Two New Babies!!

Well one isn't quite a baby.

Today Robin, Blessed and I were off to Kampala to pick up two girls from Makerre Community Initiative in Wagenda. M.C.I deals with child rights and doemstic violence. Beatrice (4.5 years) and Eve (1.5 years) are sisters who lived for awhile with their mother but then were transferred to their father and stepmother. The stepmother used Beatrice as a house girl. In Uganda house girls are used for washing, cleaning, cooking, etc. She wasn't beaten very often. However, Eve was beaten for pooping in the bed. The police report also stated that a beating was her daily meal. When we first arrived at M.C.I, Eve was very shy and you noticed how puffy her face was. To me it looked like odema, but her extremities were not puffy at all. She also has a wound on her hand where some blood had pooled and made the top of the hand swollen. So they lanced it and drained the blood. While we were at M.C.I the girls did not talk. Ruth, who is a volunteer with M.C.I, was taking care of them in her home and she made the trip back to Entebbe with us.

We stopped at a restaurant in Kampala and those girls ate matooke, g-nuts, rice and passion juice. They gobbled it all up. When we returned to AcaciaTree the girls got right to playing with toys and talking to eachother. This was the first time in three hours that I had heard either of them talk. They were tickled that there were so many toys to play with. Ruth was shown around the house. She had come to check the place out to make sure it was suitable for the girls. We piled back into the car to drop Ruth off at the taxi park and take the girls to Victoria Medical Services to have a medical examination.

Eve is so puffy in the face but her nutrition is fine. The puffines is most likely due to something with the kidneys. She is 9.3 kg and 73cm tall. Beatrice is also fine weighing in at 15kg and 104cm tall. Beatirce tried to hide behind me as Eve was being examined. So I held her in my lap and she put her arm around my neck.

When we got back from the doctors it was bathing time, then feeding time. Those girls can eat! Beatrice is very pretty and they both look at you with big eyes. It was a little tricky this evening when Beatrice was trying to tell me something in Lugandan, but I really couldn't understand her. I guessed she had to go to the bathroom. I took her in there, sat her on the toilet but didn't hear anything. So I asked Desire to come and ask what Beatrice wanted. By the time Desire got there and asked her she had gotten off the toilet and didn't respond to Desire. Beatrice looked at me as if she needed something else and said something in Lugandan, so I got her a glass of water but she refused. So maybe she just needed to go to the bathroom after all.

Yesterday, Robin's mom asked for my input on how to serve the volunteers better and she gave me insight on how a board of directors work. April, Kendall, and Joe (Robin's mom, brother, and dad) are all on the board of directors for AcaciaTree. I found it helpful and insightful on how they approach the business side of a non-profit. They have much more to think about then an Ecexutive Director and have a plate full of things to do. Not only do they have to be culturally sensitive but they also can't treat employees with kid gloves and let them take advantage. It is always hard in an economy that isn't so much capitalist. I also need to make a medicine chart for the babies so staff know when, how much, and with or without food. If anybody has an idea or knows where I can get a fairly simple one then please post it or email it to me.

John Marks mother also came yesterday to take her baby back. She had come when Robin wasn't home so she had to coem back later. She came back with a fresh set of braids and wanted to see John Mark. She claims to have a job or at least be earning some sort of money and can afford to keep him. She also says that the man she is with now is willing to help with the baby. That was one of the reasons she brought John Mark to us in the first place, because the man she was with didn't want to feed it because it was not his. Hoever, her milk has dried in her breasts and John Mark cannot take cow's milk yet. Robin is trying to avoid having the mother bring him back at one year becasue he is malnourished.

Really this week has been one of the best. Being to go out into the community to see how other organizations work gives me an idea of how to improve upon program ideas and what is feasible for a small organization to handle. I have also realized the resources available to people in Uganda, especially in Entebbe and Kampala. Everytime I turn around there is an organization available to help. The resource guide that is part of The Acacia Project will be beneficial not only for the people in the community that we help but other organizations. AcaciaTree can't really take disabled children, becasue there isn't the funding available to keep up with medical costs. So we had to turn down a boy at M.C.I today. If M.C.I also has this resource guide then they could find a more suitable place for him. Maybe one of the Ministries will have a complete book of registered Community Based Organization and NGO's and other smaller organizations that might not be registered but are heard about through word of mouth. I also read through a Ministry of Health book about Infant Feeding Practices and Feeding Infants with HIV. That is an excellent book to give to every caregiver that we help in the community and once the babies return home. Jessica, if you are reading this make sure that Robin gets more from the Ministry of Health. It would be a great way to reinforce feeding lessons and we can leave something as a refrence.

Yesterday, Robin, April and I were walking through the Kitooro Market. I was holding John Mark. I was holding him facing down so my arms were under his chest. He has a bit of a stuffy nose so he could breath better this way and wasn't fussing. All the Ugandan's at the market were telling me I was holding him wrong, or the men were saying it was their baby. We had a very thin blanket over him to keep the sun off him and because Ugandans would fuss at us if we didn't have him covered because he might get cold, it was 90+ degrees outside. Walking out of the market I saw a woman holding a baby upright facing her with two blankets. One was very heavy. Later Blessed explained that when you don't carry a baby upright with its head held up a bit, then it is dead.