly a year after one of four children born of Chikhwawa’s Felista Bamusi on July 18 2011 died of breathing problems.

“At first, I thought it was a curse. As parents, my husband and I hated to think they would follow our first set of twins to the grave because we did not have the capacity to take care of them,” says the woman, who was severely depressed and worrying about the illness of one of her babies when one day Seed Co visited her to donate foodstuffs, beddings, nappies and soap.

The news of the birth of Davis and his three sisters—Tiyamike and Tiyanjane, Chimwemwe –leapt beyond the border district where poverty has always been widespread since 1964 when founding president Kamuzu Banda allegedly found people literally naked. But the children were not a curse. When she now calls them “a miracle”, she is not referring to the way they were born—but that they are still alive.

This might be cited as a dream come true for individuals and organisations that answered her prayer for the infants’ wellbeing.

The well-wishers included former Mwanza Central legislator Davis Katsonga after whom one of the child was named as well as President Joyce Banda who ordered the family to relocate from hard-to-reach Thambani where the nearest health centre lacked the capacity to handle the babies’ birth and promised to find them a home near Mwanza District Hospital where their healthcare needs could be easily met.

However, that miracle is under threat.

The quadruplets’ cries during a 6am visit to Charles’ new home in Nchotseni locality in the border town could be a signal that good times are slowly giving way to bad times.

The shy-looking mother was bathing the babies with the help of her two maids –Jenifer Gunsaru and Eliza Ilemba. They all looked well and bouncy, except one of them was sick. Her condition left the mother cautiously celebrating the strides of another who is learning to stand upright. They kept crying not because their strengthening bond has taught them to break into tears when one weeps.

The woman, who turned 25 on September 5, feels  the quadruplets had clocked a year by “God’s grace” while maid Gunsaru says tending to them was by far more taxing than farming because they usually give the caregivers sleepless nights.

Gunsaru explained: “They sometimes give us sleepless nights because they cry when one of them cries and behave like they are sick when one is taken ill. But this time, they have been crying all night because their mother hardly produces enough breast milk to meet their increasing needs.”

On what dawned into a sunny Sunday morning, the babies were shivering in the cold as most of the clothes well-wishers gave them a year ago are no longer the same. Ilemba described the situation graphically, saying: “What used to be dresses last year have become blouses. Some are old and worn out.”

This might testify to the quadruplets’ development, but it also exemplifies the vanishing of well-wishers who took hold of the buzzing press to lessen the burden of the rare childbirth while hogging the limelight to position their firms and propping their images as socially responsible bodies.

Up in danger is the lives whose being to this day is a miracle even to President  Banda, who ordered their relocation from the hard-to-reach hilly Thambani so that they can be closer to Mwanza District Hospital where access to healthcare facilities is guaranteed even in times of emergency.

Peoples Party (PP) national executive member, aspiring legislator Masauko White, has relieved President Banda from taking care of the low-income couple. With waning public goodwill plunging the household into hand-to-mouth life, White foots nearly all the bills in the house which costs K15 000 (US$36) a month.

Apart from the rentals, his responsibility includes the maids’ monthly pay, electricity bills estimated at K6 000 (US$14) and water bills which sometimes go up to K10 000 (US$24) due to regular washing of babies wear. He also gives them an undisclosed monthly amount for their basic needs.

“As an Adventist Christian and a politician, I was so concerned with the plight of the family and the future of the children. I thought it wise to relieve the President from helping them singlehandedly,” said White, who is aspiring for Mwanza Central constituency.

As public sympathy sparked by the highly-publicised birth of the foursome pales off, Mwanza Central Hospital has remained steadfast in monitoring the health of the children and supplementing their nutritional needs by giving them rations of soya flour.

In an interview, the hospital’s publicist Taonga Mafuleka said the couple is reaping the fruits of the presidential relocation order.

“Their transfer from Thambani to Mwanza Boma gives health workers the ease to closely monitor their health and nutritional needs. I can confirm that none of the quadruplets has ever been admitted to Mwanza since their birth. When they are ill, we send our personnel and ambulance as a matter of urgency,” said public health specialist Mafuleka.

During the visit, the husband and the three older children had returned to their home of origin where they farm and live in an effort to lessen the pressure on decreasing handouts.  This will help them improve their income and livelihood, he, says.

But amazing as well-wishers’ intervention has been, the signs of the times in the quadruplets home could be a signal that the family cannot rely on handouts forever.

Giving them a hand-up by improving their business or farming skills could be a real game changer as the family gropes for sustainable income.

As uncertainty hovers over their well-being, the soft-spoken mother agrees: “We have a will to fend for ourselves, to improve our income and livelihood by the works of our hands, but we have no means to do so.”

There is need to confront this silent crisis to the battle half-won.