I helped Marc from Houtlust to translate some French ads to Dutch. He did a reasonably good job to translate them to English, but I’ll help him out a bit to make it more clear what it’s all about. I waited to post this because I didn’t want to steal his juice, but these ads are so impressive I just couldn’t let them go by unblogged. So, what’s it all about? You can’t even begin to imagine how it feels like to have severe burns of the third or fourth degree, to have lost a leg because of a mine. These ads help you visualize the daily feelings of the victims. Brace yourself, ‘cuz it’s hard.
It always starts the same
first a gentle caress on the edge of the ears
followed by the feeling that your heart is bounching in your feet.
The unpleasant feeling then transforms
and the pain morphes into irritation
all over the skull
during a couple minutes the pain returns
all over your shinbone and knee
It feels like a vice
you’re leg hurts incredibly
You don’t wish for anything else than to embrace your leg
but you can’t, because you’ve lost your leg over two months ago.
It was torn off by a mine.
Place you hand above a lighter.
Twinge and read the text mentioned below.
You are 8 years old, you live at the Namibian borders.
Your village has been attacked with napalm, and in the heat of the fighting
between the government troops and the guerrilla forces you suffer
from serious burns all over your body.
Your bandage must be replaced daily but because of a lack of resources
the hospital staff decided you can still use the same bandage again for a bit longer
rather than look after the wound again.
Your wounds inflame. The pain raises.
Because of the intense pain they do not dare to replace the bandage, therefore everything infects even more.
The pain raises.
You can extinguish the lighter now.
You have spent 1 minute like an Angolan child.
First they take you to a room with moistured, wet walls.
They lay you on an iron bed.
Next they cuff your hands with copper handcuffs.
The first one holds you so you can’t move.
The second one cuts with a knife in the belly with a knife so blunt that it couldn’t cut paper.
He starts to rumble inside you.
At that moment you’re ready confess just about anything.
But there’s nothing to confess.
They’re only trying to operate your appendicitis.
Agency: BDDP & Fils
for: Douleurs Sans Frontières (pain without borders)
Reading this made me feel bad and lucky at the same time. Man. I was shocked. I mean, I knew it was bad ‘down there’ in Africa. But thís bad? Thank God I live in a country with decent medical support and no war.