23rd September 2010
Up early to make further preparations and discuss our plan for today. We are visiting a few more families it will take approximately 1 hr to get there a Matatu ride and a 30min walk. We are taking a large bag of baby clothes, some food, a bottle and some formula.
We arrive at the first family to find the 22yr old mother has returned to her 2 week yrd old baby. I was handed the baby, she was so tiny hadn't been fed much since she was born and looked quite malnourished. I feel the tears in my eyes start to flow as I watch this poor little innocent soul so peaceful in my arms. It is hard to hand her back as I know her life ahead is so grim. We sit with the mother for a while trying to establish what had happened, why she dumped her baby and what he problem is between her and the father. We unfortunately were unable to establish the full story but we at least were able to bring clothes and explain and give her formula. She is greatful we came and we leave with the plan to check up on them in a couple of days.
The next family we visit is a single mother who has 4 children and is HIV positive. We don't have much time to spend here but we will come back tomorrow and take some notes and try to work out how we can help this family and what the best thing is to do. We are concerned for the baby who is being breast fed when the mother has HIV. We tell them we will come back tomorrow and work out a plan which will hopefully make a difference to these people's lives and the future of this baby.
Our last stop is the grandmother of 2 children who were staying in the orphanage. There mother has some time ago now and the children don't want to stay at the orphanage or go to school. We have come to establish why they don't want to come back because the grandmother is unable to care for them. Simon won't tell us why he doesn't want to come back to the orphanage. He is quite disobedient and while we are there I witness the grandmother beat him with a stick really hard, I feel my heart rate pick up and get ready to intervene but Simon runs away and cowers in the corner. I stand up, turn to Martha to translate and forcefully ask her to explain what her reason is for doing what she did. Martha asks her to explain and then explains to me Simon is running away from school, threw away his school books and giving her a hard time and she is too old to take anymore misbehaving from him. We decide to leave and work out tonight the best thing to do with these children we think maybe Simon needs to realise how good he has it at the orphanage and that a couple of weeks there he will decide to come back where he is fed, loved and cared for.
We say goodbye and head back to the orphanage, we need to make it back in time to say goodbye to Nate, an American volunteer who has been there for about 6 weeks and is leaving to go back home.
It's a sad time for everyone when a volunteer leaves, we have all formed a bond and become close.
Byeeeee Nate :-(
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