Buster Walks!

For a few weeks now I’ve had good intentions of taking two of the kids from Child Survival to Monrovia Rehabilitation Center, a part of Handicap International. Buster has been in a wheelchair as long as we have known him. His legs are quite weak and a little contracted, and I thought that maybe they could do some therapy with him. What I didn’t expect was to wheel him into the office and have him walk out with the help of his new walker! Buster isn’t too tall, so the folks at MRC had to take the smallest walker they could find and saw the ends off. But that hasn’t slowed Buster down. He started dancing in his chair as they brought the walker over, and he took right off down the hall without any help. I had to convince him to rest a little and start slow; He was so excited to get back to the orphanage home to show all his friends how he can move!

Bobby and Jefferson, revisited

Flew back up to Zwedru yesterday, thanks to the kind folks at the UN, to see Bobby and Jefferson, my two pals with the nasty burns. I sat with them and hung out for an hour before we were ready to begin cleaning their burns, and immediately I saw their greatest need wasn't TLC in an accent they could hardly understand, but entertainment. They're 8 and 12, and they are bored out of their minds lying on the ground keeping the flies off themselves. I had my iTunes shuffle with me, which I hadn't used in ages anyway (who knows what era of music is being mixed inside...), and MAN did their eyes light up when they heard it! It was too cute for words, really--especially when they began singing along with the Marley tunes...

So the situation is both better and worse than we first thought. Both their wounds were covered in a mysterious powder, some "country medicine" that was drying out the tissue instead of protecting and moisturizing it. Once we started cleaning Bobby up, two things became immediately clear: first, the 3rd degree areas didn't really cross his joints, which is a very good thing; second, there's a lot more 3rd degree burn than we'd thought, and there was a 1/4-inch layer of infection over most of it. He was an incredible trooper through it all but, after about an hour of ever-so-gently clearing the infection away and time running out on our flight home, Mariel made the call to take him to the hospital for admittance. Even if it's not a great hospital, it's better than a dirt floor and a slew of old household remedies.

It was only when we arrived at the hospital that I remembered how old Bobby really is. At the sight of the needle holding his pain medicine, he squirmed and wailed and wouldn't have any of it. (I tried reasoning with him, but I would've been even worse at his age...) So he and Jefferson were both admitted so that the doctors could properly sedate and care for them, and they're still there now. We couldn't stick around to be there when they woke up, which is hard, but hopefully the battery on the Shuffle will last them a few days, and next time I'll take them a radio.

Please continue to pray for both of these little guys. As long as they keep on fighting the infection and do their movement exercises, we're confident at this point that they'll be good candidates for plastic surgery as soon as they heal. In the pictures below, you can see Bobby and Jefferson exactly as we found them, in good spirits but deteriorating; Mariel cleaning Bobby's burn (as he sings Marley's "Redemption Song", believe it or not!); Bobby getting his first look at himself in a digital camera--notice how well his hand has healed already!

Child Survival's new roof

It's been a long road for the kids at Child Survival, but today their patience is paying off. When we first met them, rainy season was just beginning and they were getting dripped on--they had a tattered tarp roof and a paper mache ceiling. With our limited funds at that time, we bought a higher-quality tarp that lasted them through the worst of the rains.
Shortly before our return in October, however, a wind storm shredded that tarp also, and we began work on a proper zinc roof for them. Unfortunately, with the masonry work of the building being so haphazard, we're forced to remove half of the old roof at a time, build up the block walls to the same height all the way around, and then zinc over them. Today the old roof comes off, the masons are on-site and prepped to work quickly, and the carpenters on stand-by to raise the trusses as soon as the cement sets.
A little more patience will be required, as the kids will be packed together in half the usual space for the next week or two, but I think they're more than happy to squish... Stay tuned for pictures soon...

Bobby

Last week Cramer, Chad and I flew up to Zwedru, in the far corner of Liberia, to assess three orphanages that the government didn't even know existed. Because of the remote location we had our doubts that we'd ever be back or have the chance to help, but we went anyway in the hopes that putting them on the map would help them secure some assistance.
At the second orphanage we assessed, I met a young boy named Bobby--about 11 years old--with severe burns covering 20% of his body, from his armpit down to his ankle. He was lying naked on the dirt floor, purple disinfectant paint poured over him each day, a caretaker twirling a towel over him to keep the flies off. I spent about an hour with Bobby, just talking, trying to cheer him up, mind racing to find something I could do to ease his pain. The burn was only a week old at that time, but his bravery was astonishing. I can't imagine the kind of pain he must have been feeling, combined with the humiliation of lying prone all day in what I would guess used to be their dining area.
Two days ago, Bobby called me with an absurdly cheerful 'hello'.
Today Mariel spoke with a plastic surgeon at the largest hospital in Monrovia, and he said he'd like to see Bobby in person ASAP. I spoke with our friends at the UN and MERLIN to see whether he can and should be transported. On Friday we're returning to Zwedru to consult with the physicians there and, if necessary, make arrangements to fly him down to Monrovia next week.
Please pray for Bobby. No one wants to subject him to the hours of intense pain that the flight would cause him, but we also want to make sure we get him the best care available.
I'll keep you posted.

Video Update 12-4-07