A rant of sorts

So we were watching Motherland Afghanistan last night, a documentary in which an Agfhani doctor returned to Afghanistan to train doctors in a womans’ hospital in Kabul (named the Laura Bush Maternity Ward). Nearly one in seven Afghani women die in childbirth. That fact alone blew my mind, but this next part was what really made my head spin.

Knittybaby was under the weather, and I had left to help the poor guy get back to sleep for the 80th time that night. When I returned, the doctor was working in a new part of Afghanistan. The Skeptic brought me up to date:

“So he left the hospital. You know the $300,000 in supplies and equipment he was promised by U.S. Health and Human Services? Then never sent it. Nothing. Then, they go and cancel the program for “not meeting goals.” Then they decided to not call it the Laura Bush Maternity Ward anymore. (Gee, wonder why?) Now the doctor’s at another clinic with some independant group.”

WTF????

So I had to make sure I had it straight. Despite a paper signed by Tommy Thompson himself promising supplies, they got nothing, then were canceled because they couldn’t do anything since they had no supplies???!!!!

This is the stuff that just makes me want to repeatedly bang my head against a brick wall. The stuff that makes me feel so incredibly frustrated and absolutely hopeless. The stuff that makes me crazy because doing things like saving women and babies from death during childbirth shouldn’t be that hard. I went to bed very angry.

But this morning Knittybaby was still feeling under the weather, and decided a nap on my lap was the only way to go, which gave me time to catch up on Bloglines. And I came across this lovely contest, which reminded me to not focus on being angry and remember what I can do, which is support the people who can help these women and women all over the world like them. You can’t beat that.

Okay, maybe there’s one other thing that can beat that. How about over 260,000 knitted and crochet caps delivered to our countries leaders, then on to babies to help lower infant mortality rates worldwide. 260,000, people! They were hoping for 50,000. You can always count on knitters to help.