BLOG UPDATE 11 FEB 2011
It's hard to believe it's only been 2 weeks since our return from the states, We had such fun distributing all the loot we brought back from the US, thanks to the generosity of our families and church family.
Our first weekend back brought the arrival of a previous volunteer from the U.K. He and his wife were instrumental in establishing the 2 homes where the children now live. In fact, one house is named David's House and the other, Stella's House, in honor of them. Sadly, Stella had an untimely death from cancer. So, David has returned alone. We all wanted the premises to look their best for his arrival. But, there had been so much rain, it took a lot of work just to clear out the grounds around the homes. I helped the kids practice some songs and to memorize some verses to recite for him, as well as a Welcome Uncle David banner.
In addition to that, Mike & I had to prepare our first Volunteer report, now that we've been 4 mos. At sight. That's something we never had to do in our previous peace corps experience – like everything else, there now needs to be some accountability to the volunteer's time at site.
Our big news is that we now have a new addition to the Children's Home family – a little 2 yr. Old boy, who had been abandoned by his father, and whose mother was no longer willing to care for, since he is both HIV pos. and is recovering from TB. The leadership here wasn't sure we were up to the task, but when it came down to the final decision, they decided to give it a try. The doctors at the hospital were very optimistic about his recovery, provided he receives his daily medications and gets good food and stimulation. He certainly has had plenty of stimulation from the 23 other children, as well as from the adults here. The medications for HIV are tablets to crush and give morning and night. That's the easy part. The TB treatment is as follows: 1. Daily injections for the next 4 mos. 2. For the next 18 mos, 6 different medications, all of which are downsized adult medications which we must either crush or open the capsule or mix with yogurt. The great news is that he's responding well, and doesn't fight us too much with all the nasty tasting stuff. He is quite developmentally delayed, but he is making progress each day. His name is Melusi.
We brought back lots of books to read to the kids, which have black-skinned children in them. One of the books talked about the astronauts landing on the moon, and was beautifully illustrated with life-like drawings of the space shuttle and the astronauts. The theme of the book was for children to hold on to their dreams. When I was reading it to an 11 yr. Old boy, it was clear that he'd never heard about man landing on the moon and truly didn't know that astronauts really do go to outer space. I'm not sure he's convinced, even now but hopefully we'll find more books on the subject to reinforce our lesson. It just goes to show how much I took for granted when my kids were growing up and going to COSI (our local science museum in Columbus), and seeing a real space capsule.
This week we'll be saying farewell to Jen, a peace corps volunteer who stayed an extra 6 mos. In Swaziland just so that she could live and work here at the children's home and develop an income generating project with a home-based care group. She's done a remarkable job, and has become a close friend. We'll miss her a lot.
Friday, February 18, 2011
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