We have been extremely busy this first days of the new year! Lots of new baby's. The little twin, where I wrote about in the previous blog, are doing well, they are still fed by NG tube, but they are gaining!!Last week we brought Joseph back to his mother. Joseph has been with us for 5 months and his situation is very different than the other children in Amecet. He has a double cleft pallet and both of his parents are in jail. Normally we re-settle a child as soon as it is possible, especially when there is a mother. We come very regularly in the women section of the prison. we visit the mothers with little children and we assist them with porridge flour, sugar and soap. We took Joseph with us, several times, when we went to visit the prisons.
His mother was so happy to see him. We have been talking with the authorities if possible, we would bring Joseph to be with his mother. There is still an operation coming up for him, but we will help with that when the time is there. So Simon, the Probation officer and I took Joseph to be united with his mother. the first picture is the official handing over in the presence of the Officer of the women section. After that, we all went to the men section and the father was called. He had not seen his son for many months, so he was happy to see him. But it was still a strange way of resettling Joseph into prisons.
We get almost every week a child via the Police. Sometimes it goes about a simple thing, a child was wandering from home and couldn't find the way back. But there are also more complicating or sad stories. This week we got a girl from around 15 years old, she was beaten by her father. The parents were separated and she lived with her father. I had to take her to the doctor and she got treatment, she had several bad bruises on her back and arm. The police got in touch with her mother and re-settled her at her mothers home.
This little boy was also brought by the police, with a very sad story. the parents are separated and the mother came to town and dumped the little boy at his fathers' place and took off. The father didn't want the boy and also disappeared, leaving the little boy sitting somewhere outside. Concerned neighbours brought the child to the Police, who brought him to us! No name, no age, we don't know anything about him, only that he cries a lot. Every day, he chooses one of our staff as his "mother" and he follows that person the whole day, crying to be picked up and carried. But that is not always possible when there are 12 little baby's and 5 toddlers who all need to be fed and given attention.... Simon is pressing the Police to investigate more, so we can get him to his relatives.
And yesterday we got a telephone call from the maternity ward in the hospital. A mother, who was just operated and had given birth to a baby boy, had passed away. The family needed help..... Together with Eline, I went to the hospital and we came back with the baby. A big boy, weighing almost 4 kg!! His name is Gerard. So there was an empty bed, Gerard is welcome!
Then, we also went to Kampala this week! We were in real need of a new washing machine. So we left Wednesday morning and came back on Thursday with this machine!! Emmanuel will install the machine and we hope it will serve us for a good time! We are all very happy with it!!
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