What AM I doing here?

I'm in Rwanda doing my PhD research on the refugee camps here. I haven't been to camps in other countries, but I think the ones here are particularly hopeless. The Congolese refugees have been in the camps for more than 12 years and there seems to be no solution - there is still conflict in the region they fled from in the DRC and Rwanda doesn't want to integrate them into the country here. So they are just sitting stagnating with very, very little opportunity to improve their lives in any way. Very depressing.

I really wasn't prepared for how much more difficult having a baby with me would be, and how much more emotionally vulnerable it would make me. I knew it would be hard, but I wasn't quite prepared for the actuality of how hard, if that makes sense? She's usually a very content baby but being here has made her much more clingy and leaving her to do work is much more emotionally wrenching than I'd imagined... and then I feel doubly guilty for leaving my screaming child for the poor Cripple to comfort.

Early last week the bub had a high fever and I thought she might have malaria. I'd waited a few hours for a meeting with someone who was busier than expected with the bub sitting on my lap. By the end of the day the person still hadn't been able to make it and all the while the bub's temperature had seemed to get higher and higher. I finally asked the receptionist if she might know how I'd contact a doctor.

I had no idea the reaction that would get. Immediately panic ensues. The doctor is unable to be reached so we have a vehicle take us to find him. Doctor located we scream off to the medical centre in the camp. As we zoomed up the hill of the camp in the land rover the Cripple turned to me and said "I can't imagine being anywhere else and going *to* a refugee camp for medical care." Turns out the bub didn’t have malaria (and is fine now), but contrasting the instant help and tons of attention she got to the way I've since seen the refugees are treated has made me feel quite guilty and useless.

My first full day "working" in the camp was spent mostly in the health centre. I met a woman that was paralysed from shrapnel in the DRC conflict and had been lying in the same bed for over six years. I met another man that had been paralysed recently when a building collapsed on him - he was hoping an operation in Kigali could restore the use of his legs, but a dr told me it was unlikely. I met a mother who's eight month old baby was so emmaciated from malnutrition the baby was about half the size of my baby. Then I realised why the Dr and nurses had told me not to worry about my baby - she was crying so strongly she couldn't possibly be really ill. Watching this eight month old child barely muster the strength to whimper broke my heart.

At the moment going into the camps and talking to people is making me feel like I'm kind of a voyeur and rather than helping I'm taking time from people who can actually be useful. I know theoretically that unless what goes on is documented and reported no change can possibly happen, but it's hard to remember that when faced with such overwhelming deprivation. Watching babies barely able to make any noise in pain is quite literally heartbreaking. Agh.