A very sad day.......

Last night at around 11 pm I decided to check on our sick babies, before going to bed. In our night duty room was one baby, Peter, on the oxygen machine. Just that afternoon his tummy started to be paining, hard and swollen. We had been to the doctor, Peter had had malaria, but even after his treatment, he had a lot of diarrhea. He had been on an IV drip. We were afraid for an ilius (obstruction of the intestines). The doctor had given some advise, but there was not much we could do. When I came at 11pm. the breathing of Peter was very difficult. I also saw that two other babies were in the need of an IV drip. We have at the moment 2 medical volunteers, they also came and we have been there the rest of the night.

At 4 am. Peter died. A little boy from one month old. His mother gave birth in their hut, by herself. Later the family found her laying on the floor with the baby. The mother was HIV+, we will never know if Peter was HIV+. 

This morning at around 7.30 am. I went to order a small coffin in the size of 25 x 60 cm. After we had laid Peter to rest in his little box (as Helen calls it), we carried it to our car. Together with a sack with posho and beans for the family, we left to the village to bring Peter back to his family. We had been able to let the family know what had happens, so they were a bit prepared.

The custom is that we have to give a report to the family about everything happened. And we gave the medical papers. It was a sad meeting there under the mango tree around that little coffin. After a little while, we left the family to mourn. There is a believe that when you cry while the vehicle which brought the body, is still there, the vehicle will get an accident. Ofcourse we don't believe that, but the people in the villages do, so we want to give them their time to cry and mourn.
As staff of Amecet, we have seen a lot of death among our children, around 55 children have died in our home since we began in 2001. Every time it hurts, every time is there the question: why ? Every time are there the tears, because of the suffering and death of those innocent children.
Peter is Home and he has no more pain! And we? We are now worrying about Moses, Paul, Mathilida and David. Because that are the children God has entrusted to us!