I'm here with author Suzanne strip picture a
her tenth book is coming out this spring it is
titled this is paradise a mother's grief and African villages plate
and the medical clinic that brought fresh hope to both also with this mags
Rearden
an educator from County Kerry Ireland and really now from Malawi Africa
and it is your story told in the book thank you both
for being with us and makes it I'm gonna start with you
let me ask you it's painful for me even to ask you this question but I know
you lost to children in infancy 11 in a car crash
12 sudden infant death syndrome years later
you're grown twenty five-year-old son Billy who who was
from from what I've read an amazing spirit travels to Africa
drowns in Lake Malawi while swimming a place which which he emailed you about
he said
you've got to come and see this it's paradise this is paradise that the title
with the book
when you do go year later to place a memorial stone
you see the poverty the lack of medical care for the people
your moved to do something we're now I believe marking about ten years since
you started the Billy
reardon memorial clinic in Cape Mac earlier
allow week what a decision to make getting most of us would have gone
with the stone cross ourselves said a prayer and left everyone I think about
what had happened
you said I've gotta help these people why gushing to put it like us
yeah its some yeah it's it's overwhelming
yeah it it is but it didn't seem to be at the time
I'm when I went to the first time I went I
I just went with the idea I'm gonna go see this press because
Billy have said to me you gotta go eat you like he'd been there was a star trip
that was just heard missus
I'm so I just thought why I'm gonna have to go and see it now
absolutely have to go and see it so the first time I went was like you said to
just put in more a storm just
get a feel for the place I'm and its
everest just where these places us you once you got a feel for two
you you you felt you had to do something Susan how did you learn
mags story and in with Android you in three and a half years working
rating this is paradise balls cross the river at the Big E
I was helping a friend Fran Ryan from
dingell in County Kerry and friend was part of a group had come over
and banks was in that group from her neighborhood
and Max had a stand and was taking donations in telling the story of the
trust in the clinic
and I we hear her tell in a nutshell the story you just told
and I would hear tell it in people would walk away and then someone could come
and look at the photos at the clinic and say well what's this
to tell the story again and then they'd walk way maybe they be the dollar maybe
they wouldn't
and I'd say I wanna know more about this as a as a person
as a writer I want an old story and I also know who is this person
and what's at like to go and do that how do you even do this you know we hear
about
charities and trusts all the time in its
probably you know somebody you know in an ivory tower
you know sort running the whole thing but really not that involved
serve a figurehead and I learned this is a woman who's doing everything in this
scene from soup to nuts the whole thing this is her
this is her effort and she's carrying it out simply amazing story in a meeting
persons well
all major let let me ask you its its kinda beyond imagination in every sense
not only
what you had suffered but for any of us from aging going halfway around the
world from
our home to a to a very foreign place in every sense of the word
and saying I'm gonna create a clinic I'm going to recruit an all-volunteer staff
of doctors and nurses
in this this country that's a lot different from where
I'm from no criticism enter implied their but it's a different world
how did you go in and get that started even an accomplished young people ask
you a question now 10 years down the line at Contech
how did i do a set of I really do I'm
by guest by guards I suppose
is one way of putting us am I went back chart of the first trip
and and I said you know I want to do something for the village and initially
because my background is education I thought I would do something in and
education
you build a school building school block to something like that but that on this
the second or third trip and there was an outbreak of cholera in the village
and it was only then I realized gushed
there there's no medical treatment here I have gone with the westerners idea
that everybody has access to MasterCard
which is which is what we're fortunate enough to have I'm sorry that I realize
test
you know that that's not actually the way it is I so what's the point in
and you know putting a schoolteacher don't live long enough to go to school
and that was basically what was happening so I thought rush
okay we'll have to start at Ground Zero and I'm you just plug medical clinic
I was fortunate in that my my my back on my family background is in medicine so
it didn't hold the same
soda or a that it does for people who have gone for non-medical background
so I just okay when you can XO will we build a clinic I went back to Arlington
people top
the corruption national bus for people running around when I told them what was
necessary when I told them that children were dying up of
a very simple diseases I a 10 sack something as simple as gastroenteritis
an HR is getting and was dead eight hours later
when when you tell people about their realize you noticed this is something
that shouldn't be allowed to happen
and and so people to ride it around and people
you know helped out financially and damn
we just went from strength to strength
susan let me ask you to add correct me if I get this wrong because I went back
and checked it two or three times
im sure you sent me one doctor in the region for 800
thousand people yet I can't even wrap my mind around that
getting a hospital in a big city if you could afford the transportation
which could be as much as a month's salary was difficult and dangerous
it was life or death for these people without this clinic this was the region
what region would you say with the 800,000 what with that encompass
that was that mister I G Man terms chrome is/are
yeah yeah no it won't wearing that what's known as a mango tree district
which is a
a greater bridge that which is a greater district and
there was one hospital therefore you had we had one doctor
now things are improving sought to assure it things are improving
what in our area we have a catcher dereck after a fifteen thousand
there was nothing there and there still is nothing other than elsewhere still
the only
the owning it healthcare providers in the area and
cars to get those fifteen thousand if you have to get out
to go anywhere and there's not much better this there's really nothing
beyond that for
hours know the risks there isn't but having said that I mean we
just to give you an idea that the scale-up are up the to work today we see
we see in excess of 100 patients every day everyday at the outpatient
department
and then we see a thousand patients every month
and for anti-retroviral switches hey shabby treatment
I am so it you you know you have a lot going on
if we weren't there not have these pic people would see ever see a doctor
even today in 2014 in and as I read through what what was available to be
pre- publication
the first chapter of the book the question you heard over and over again
and I suppose this is a remnant of
you know Mom allowing people's experiences with westerners in including
history but they
they keep asking you why are you here
that the there was there was a mountain you had to get over before you got
I guess their trust is that there's a chance to ask they've instead
still ask you know and and I i make a for sure answer I'm here because I can
be here
I'm here because it's the right thing to do
Suzanne you say this book is about how one person
truly can change the world it's funny I was talking this
your friend my friend my husband Tommy shape she other day and he said
trillion they do you think that really needed this is how we talk at my house
haha
think that workers needed marriage so he was looking at something anything what
I thought you know trying to emphasize that it's not only a critically shale
persecute change the world news at all its makes
you know it makes a great bumper sticker sign or so again
in it can be true and this is a this is when those instances it's true
this is someone who stepped forth and so I'm going to do something
and I think for the rest of us it its it's a great inspiration perhaps we can
get involved
with max's efforts me know she's always looking for volunteer doctors and nurses
to spend it was a minute minimum before
month at four to six months for the six months arm
other professionals are needed as well if you can't do that perhaps you can
make a donation there's
there's a American army the charity which is based right here in
in West Springfield Anders efforts like that but maybe you want your own village
in America you can do something but is just thing to go forth and say what's
needed what do I see
what can I do you get makes you didn't
what do you think it would mean that this was a place your son called
Paradise
what would it mean to him do you think to know that the the Billy reardon
memorial clinic is there for these people in this place he came to love
I think he'd be bemused and I suppose
probably very happy
you making a difference yeah we are making a difference here
it but it's not just me you know we've got lot volunteer we've had we've had
about 400 volunteers have come I worked with the snow over the years
and doctors and nurses who give up their who give up their their time and they
give us their expertise
and ever on Pinterest the efforts makes really thanks for what you're doing
in susan's from picture the book is this is paradise
thank you both for being with us