Congo Kinshasa: Exploding hot water flask puts Judith in peril!

The morning started as usual; Judith arrived for breakfast and we sat together at the little, plastic, square table in the corner of the sitting-room. In Basankusu, where my malnutrition centres are, we don’t have mains electricity, so, we don’t have an electric kettle. Instead, we heat water on a wood fire outside and put it into a Thermos flask. Judith had been very pleased with her purchase of a new Thermos flask in Mbandaka when she’d come to meet me the previous week. It was bright orange and quite large. Judith’s dad had visited, two days before, and commented on how hot the water was. The plastic looked quite flimsy, but, despite its lightweight appearance, and low price, we were very pleased with how efficient it was.

Francis Hannaway and Judith Bondjembo 

We sat down to a simple breakfast. I’d brought some blackcurrant jam from Kinshasa, and a sachet of Nescafé instant coffee. Local bakeries had sprung up in Basankusu after the civil war, with the help of UN agencies, and bread was usually made to a good standard. 

I took the heavy Thermos and poured it into my cup, and passed it across the table to Judith.  Once in her hands, the weight of it swung it a little on its way and it touched the wall briefly. She poured the steaming water into her cup. It was just when she was about to return it to the table that it happened. There was an explosion. It was like a bomb had gone off! We both sprang to our feet. A large cloud of smoke-like vapour hovered above the table! We saw that it was the flask which had exploded, the bottom and all that was inside had come out with a tremendous force.  Still in shock we sat down.

The bottom of the Thermos was blown off!

It was several minutes later that Judith realised that the scalding water from the flask had landed on her chair and she was now sitting in it! The shock of the situation had meant that she hadn’t felt it immediately! We’d both thought that there was no damage – but then I realised that I needed to act quickly to cool the scald. I rushed her into the bathroom and splashed handfuls of cool water onto the area at the top of upper leg. I tried to get her to sit in a basin of water, but she thought it was all a lot of fuss for nothing. 

She started to tell me about “nkisi ya bankoko”, traditional medicine, or, literally, “medicine of the ancestors”. Now, I’m not completely opposed to certain calming plant-based medicines that might help with a fever or a headache, but certain things need a certain approach. If you have a burn, you need to cool it. Immersion in water is the best way. I’m a trained First Aider and I cooled the wound. Unfortunately, she’d delayed doing that for a little while and it became a burn. A little bit later and huge, fluid-filled blisters started to appear. She asked me to pop them. I explained that the blisters protect the burn area. On further Googling, the advice was that large, painful blisters could be emptied. I emptied the largest one, which was about 10 cm long, and left the others.

The huge blister on the back of Judith's upper leg

Judith went outside to talk with her aunt, Mama Claude, who was a clerk in a medical centre, and who knows a thing or two (or thinks she does). People here are obsessed with medicines, be it injections, or pills or ointments. My advice was to leave it uncovered and let the some air get to it. No, it should have something on it – some cream, or antiseptic – was her aunt’s advice. OK, we’d been using tincture of iodine on surgical wounds, I wouldn’t object to that. No, we’ve used it all up, but you can get “blue” at the corner pharmacy kiosk. I assumed it was potassium permanganate or something similar. I still stressed that it didn’t really need anything on it.

The other women sitting outside started to chip in their ideas. Different leaves, the bark of a tree, the flower from a palm tree – and so on. I made it very clear, “Don’t put anything on it!” I said, and went back inside.

The vast majority of people in Basankusu are poorly educated. Many can’t read. Of those who can read, they don’t read because there’s nothing here to read. Faith in the ancestors trumps all knowledge that foreigners from developed countries can bring. It’s their secret. They know things that we foreigners couldn’t possibly understand. It’s very similar to our European ancestors believing that witches float and bleeding people with leeches reduced hysteria. Our ancestors were ignorant and their outdated knowledge has been superseded with modern medicine and medical practice. The ancestors of Basankusu were ignorant, too. Honey will not cure a snakebite; wearing amulets will not protect you from ill health!

An hour later, Judith came back into the house. There was something going on. She had a little smug look. 

“You’ve done something. What have you done?” I asked, noticeably worried. She showed me that all the smaller blisters had also been punctured and the whole area was covered in a sort of sawdust paste. 

“What on earth have you done!” My voice rose.

“It’s my body, I can do what I like,” she replied calmly. “It’ll get better quickly now.”

“No, it would get better quickly by itself; you don’t understand.” My frustration was hard to conceal. “These old wives’ tales don’t do anything. You’ve only heard about them being successful, but you haven’t seen the infected mess they leave on others. You’ll be scarred for life!”

Judith let me know that it was the pollen-filled middle of a palm-tree flower. I explained that she was putting dirt and bacteria into an open wound and that it would become infected. Did she want to lose a leg? I told her that the wetness in the wound was blood plasma, but none of it seemed to bother her. She insisted, despite hardly being able to walk, that she’d climbed the tree and plucked the flower herself – I knew it couldn’t be true. I took her again to the bathroom and insisted that I wash it off. It was a struggle but she eventually agreed. It wouldn’t come off; it was stuck like glue!

I went outside to where Mama Julie, Mama Claude, and several other women were sitting.

I was looking for the yard-long, flat, wooden paddle that’s used for mixing fufu. I couldn’t find it so I picked up a length of wood to worry them with.

“Who has done this terrible thing to Judith!” I announced. “Who decided that they knew better than me and decided to give her an infected wound?” They could see I was angry – they sat with their heads down and said nothing.

I went to Dr David’s house, he lives just next door but one. A big smile spread across his face as I told him what had happened and he started to laugh. 

“Leave it to me,” he said. “I’ll take her to my clinic by motorbike. You can follow later to see how it’s going.”

Half an hour later I joined them in his surgery. On the way, I bought some more tincture of iodine and dressings. Dr David removed all the scalded skin from the blistered area. It left a clean but very red, very much the-skin-underneath wound. The red-raw wound was about the same size as the palm of my hand.

The scald wound after Dr David removed the palm flower mixture, and cleaned away damaged skin. 

“It’s a second degree burn,” he said. “It seems to have become so bad because Judith didn’t feel it, at first. But, don’t worry, it’ll heal just fine.” He told us he’d dress the wound himself every 2 or 3 days. 

The wound healed very well. There’s a slightly different colour to it, but it’s definitely not scarred, despite her picking bits of dead skin from it, like sunburn, over the weeks of healing.

Judith says she agrees with me about the flower being dirty and an infection risk. However, I’m not completely convinced. If she’s with her friends she likes to ridicule my rejection of nkisi ya bankoko – I never know whether she still believes in them, or, more probably, she just likes to wind me up!

Judith Bondjembo at the malnutrition centre

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