Death at birth: Who is responsible?

 

Margaret Babirye, who recently lost her newborn baby at Jinja Referral Hospital, blames staff for negligence while handling her case. 

 She never got to see or hold her baby alive. He was dead before she came to from a Caesarean operation. Margaret Babirye and Benjamin Schaf blame their loss on hospital staff negligence, writes Dalton Wanyera

 

After months of anticipation, it’s hard to imagine anything more devastating than the loss of a newborn child. Benjamin Schaf and his wife, Margaret Babirye, have lived the reality of losing a child soon after birth. Their baby only lived less than 15 minutes after delivery at Jinja Referral Hospital on May 31 this year.

The 23-year-old mother narrates how she had arrived at the hospital two days before that, amidst labour pains.

Being a Sunday though, her appointed doctor was unavailable at the hospital and couldn’t be reached on phone until Tuesday around noon when he reported for duty, declaring her an emergency case requiring immediate surgery.

Schaf recounts that by then, his wife was too tired, in so much pain and had a greenish fluid flowing between her legs. The operation was done nonetheless and it was a success but its purpose, to bring forth life, had failed. The delivered baby didn’t even live long enough to meet its mother who was still weak and semi-conscious.

The couple has not been able to hide its anguish at their loss, which has been worsened by their conviction that their baby died due to neglect by medical staff.

Hospital medics neglected me

Babirye says she feels she was neglected when she couldn’t reach her booked doctor, even though she had paid all her dues in the hospital’s private wing. Well-wishers had, on arrival, advised her to seek help from nurses on duty in the general ward but she says that despite the unrelenting pains, the nurses, without a single test, had concluded that she was due for delivery the next day (Monday).

“The nurses who came to my bed just looked at me. One told a colleague I was not due. They advised me to stop ‘making noise’ because all the women in the ward were there for one reason, to deliver,” she recounts.

She says all medical officers in the hospital ignored her and instead kept reminding her that she was there to see a specific doctor. “When I go to a hospital, I expect to be worked on by any qualified person who was available. I had called my doctor but couldn’t reach him on phone; does that mean that if he never showed up I was to be left to die?” she reasons.

In his response, Charles Tumushime, the principal hospital administrator, explains that as is the norm in all hospitals, once a patient has booked for a particular medical personnel, it is an agreement. “It is presumed that this medic has better understanding of that patient, except when he asks for a hand from a colleague. Patients are seen by one person at ago,” explains Tumushime.

Causes usually unknown
Dr Michael Oscinde, a senior consultant obstetrician, who is also the director of Jinja regional referral hospital, explains that stillbirth, which is the loss of a foetus in the womb or of a newborn within 12 hours after birth, could be due to different causes, most even unknown.

Oscinde explains that there are basically two types of stillbirths. Fresh stillbirths, which is death within 12 hours and occurs in the process of child delivery. The other is macerated stillbirth, when a foetus dies in the uterus before its born. He adds a fairly new category of early neonatal death, where death occurs 24 hours after the process of delivery.

“The cause of many stillbirths is unclear, and while there’s increasing evidence of a strong link between stillbirth and poor growth in the womb, in many cases the reasons for death are unknown,” he says.

He explains that where the cause of death is identified, the most common reason is congenital problems, which are defects present at birth, whose causes may still be unknown, genetic or difficulties during pregnancy.

Other possible causes include a birth trauma, for example where the umbilical cord could become wrapped around a baby’s neck.

Oscinde, in his outline of the common causes of stillbirths, categorises them into two: labour-related conditions and maternal illnesses like malaria, high blood pressure, diabetes, among others. The latter, he says, usually cause premature labour and other complications which, he argues, are avoidable once a medic handling a patient is in the know.

He says worse results are expected when labour is not handled by a skilled person, like traditional birth attendants.

The obstetrician nonetheless agrees that prolonged labour could be a viable cause for still births. “In the case of Babirye, her labour could have stayed too long. At maximum, a mother should stay in labour not more than 10 hours. Beyond this, there will be a risk of losing both mother and baby. In most cases, the baby will succumb.”

He adds that the moment any patient, including mothers in labour, arrive at the hospital, medics should carry out a risk assessment. This helps in allocating who handles which patient depending on the condition and qualification of the personnel available, requires urgent attention.

In the meantime, however, Schaf and Babirye feel the hospital did not do the right things at the right time.
“It is out of luck that I survived. We got no attention until after the baby passed on. They were now treating my surgery wounds. I was in a lot of pain, from the wounds and the fact that I lost my child,” Babirye says.

Dr Oscinde, however, advises the bereaved couple who have insisted they feel their loss was due to medical neglect to desist from such hurried conclusions, as in Uganda, stillbirths cannot be limited to one cause.

“An autopsy to offer full explanation as to why a baby died may not be possible, but the investigation may show up information that could lower the risks in future pregnancies,” he says.

 

Victim’s fiancée finds solace in their son

 

 Lubi and Musinguzi. INSET: Lubi and her son. PHOTO BY DALTON WANYERA 

Vivian Lubi’s world came crushing down on July 11 2010, when her fiancé Jade Jimmy Musinguzi was killed during the terrorist attack at Kyadondo Rugby Club, leaving her with a seven-month pregnancy. However, their son, who is now nine-months and resembles his father, has relieved her a bit of the sorrow of losing Musinguzi. “At least he didn’t die completely,” she says. I, Dalton Wanyera reported her story:-

A joke about university students goes; “while reporting for their first year semester, they have a lot of books and very few items as property to their name. Yet as they pack to leave university, they will have accumulated property and nearly lost all the books.”

And another is; most graduates, if not all, many want to stay and find jobs in Kampala. Going back to their home towns/villages is of last resort.

The two conditions were true in Vivian Lubi’s case. Having graduated in January 2010, she secured a residence in Kiwatule, a Kampala suburb just to be close to her fiancé Jade Jimmy Musinguzi. They had met while she was at Maryland College in her senior four and by now it had become very hard to stay apart.

The five year old relationship, love and intimacy which had began in 2004 when Musinguzi, a ‘good Samaritan’ secured accommodation to three stranded sisters was to end by an act of a selfish extremist, a terrorist.

“We had met at a night club,” she recalls with a faint smile. “I and my sisters had escaped home to go dancing and when time to get home came, it was at dawn. We couldn’t go back otherwise we risked our parents catching us. Then from nowhere he showed up, he asked if we needed any help. My elder sister said we feared going home and we wanted to find a place to sleep.”

Adding, “He went back to the discotheque to consult his sister who granted the idea. That is how everything began.”

On 11, July all this was put to an end opening a new chapter in the 27 year old girl.

Planning against fate, the 25 year old lady had so far played her cards very well. Obtained her Honours degree in Drama, secured a job her next move was motherhood.

“Musinguzi’s sisters, brothers and mum well very happy on hearing I was expecting. They were so happy especially the mother, he was her first born. At one time she had told me she wants to be a grandmother. She encouraged us in our relationship,” she said.

On this memorable day, Lubi had sat at home waiting for her fiancé to bring home money she would use the next day at the Ntinda based Phiona clinic for her antenatal visits.

She says it was unusual for her to call and he takes that long to arrive. After calling him several times, she thought he was still busy but would definitely come home.

“To think that he could be watching soccer would have been giving false witness against him. He knew I didn’t like soccer so he came home and we watched together. Jade had grown, he no longer stayed out too long, and he was now a responsible man because in two months he was to become a father,” she remembers.

At 2 am, Angela, Musinguzi’s sister called Lubi asking whether Jade was home with her, when she answered in the negative, the phone went silent. He attempts to call back yielded nothing, Angela never received her calls.

At 3 am, his elder sister, Helen called Lubi. She broke the news of the bomb blast at Kyadondo, and her fiancé was there. There were higher chances he was a victim.

“I screamed so loudly. I was so shocked. He probably didn’t tell me he would watch soccer because he knew I wouldn’t let him. I had stopped him several times,” she said

Adding that, they immediately tuned into Al jazera. News strips ran below the TV screen reading over 60 feared dead in a bomb blast, Kampala, Uganda. They rushed out to Kyadondo but it was already late, police had cordoned off the place. They headed for Mulago as advised.

“We found there almost the whole family except his mother who lives in the UK. I searched everywhere in the wards. I lied to myself that he was fit and strong enough. He could not have died. He must have broken away.  In the theatre, the intensive care both at Mulago and at international hospital, I double checked, looking very closely at victims. He was not one of them,” in a softer voice, Lubi said with a screen of tears on her eyes.

“It was 3 PM and had eaten nothing. While at the eating place with Helen, Angela who had gone to Jinja road police called me asking where I was. I suggested I meet her where she was. Immediately they saw me, they broke down crying. I was heavy and lazy, I didn’t cry, just looked on seeing nothing but felt something carry me, and the world was rotating. Later she told me, police had given them a list of the dead, he was among them.

I felt bad, I felt hurt, God had failed me but I thought Jade had betrayed me. I mean he could not just go like that, I was seven months pregnant, I wondered what he expected me to do, what was I to tell his son when he grew up, how would I prepare for his future”  Amidst sobs, she said flumping at her laps with the palm several times.

After a long silence, she raised her head, looking at her teary eyes, I felt embarrassed for not giving an answer which, she probably has looked for all this time.

Back home, people had gathered to keep vigil. She says she still had not come to the reality, Jade is gone. Musinguzi had a week earlier given her his shirt as gift for remembrance and this bothers Lubi up to now, did he know he would die soon?

“This life,” she at one time went, “you are busy planning this and something totally different happens. In one month’s time we were planning to formally live together, as wife and husband. It is hard for me. His family has been there for me and my son, in anything I need, his mum talks to me very often telling me she is now my mother since mine died in 2008. I try to forget but it’s hard, I miss him. He loved and cared about me. He deeply understood who I am. My entire relatives treat me well but I need that special person Jade was.”

In Vivian Lubi, lives two spirits. The optimistic one has kept her going even when many times she breaks down in tears. Prayers have particularly motivated her to soldier on.

“All things happen for a reason. May be God has a bigger plane for me,” is all she can say in self consolation. Slowly she can now sleep unlike in the past when she watched television for long hours to just sleep off otherwise she felt him by her side.

But the greatest thing that has occurred to her is the looks her baby share with the father.

“At times I look at him and say, Jade didn’t die completely. He has resurrected in his son. The smile and his eyes are exactly that of Jade. He doesn’t resemble me at all,” she said.

The nine months old baby, according to her mother likes male figures but all she can afford is to fantasise about how the family would be. The baby carries the names, Jade Jimmy Musigunzi junior.

Has NAADS become a farce?

Seemingly successful farmers have frequently turned out to be frauds or not even on the NAADS programme

By Dalton Wanyera 

Posted Sunday, September 5 2010 at 00:00

Just before the debacle of the National Resistance Movement’s August 31 primaries, there had been strident criticism of the President’s ten-day tour of Busoga, ostensibly to evaluate the performance of the much-maligned National Agricultural Advisory Services programme.

Ssalamu Musumba, FDC’s vice president (eastern) criticised the tour as a clever political move to bribe voters ahead of the 2011 elections.
“It is a shame, Museveni just wants to use the cover of NAADS to bribe voters with those brown envelops he is giving out. NAADS itself is a failed project,” she said while on a radio talk show at Bamboo FM.
But the government chief whip, Daudi Migereko and Member of Parliament for Butembe County in Jinja, has a differing view.

“This tour is very significant. It has boosted the morale of our people by the fact that the President has shown interest in what they do. It means he wants to see wealth trickle down to the people since he is giving his testimony of how he got rich through modern agriculture. It is an assurance that they too can prosper,” he said.

But the tour was not just limited to NAADS. The President told those who listened that their demand for electricity, water and roads was ambitious and irrelevant.

“I am here to talk about household incomes, how do we improve our lifestyles? I don’t understand when a barefooted man comes shouting that he wants a tarmac road. You demand for electricity yet you don’t have enough to eat, electricity will not be given to you freely,” he said at several stopovers he made.

Such statements did not stop the locals from staging ‘roadblocks’ at which they demanded to hear from Mr Museveni. This was one side of the story though: it could have been interpreted as a President talking from both sides of his mouth and the people making a political statement.

The other less dramatised story may yet bear more significance. It is the story of how model farmers to be visited by the President were selected. Emerging information now seems to suggest that they duped the President – and he went along with the lie just as he has done in other parts of the country.

This how it reportedly worked: NAADS officials in the company of ruling party functionaries would approach a well-established farmer in the region who they would convince to host the President on the claim that they had benefited from the programme. In return, the said farmer was promised fifty percent of what ‘token of appreciation’ Mr Museveni would hand out.
It is possibly with this knowledge ringing at the back of her mind that Deputy Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga clashed with Ms Susan Lubogo, a State House employee.

“How can you select all the three farmers in the same sub-county, more over the two are just 200 metres apart?” Ms Kadaga asked rhetorically in Namayingo District. “This programme is to benefit farmers across the board not for you … This betrayal cannot be accepted,” she said
Ms LubogoThe latter’s team had selected the three farmers in Bulinji Sub-county Bukoli South constituency.

In other instances, knowledgeable individuals say the farmer was coached on what to say about NAADS; how s/he has benefited and challenges faced to give the impression that they were familiar with programme.

This is why, at one of the visits to the farm of one Dasiru Mugoya, it was not shocking to hear a female MP from Iganga say: “This cow has just been brought. It is not a week old here but what can we do if things are not going the right way. We had to get something to show the President.”
There was not a single blade of grass in its feeding trough, no cow dung to show that this was its home. The structure had a wet floor where it appeared concrete had been hurriedly mixed.

“NAADS is what has brought us problems. Some people have never got items promised to them and they are frustrated. You find that money comes late or doesn’t come at all. If it does, it ends up in wrong hands,” the MP continued.

Another example of the deception came to light at the farm of Mr James Patrick Bungu. Mr Bungu currently owns 101 dairy cows having started animal husbandry with one local breed cow in 1976. He earns Shs50 million plus in a year from 230 litres of milk he sells everyday at Shs600 a unit.

“I have never received anything from NAADS; instead I supply them with my calves, [goat] kids and poultry. They are of a better breed,” Mr Bungu unwittingly let the cat out of the bag as the President nodded.

“Oh you are rich; there is wealth in Nawanyango (Mr Bungu’s village in Kiyunga District),” Mr Museveni said and promptly announced that he had donated a pick-up truck to Mr Bungu as a token of appreciation plus Shs10 million to the farmers group he heads.

Mr Bungu, like Charles Kiwanuka of Buseyi village in Busesa parish, Iganga, are rich farmers who have gotten there without NAADS. But the President was made to think the project he is so passionate about is producing results. Mr Kiwanuka also earned a pick-up truck.

In contradiction of himself, on this tour, the President rewarded big farmers with Shs10 million along with pick-ups while giving the humble and struggling peasants only Shs5 million. Yet the President had earlier promised to deal with NAADS officials who misdirect programme supplies.
“I have received reports that they (NAADS officials) give to only those who have and to their relatives. I will deal with them,” he said to some cheering. But here he was doing exactly the same thing.

Mr Zakaria Kwezila, Mr Kiwanuka, Mr Bungu, Mr Hamudan Nadhubu of Bukazito village in Nabukalu Sub-county, Bugiri District who lives in a Shs22 million house are all people of means.

But why the lies? One view is that politicians wanted to impress the President that they had worked for the success of this programme, which was supposed to be Mr Museveni’s delivery on a 2006 election promise to stamp out household poverty across the country.

The charade extended itself to the theatre of the political absurd with 102 purported defectors from the Uganda Peoples Congress opposition party being paraded before Mr Museveni in Bugiri.

The fellows bravely claimed to have been holding leadership positions in the UPC. What they may have forgotten to tell the President is that in 2006 UPC registered less than 50 votes from that area. So what were they all about?

But just possibly, the people may not have been fooled. In Bugabula South where the Minister of State for Lands, Asumani Kiyingi, is the MP residents waved placards reading: ‘No electricity, no fourth term’ and ‘NAADS is for the rich.’

“NAADS and the way it was handled have exposed a very nasty streak in our society,” says Dr Frank Nabwiso, a former MP and member of the Forum for Democratic Change.

But the director NAADS Secretariat, Dr Silim Nahdy is very optimistic. He says: “The second phase has been allocated more funds, though details are not yet confirmed by both the government and development partners. It is proposed to be over Shs160 billion per annum.”

For a programme that was supposed to penetrate the remotest parts of the country, its impact on rural household communities (in terms of enhancing food security and improving incomes) remains uncertain as Mr Museveni will have probably realised from the feedback he received from the people.
It seems that the strategy of employing model farmers to spur change has been undermined by corruption.

As Dr Nahdy observed, the challenges in farmer empowerment, service provision and procurement must be addressed in Phase II if only to avoid a repeat of the pretense which unfolded on the Busoga presidential jaunt and in other places before it.

                                             BRAVE: A young man stays firm after circumcision.

For decades now, a tribe in Eastern part of Uganda, circumcise their male children who are perceived to have matured and ought to be inaugurated into manhood.
Several people have criticized the act either out of bias, misinformed or sheer fear: Many of them say the method is an easy way contracting HIV/Aids but non has proved it so.
Before the inception of HIV,the world, including people of Bugisu had lived with Syphilis, gonorrhea, not at one time was there any link of the ailments to the circumcision method. This by the fact that that knife never touches blood unless other wise. Even then it can not be used while cloaked in blood onto another candidate.
It is an irony when people say the same practice looked at as risky but campaign of how it can reduce the risk of the same risk it pauses by 60%.

By DALTON WANYERA

Posted Thursday, July 1 2010 at 00:00
There is no clear sign post to indicate the presence of a hospital along this pothole-filled-road, deep down in Mayuge District, Maniro Sub County, Nkombe village.
The only one existent is obscured by a bush bearing the words “family planning services available here”. I later learn that this health facility has been around since 1996; one structure occupied by one table and a chair for the hospital in-charge. The nurses improvise; the patients find the floor convenient, after all, chairs are rare even in their homes. All the rooms are empty except one with a two inch mattress in a corner. Besides it is a sunflower flask, food container and plastic plates and a cup.
On the mattress lies a woman who has just made it into motherhood. Mariam Katono, 18, arrived here the previous night. She had traveled three miles in company of Bilali Kakaire, her husband. “I began feeling labour pains soon after the 7 o’clock news. I tried to push from home but I failed. My husband then put me on the bicycle up to here,” she says. “It’s a baby boy. He is my first born, the nurses were good to me and I did not get any complications.”
Sarah Mirembe Nabakawa, the only midwife has been serving at the facility for one and a half years now. Despite the common stories of ignoring patients due to lack of gloves, syringes and other basics, Katono was lucky. There was enough stock of these.
“The askari came to my house at 10p.m. I had to come and see the patient since I’m the only one. She had a normal delivery perhaps because she used to come for ante-natal services,” Nabakawa said.
The medical personnel say the patients either share the mattress or use it in turns. We at times ask them to vacate the bed for only the new babies. “She was lucky, the time she came in some patients had just been discharged. She has had the mattress to herself alone; throughout the night up to now. It is the only mattress we have so they share it. I work on a minimum of six mothers daily.”
Ms Nabakawa says, “Professionally, a patient is supposed to receive an injection while lying down. But here, we ask them to touch the wall while standing. It is very risky especially with children.”
The district nursing officer, Maria Najjemba seems, however, determined to uphold the oath of her profession, “save life at all costs”. “There are two delivery beds in Magada Health Centre. We should give one to Nkombe,” she said. “The problems with women here (Mayuge) is that they don’t want to go to hospitals. They keep telling medical officers that unless a ‘sacrifice’ is made in the hospital, they cannot go there. They fear to die immediately they are admitted.”
The district health officer, Mayuge, Dr Charles Nabangi, says out of the 41 health centres in the district, Nkombe Health Centre II is so far well staffed with seven people ( a nursing officer, a mid wife, two nursing assistants, an askari and two porters).
Mayuge District is one of the highly impoverished districts in the country. The district which harbours a 40,000 population has only a two per cent supply of water and electricity. The fertility rate is evidently high. The poor road network just worsens the patients’ plight given that the few active health centres are an average of 7.5 miles apart.
“We have a bicycle which serves as a community ambulance. It is an ordinary bicycle modified into a three-wheel to accommodate a patient and enable them travel while lying down,” Buziba said. Tales are told of how women deliver along the road.
The Minister of State for Agriculture, Aggrey Baggile, also the area Member of Parliament launched the maternity ward built by the Busoga Forestry Company. The company managing director, Isaac Kapalaga said: “People are not just committed to changing lives. All the needs of these facilities are basic. We pledge to provide solar panel, delivery bed to add on the maternity ward, mattresses and the beds.”
Even if the company promised a solar panel and a delivery bed, patients will still have to buy their own fuel for lighting and mothers due will have to endure the cold on the floor before these items arrive later in the year.

Book Review

Title: Purple Hibiscus
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Reviewed by: Dalton Wanyera
PURPLE HIBISCUS is a vivid, beautifully written novel about a 15-year-old-Kambili growing up in a stifling Catholic household in Nigeria.
It is difficult to describe the oppression that haunts every page of the brilliantly knitted novel. It could be the oppressive heat described so well by the 25-old-author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, brought about by the harsh African harmattan winds. Yet it could also be the force of an unquestioned faith in religion. But in Purple Hibiscus, the worst kind of oppression is the stifling power of abuse; verbal, mental and physical abuse wrought by Kambili’s father, “Papa".
Papa is an interesting character, a person completely immersed into the superiority of the Western manner of thought and action, especially through religion; nothing will stop him to see it (Catholicism) observed by the letter in his house. He is at once consumed by overt extremes of passion—extreme love and, worse, extreme anger. His family, including the protagonist, Kambili (through whom the story is told), live every minute of their life in sheer terror, always looking upon Papa for approval. Adichie’s descriptions of Papa’s stifling presence are extremely well done. The reader’s heart bleeds for the family.
During one particularly telling episode, Kambili has stood second in her class at school and the sheer terror in her voice is scary — one waits with bated breath for the nasty consequences that are sure to follow:
“The Reverend Sisters gave us our cards unsealed. I came second in my class. It was written in figures: “2/25.” My form mistress, Sister Clara, had written, “Kambili is intelligent beyond her years, quiet and responsible.” The principal, Mother Lucy, wrote, “A brilliant, obedient student and a daughter to be proud of.” But I knew Papa would not be proud. He had often told Jaja and me that he did not spend so much money on Daughters of the Immaculate Heart and St. Nicholas to have us let other children come first…I wanted to make Papa proud, to do as well as he had done. I needed him to touch the back of my neck and tell me I was fulfilling God’s purpose. I needed him to hug me close and say that to whom much is given, much is also expected. I needed him to smile at me, in that way that lit up his face, which warmed something inside me. But I had come second. I was stained by failure.”
Eventually Kambili and her brother Jaja get a taste of freedom when their aunt Ifeoma takes them away for a little vacation to her country home. Yet even here, while the two are free from their father’s physical presence, they can understandably never shake off their father’s shadow. Every time the phone rings, Kambili quakes in fear.
All around then, Nigeria is slowly disintegrating just as the family slowly does (the breaking of the Figurines symbolizes this). A violent coup causes Aunt Ifeoma to leave the country for America. Adichie makes some political statements here, “these are the people [Westerners in general] who think that we cannot rule ourselves because the few times that we tried, we failed, as if all the others who rule themselves today got it right the first time. It is like telling a crawling baby who tries to walk, and then falls on his buttocks, to stay there. As if the adults walking past him did not all crawl, once?”
The novel is a sharp retrospection of the turbulent political times in the recent past of Nigeria. Yet go farther to question the sincerity of politicians; is it the military governments or civilian that are more corrupt. These political statements might be lost on the reader only because Kambili’s own personal tragedy seems so much more urgent and dangerous.
Kambili and Jaja along with their long-suffering mother eventually liberate themselves from the tyranny of their father. It is a questionable freedom, though. Like any survivor of abuse, Kambili finds that release without closure is small success. “Silence hangs over us [now],” she says toward the end of Purple Hibiscus. It's only when Kambili is pulled out of this horrific environment that she is able to see how wrong it is and understand that this mode is not normal.
Even though the emotional and physical pains he inflicted are seen only as a gesture of love for her own good, but later she comes to consider his actions as abnormal. Aunty Ifeoma and their cousins have brought joy and laughter to Kambili and Jaja, and that cannot be taken away.
The book prompts a re-examination of cross-sectional audience; politicians, religious and ordinary people on how life and ideology could be upheld with out necessarily suppressing those under their tutelage.
The plot’s tempo is proportionally measured against Nigeria’s fast moving urban life.
It is a harsh story, almost unbearable at first, but beautifully written. The book has earned Chimamanda a comfortable position on the list of Africa’s best writers.

Tragedy befalls Masaba-land

 

The people of Nametsi in Bududa districts, disparately search for the remains of the mudslide victims.

Death is not unusual rather the way we die or what kills us is some times very unusual.

Like a normal day, the people of Nametsi went to bed just like another raainny day in their lives.