A week full of stories...

I have been a bit quiet on our blog, it is due to problems with Internet. Often I write the blogs in the evenings, but now I am living in our own home, I couldn't do that. I do not have Internet there, I bought a little stick, where you can load Internet on, it should work, but it hasn't until now. In Amecet we are shifting the office into a bigger room, so the Internet is out there as well. They are working at it, so it should work soon. And at home... I hope I can find a better solution, because Internet is very nice and handy....

On Monday I went with Simon to the hospital, on Friday a baby was born premature and the parents wanted to bring the baby to Amecet, because it was so small. Simon went back with them on Saturday and discovered that the main reason that they wanted the baby to be in Amecet, was that they wanted to abandon the baby. Even the police was called, the mother didn't want to breast feed and they talked to her and the baby stayed in the incubator, with the mother at the side to give breast feeding. On Monday I went, together with Simon to look how they were doing. There were three baby's in the incubator (see picture) in the middle was our small, 1,2 kg. baby. I talked with the mother, try to encourage her,(she was only 18 years old) see if they needed any medicines and Simon talked with the boyfriend of the mother, who was not the father of the baby. It was a bit of a mess. The next day, I went back to the hospital, with Barbara, the Dutch nurse. We looked at the papers of the baby, we saw some thing we were not happy with, we couldn't see if the baby got all his IV injections, the mother didn't know what he got. But what could we do?? Ask the nurse, who was extremely busy, she would ask the doctor... The next morning, the boyfriend came to Amecet, the baby had died, if we could help with the burial. That was now the next problem... the boyfriend was not the father, his family didn't allow the baby to be buried in their land, the real biological father had ran away and the mother had ran away from home and had no contact with her parents. Simon went with them to the police and they came with them to the village, the home of the mother. The police came with them in case the family refused to bury the baby in their land. Simon told us later that they did not refuse, but the mother of the baby had a very bad reputation at home, confirmed by the neighbours. A sad story, for all party's.

On Wednesday we brought Mary Ikuret back to the village, she is standing on this picture, next to the tree. Mary has been twice in Amecet. We resettled her in July 2012, back to her grandmother. It was not the ideal situation, but we thought that it would work. Mary was still on our Harmony primary school, we still had contact  with her and her grandmother. But we noticed that she was often too late for the school bus and then she had to walk a long way, arriving at school very late. We changed her to a school nearby her home. At first it seem to work, but then we started to see her in town, and sometimes she still came to Harmony school. She often walked together with two smaller cousins (3+5 years). Elias has been talking to the grandmother and together they travelled to Katakwi, to talk with the family if there was a possibility to come back to the village. That was going to be done in the holidays, so she could start the school in the village after the holidays. But then it seems to go worse with Mary, they were stealing food, were beaten by the owners of the food. Then she was lost for 2 weeks. We did radio messages, until this week, they were seen, helping someone in a restaurant, washing the plates. Simon, the grandmother and the police went to get them, that night they slept in Amecet and Elias took them to Katakwi the next day! They were welcomed by the uncles and we think this is a better place, we hope and pray that Mary will settle down, I had to go to the hospital for new ARV's and explain what has happen and ask for a referral letter to Katakwi health centre. I pray she will take her medicines, her uncle's promise to help her with that.

Friday we got an invitation to join the closure of the week of the Deaf... The last years there is a much more attention and help going toward the disabled, the blind and the deaf people in Uganda. They get help on several ways and there are also disabled people in the Parliament, who are fighting for the the right s of the disabled people. There was a week of activities and this time it all happened in Soroti. Friday was a big day of celebration and President Museveni was suppose to come, but he send his minister of Parliament instead. There were speeches, dances and songs. everything was translated into sign language, there was even a speech in sign language, which was translated into English.

It was very interesting to see people dancing on very simple wheelchairs, there was a dance, done by deaf people, on music. Good to see the development in Uganda in this area.