It seems that almost every day of the week I hear of some difficult circumstance involving one of our Chadian staff - sickness, accidents, loss of or damage to their home and, all too frequently, sudden death. We only have 9 staff members so there are a lot of tough things for them to deal with and some of the situations seem more tragic than others.
Yesterday morning I greeted Dieudonne as normal and asked how he was. He replied he was fine but then he hesitated and proceeded to tell me that the day before his neighbour had gone fishing with his six-year old son (and that's fishing as a means of earning some money, rather than as a leisure activity). The father and son were on the river bank sorting the big fish from the small ones when a black snake came out of the undergrowth and bit the boy on his leg. The father quickly killed the snake but within five minutes the boy started shaking and very soon afterwards he was dead.
Dieudonne was visibly upset as he told me this and asked if he could take the day off to attend the funeral. People here live very close together so he must know the family well. He has a son of his own who is just a little bit younger than this boy and I am sure he can imagine what it would be like to lose a child so suddenly.
My limited French only stretches as far as 'desole' (sorry), which is clearly an inadequate expression in such tragic circumstances.
I'm not sure I really have the words in English either.
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