Babe M has been in the hospital for a couple days now.  There is a teenage boy staying there with him.  I am uncertain of the relationship.  It is a son but it must either be a son of a previous marriage who doesn’t live at home, or it is the son of a brother.  A brother’s children are also called “sons” and “daughters”.  He looks horrible and isn’t eating.  His fever seems to come and go.  A doctor crisis exists at the hospital.  3 Cuban doctors recently brought in to help left the country after the woman doctor and her friend were assaulted in their home in the middle of the day in a robbery and failed rape attempt.  The home is just down the road from the orphanage where I live.  The one doctor on duty for all the wards has taken the weekend off.  But babe is still better off here, on a cot on a ward where the potential for help exists, rather than laying on a mat on the ground at home with only small children to attend to his needs. This afternoon babe whispered that he would like some cheese and I will bring him some in the morning. I took that as a good sign.

Earlier in the day, we visited Spelele, the little girl who was badly burned, to see if the arm had been amputated and, in general, how she and gogo are doing.  Traveling to Spelele’s home is no small feat, taking over half the day to get there and back, but I still feel badly that I am not able to get there more often.  Her home is quite some distance from my community.  Gogo says the arm may not need amputating above where the hand burned off.  The medicine seems to be taking care of the infection.  The money from the Young Heroes sponsorship (see www.youngheroes.org.sz) is helping keep Spelele in better health.  She handles herself pretty well with one hand gone and only partial use of the other.  I watched her as she held a lemon against her chest with the wrist of the “good” hand, bending her fingers at an angle I would think not possible to peel the fruit.  She goes with gogo everywhere as there is no one else to stay with her, and there is no time or inclination to pamper her, so she is learning to adapt.

Me & Spelele. we are both ok.