This day was pretty amazing. A few of us went with one of our partners (Moses) to a nearby town called Mukono. Moses does a lot of work with children who have disabilities. In Uganda, the government does not give any assistance to children with disabilities. What's more, parents who have children with disabilities tend to hide them away. People here are rarely spend time indoors. They even do most of their cooking and bathing outside. They spend a lot of time out on the front porch. However, disabled children are rarely seen in public because people in the neighborhood look down upon them. We visited several places where the kids were inside a dark house laying on the concrete floor where they had have been for many years. (The oldest person we visited was 30 years old and had almost never left the spot where they were laying, the concrete begins to grow in their skin)
This little guy has epilepsy, cerebral palsy, polio and several other diseases. His muscles are constantly tense and as Moses explained, he cannot relax them. His caretaker wasn't the most compassionate of individuals either. Breanne and the girls are really good about holding the kids and making them feel better.
Moses (pictured in the tan shirt) made these chairs out of wood. They help the little guy to sit upright. This helps him keep still when feeding. Most of the time, the care taker has him on the floor or couch where he cannot sit or lay in any comfortable manner.
Feeding chair: as soon as Moses put him in this chair he began stretching and looked a lot happier. Interesting because it looks like a really uncomfortable chair to me.
This little guy (his mother also in the picture) has been laying here on the floor in the dark for pretty much his whole life. He also has cerebral palsy and epilepsy and several other ailments. He also has water swelling his brain. He is also mostly blind and in pain most of the time. He really came alive when he heard Moses' voice and when we started talking to him he got really excited.
This is the little brother of the boy in the picture above.
"The Lord Is My Shepherd" (written next to the doorway)
Silly kid: He would smile until I snapped pictures. He's frowning in all of the pictures that I took.
Just a picture of us leaving their house
We cannot walk more than a few steps without children coming from every corner see us. "Muzungu" they yell.. (pronounced "Moo Zoon Goo") they really like to hold our hands and bump fists (it's called "bonga" here and they really dig it. (and I prefer it too for sanitary reasons)
This child (who is actually more than 20 years old) has concrete imbedded in her skin. Her left side is paralyzed from laying on concrete floor. When we showed up, she was laying in the dark. Same story of polio, epilepsy, palsy etc... It's pretty heart wrenching especially since their families rarely take them outside. We visited several children/people with disabilities, some even more severe than the ones above. One girl we visited was more than 30 years old and sat in the same spot of dirt in front of her house throughout her whole life. He has become filthy over the years.
Some more kids in the Nabuti village (Mukono town) where we were visiting kids with disabilities. They get bashful when you pull out the camera.
Kids playing soccer
Eating jack fruit. Someone told us it only grows in Uganda. It's pretty crazy stuff. Grows in trees and looks like a giant bee hive till you cut it up. It's really slimey like a fish but it tastes like Juicy Fruit chewing gum.. Pretty crazy.
We are lucky to have a partner like Moses who is so concerned about the kids and about helping in his community.
It was a pretty humbling day (considering it was my 3rd day in the country) At the end of this day, the first line of my journal read "Today was absolutely amazing"
No comments:
Post a Comment