A Nightmare Gives Birth to a Mission

I have a movie that runs in my mind every time – it’s about my childhood experiences and it’s the reason I believe what I believe. I see it clearly like a crystal stone, how people in Sudan suffered due to lack of doctors. When I was seven years old, my zeal for being a doctor started; I lined my friends and pretended to perform treatment and injected them. I always encouraged them to come back if they did not feel better. I wanted to be a doctor because of all the respect they gain; their snow-white coats they wear tell how genius they were. In my village, being a doctor brought so much respect to the family name and people judge through family names. It was a dream, but not a mission. Then one day, I believed.

For a long time I had being under illusion that doctors can fix anything, but then the unimaginable happened, when my best friend died because of waterborne disease. She was my age. As I went to visit her in the village clinic, I was astonished: my eyes almost popped out of their sockets when I saw the patients squashed together. I could not distinguish between patients who were in intensive care with those who were on their last breath. There was no supply of medicine; the patients were given aspirin to keep the body temperature down. So many people died of easily preventable diseases such as measles and dysentery. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the doctors trying to cut off the leg of a man who had stepped on a landmine, to avoid infections. I felt the malaise he was going through as it penetrated deep into my soul.

Poor standards of hygiene could almost determine why not many people made it out alive. The day my friend died, I was in so much pain, I was so weak, and my feeble legs could longer bear the weight of my body anymore Her sound swells in my consciousness like a dull headache. I remember her sky blue eyes,. Her death made me question why would someone died because of water borne disease. If most of the diseases are preventable I believe pursuing my dreams will maybe give me answers.

I want to go back to Sudan and help save my people from poverty. I believe I have all my resources and opportunities; nothing will hold me back. Where ever my dreams may lead me I will still remember where I am from. I accept the responsibility to keep my community alive. No worthy endeavor is without risks and pitfalls; I am ready to face the obstacles that I will encounter and am ready to change my country. Consciousness is the roots of all my courage. Hope sees the invisible; it feels the intangible and achieves the impossible. I will not stop until I get to the edge.