Immaculate and an adventure at night..

Several times I wrote about Immaculate, a 12 years old girl, we worried about. Immaculate was losing weight, every Sunday, when we weigh all the children, it was a big disappointment, she lost again! We tried everything we could to get her eating, checked if she really took her medicines, she was a very good cheater with taking medicines. You are watching her take them, you give her the water to drink with them and still later you'll find a tablet between her fingers or so. It almost looked that she didn't want to live anymore. We talked, we counselled, but it seems to be all in vain.... untill 2 weeks ago! She had gained!!! And she was so happy, she came to tell me with a big smile on her face. I was almost losing hope that week, she was down, didn't want to talk, sick again, but then this good news. Two days later she came to ask me if she could go back to school, and I let her. Since that time she is going to school for four mornings a week, so she can rest in the afternoons. She is still weak, I have to almost lift her into the schoolbus in the morning, the step is too big for her to take. But she is more happy and she is doing well. She gets now at every meal a cup of milk with a energy/calorie supplement, and it helps her also. When you see the picture, you can see the 2 kg!!!

Last night we had another adventure, I got a phonecall at 4.15 am, it was Miranda, Sabina, one of our two newly arrived Dutch volunteers had been sick during the night and fainted. She fell and hit her head on the table and the result was a big cut and a puddle of blood on the floor. I went there and she was very weak, the cut needed to be stiched. Her friend Carlijn, carried her on her back to the clinic at the neighbours. There was no electricity there, strange, because at Amecet there was electricity, it must have been a very local problem. With the help of our torches the guy on duty stiched the cut and the patient was carried back on the back of her (strong!) friend. We laid her in the night duty room and now she is doing much better, she has not been vomitting anymore. I went to pay the bill this morning, it was 6,25 Euro's (= 8,50 $ US) Where do you find a clinic who will do this for this price???? OK, we provided the lights, but still, it is a good deal!!