Outreach Extravaganza!

Another fantastic week has come and gone. 

One quick story:

Last Friday, I went with the Outreach Team to a village about three hours away.  On the way, we stopped by a client’s house to weigh the baby, measure their height, and utilize a MUAC strip (which stands for middle upper arm circumference), and test for HIV.  Those measurements are recorded by the Outreach Team to determine if a baby is on track for proper growth and development.   Most of these clients are doing well enough to stay in their villages.  Only in the worst cases do we bring children back to the Safe Home at the main base.

I should note that driving three hours away does not get you very far on the “roads” here.  In fact, most of the time we were crawling in our 4x4 at a snail’s pace over rocks, gravel, streams, and seemingly impassible dirt paths.  It’s surprising what you can force a 4x4 to do when the only other option is to tumble down a mountain cliff.

Our primary goal for the day was to reunite Renang with his caretaker, in this case, his grandmother.  Renang came to the Safe Home about three months ago because of malnutrition.  Many of the children that come to the Safe Home have suffered from malnutrition, either because their mother cannot produce sufficient amounts of breast milk or their family just doesn’t have enough food to go around.  Additionally, many of the children in the Safe Home have been exposed to HIV because their mothers test positive.  I’ll write more later about the miracle that surrounds babies escaping the same HIV fate as their mothers.   Simply put, with the proper drug regimen, many babies do not contract HIV during birth or during breast feeding. 

Back to Renang.  After asking a couple of locals where Renang’s grandmother lived, we found her at the edge of a hill in a row of three rondovals.  Renang was a little hesitant, especially since a group of school children came to welcome us and were staring intently, curious about what we were doing in the village.  We discovered three of the children, probably 6 or 7 years old, had been former TTL Safe Home clients, just like Renang.  Now, four or five years later, they were healthy and full of spunk!  After a couple of quick pictures, we headed down the hill to make the official reunification. 

We entered a dark rondoval, the only light coming from the open door, where Renang’s wise grandmother sat on the floor.  I listened as the Outreach workers instructed the grandmother about things that were foreign to her: how to open a yogurt container, how to brush Renang’s teeth, how to give him medicine, etc.  We brought a toy dinosaur for Renang to play with and handed it to his grandmother.  Watching them interact as strangers yet with the familiarity of family was an unforgettable moment. 

After the reunification, we headed back on the mountain roads for the trek back to base.  Another great day in Africa was in the books. 

More to come….

BLBW (now also known as N'tate Buyane or N'tate Rethabile)