On December 22, 2017 we got a phone call from Soroti Hospital. There was a little girl of around 4 years old, whose mother was confused and staying in the hospital compound. They feared for the safety of the little girl. The lady has been staying there for 2 days, the story was that she came with 2 children, the little girl and a baby boy. But someone had taken the baby from her and nobody knew who. The lady could not tell her name or where she came from, she spoke Luganda, not the language of Teso. The hospital asked if we could take the girl for safety, while tracing would go on for the relatives of the lady.
The little girl also spoke Luganda, but several of our staff members can speak Luganda, so that was no problem. She knew her name: Ketula, but that was all she knew. Ketula was a friendly girl, talked to everybody and loved to play. In the meantime, the hospital called us that the mother had disappeared. But 5 days later, she suddenly showed up in the hospital, she was calm and looking for her daughter. Simon was called and he had a talk with her. She told him her name and her story. She had lived in West Uganda with the father of Ketula. But he send her away and had taken a new wife. She had only one child, the story about the stolen baby boy was not true..... She told Simon she wanted to go to her own village, where her parents were living....
One of the staff members of Amecet came also from that village, he knew the people, whose names the mother told us. Phone calls were made and we got a contact with the family, who was very surprised and happy, they had not heard from their daughter for 5 years, they thought she was dead.
Ketula was picked from Amecet, she had received a doll, from a visiting team, and the doll went of course with her, she didn't let her go out of her sight. The sad side of the story is that we had tested Ketula for HIV, and she was HIV+. We talked with the mother, she didn't know that Ketula was HIV+, she knew that she, herself was HIV+, and she had been on ARV medication, but she didn't know where her medicines were...
Simon drove them back to their village, but stopped in the nearby health centre. They talked with the medical officer there and explained the situation. They were willing to take them in their ARV program and to help them with the treatment.
When they arrived in the village, people were happy to receive them and also to help them with their ARV medication. It is a happy ending, they are safe with their relatives and also Ketula is in the right place, among their relatives.
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