Kilema Hospital

The next location, where we spent an additional two weeks, was Kilema District Hospital. Kilema is located high up on the slopes of mount Kilimanjaro – a very bumpy hour’s drive from Moshi town. The hospital is small, usually averaging 80 in-patients per night. There are male and female medical wards, a labour & delivery ward, a small paediatrics department, a busy out-patient clinic, a counselling and testing centre for HIV, and a two-theatre operating room. Given free-reign to visit any department of interest within the hospital, we spent most of our time observing with the staff medical officers. These two weeks carried a lot of new experiences for me e.g. first witnessed delivery, first witnessed C-section. Above and below are photos taken from the small hill just behind the hospital, where on a clear day there were stunning views of Kilimanjaro, the Pare mountains in the distance, and the surrounding plains.

The Absolute Importance of Poetry

When materialism makes its ugly claim that all the universe is no more than a raucous tangle of atoms; when medicine jeers at you that you’re nothing but blood, bones, and viscera; when nature’s true mystery is masked by the cog-wheeled, deterministic costume I impose upon her; that is when I would do well to remember the absolute importance of poetry.

By ‘poetry’ I mean not merely lines of rhythmic prose, rhyming or otherwise. But also the poetry of story, of song, and of artistic creation. I mean the poetry that exists within expressions of the human soul as she cries out “there is more!” More than mere mechanism, there is beauty; there is also truth.

You atoms: not even if you assembled evolution’s finest eyes could you look upon, and marvel at, the exquisite beauty of the world. You nerve cells: not even if you assembled neuroscience’s most-impressive brain could you find delight in immortal, rational truth.

But poetry, song, story, and art (which are not bound by blind, obedient nature) all perceive the “something more” with wondrous ease. And so when my mind has foolishly forgotten that it contains more than simple atoms and slow nerve cells, I must remember the absolute importance of poetry. It is the immaterial remedy for my immaterial disease.