I cast a quick eye over her.  She’s heavily pregnant and deeply worried.  Her eldest, three days out from his fourth birthday, has a fever, and seems sullen, lethargic.  It’s a warm day, like any here; humid, 30-something.  I put my hand on his forehead and feel the heat radiating.  Fever, fever, fever.  I’m racking my brains trying to think what to do.  Fevers.  What do we do for fevers.  I catch the mother’s eye again, they tell me things her mouth won’t.  I wonder if we’re thinking the same thing.  Malaria.  Dengue.  Infection.  There’s mosquitos buzzing around, we swat them in the tropical heat.  This is no place for a fever.  I shrug my shoulders, feel the kid’s forehead again.  What do we do?  Bring him in, wait it out?  If it’s serious, malaria, dengue, you want to move on it fast.  I give another helpless shrug, and hope it helps.  It doesn’t.  She’s still worried for her child, and it’s infectious.  I’m getting worried too.  It’s different this time.  She’s my wife; it’s my boy.  Mereka ikut, they came with me this trip.

I often see the ravages of illness and disease here; cataracts, infections, twisted limbs, racking coughs, bloated bellies.  This is a place where disease spreads quickly, urged on by the humidity, stagnant water, and poor sanitation.  Barely a trip goes by without hearing of another death, seeing another grave beside a family home; too small and too clean, too new to be anything but the marker of yet another childhood tragedy.  Sometimes I try to help; bandage something up, share something from my first aid kit; but it’s band-aids on a mountainous boil.  And so something inside me hopes that somehow it’s different for them; that death and pain, that sickness and disease don’t hurt the poor as much; that somehow they can shrug it off; that they’re used to it, that they don’t feel the worry and grief.

Elijah’s fever passed with little ado on Wednesday morning.  We had a few options if his fever had gotten worse: a quick flight home, access to the best medical care, all covered by travel insurance.  But what happens to those other mothers whose hands are on their sick children’s foreheads?  What do they do when the fever gets worse, and doesn’t pass on Wednesday morning?  What do they do when they have no money, no transport, no access to good medical care, no health insurance?

They bury their children in another grave beside the family home, too small and too clean, too new for the ragged, tired surrounds.  And they weep.  They weep bitter, painful, heart-wrenching tears; for a mother’s love is not affected by her skin colour or her bank account.