I’m sitting on our bed listening to the rain outside and
feeling shell-shocked after today. It
has been an interesting and challenging day but so much has happened it’s hard
to put it into one blog. I’ve decided
that I will tell you some of the things we have done and seen today.
·
We walked to the centre for 8.30am while Charles
took our bags in the car
·
We saw queues of people outside, some old or
sick, some without shoes, some with walking poles – but all guardians of
sponsored children
I played Frisbee and sang songs with about 50
unexpected children while Tom, Moses and Allen talked to the guardians about
the proposal to have all the children tested for HIV.
·
Tom and I played with these children plus more
while Moses and Allen registered consent for HIV testing from the
guardians. We played with the parachute
and a ball made out of old plastic bags that we found on the floor (along with
a dead frog and sundry bits of rubbish).
·
Tom played his whistle and we taught the
children to play musical statues and bumps.
·
After nearly 2 hours of games we sat and chatted
to people still waiting and realised that a group of carers had arrived with
children with disabilities (CWD) as they had misunderstood the radio
announcement and thought they should come at 8.30am instead of 2.30pm
·
We got out the bag of sensory toys donated by
our friend Katy and tried to keep the more disabled children amused.
·
When all the guardians of sponsored children had
left, we sent Moses and Charles to buy bottles of soda (pop) and a bread roll
for each adult and child who had been waiting for 4 hours to talk to us about
CWD (21 adults and 25 children) – we couldn’t bear that they had nothing to eat
or drink.
·
We took this group into the large hall where we
all sat on the floor and Moses explained that we wanted to understand more
about their lives so that Global Care could better work towards identifying
ways they could support CWD.
·
While Tom and Moses and Allen talked to people,
I played ball with a 3 year old girl with Down’s syndrome, read with several
children, provided more sensory toys for blind and deaf toddlers, and made
badges with those old enough and able to make them.
·
I met Fred, a lovely little boy. He’d played
with the parachute with us earlier, and Tom and I took turns to stand behind
him for support, or lift him up, while he clung onto the parachute with his
stiff slow little hands and tried to balance on his tiny bent legs. He was a joy to be with – full of smiles and
laughing at the other children. We think
he had cerebral malaria and during surgery when he was 2 he suffered a brain
injury.
·
I met Faith, who has spina bifida. Her legs were
covered in sores and she had pronounced hydrocephalus. Her mother wants to take Faith to a
neuro-surgical unit, but the nearest one is in Mulago near Kampala 400 km
away. She can’t possibly take Faith
there. Faith needs a wheelchair but there aren’t any. Her mother has to carry
her on her back (what happens when she gets too big to carry?)
·
I talked to the mother of the girl with Down’s
syndrome. She said that people
(including her husband) think that time spent with CWD is wasted because they
are useless children. They say, ‘you’re
running around all the time but you are not doing any work’. She was told her daughter would never walk or
talk before she was 6 years old. She’s
doing both…
·
I met the father of a girl who was born blind
and has fits. The father thinks the fits
are a sign of witchcraft so he takes her to the witch doctor. He has never taken her to a medical doctor
because he thinks there is no point. I
listened while the ladies around him explained to him about epilepsy.
·
I met Mary, a bright girl who had a botched
repair of congenital dislocation of the hip.
She asked if she could borrow a book to take to read to her sister. I
said yes!
·
I met Grace, a 3 year old who was born with
HIV. They didn’t know what was making
her sick and she became very ill and when we saw her she had brain dysfunction and
severe squints. Her mother ran off when
she was born so her grandparents looked after her. Eventually they took her to TASO and now she has anti-retrovirals
(ARVs) and is beginning to improve. She
could shuffle on her bottom. We gave the
grandparents (who appeared to be very old) clothes for an 18 month old. She was poking into everything. They can’t afford to buy her the food she
needs so her chances of major improvement are limited. We all thought that with
time and treatment she might well walk.
·
In the middle of all this we went into town to a
café where they were only serving cow or goat and I ate cow meat with soup and rice
while Allen had goat stomach and matoke.
She was impressed by my reaction.
These people have limited support. They live with no running water and have to
go out to work to pay for food. What do
you do with a CWD if you go to work here?
There are no day care centres in Rukungiri. They have little help with their disabled children
apart from limited support for health care from the local diocese – and that
isn’t available to everyone. They have
no transport and no walking aids for the children so they walk with children of
all ages strapped to their backs. We
heard of people unable to go to church because the church can’t cope with the
child’s behaviour. I haven’t told you
about everyone we met – its too much to take in. No-one spoke in the car on the way back to
our hotel – because at the minute we feel like we’ve met the most vulnerable
children and can do nothing to help. Now
we have to digest what we’ve heard and try to help Moses and Allen think of
ways they could support these families.
For more stories see https.drtomgoesglobal.blogspot.com
We paid about 25p per person for a drink and a piece of
bread. Next time I go out for coffee and
cake I hope I remember today. And maybe we can find a way to make it easier for some of these people to feed their children
Tomorrow morning we’re going back to TASO and to visit the
women’s wing of the prison – another challenging day I suspect.
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