We walked up to the house (if you call it that) and there were kids everywhere! Here's the place:
10 total and 1 more on the way, all living in a place smaller than my hotel room. Their were 9 children, a single mom, and an elderly grandmother.
We asked the mother why the kids weren't in school, her reply - she couldn't come up with the $1.50 registration fee.
I've got to do this quick so I'm going bullet style:
- a year ago their father died
- 6 months ago the mother was raped and she is now pregnant again (with child 10)
- they had a small bowl of yuka for the entire family to eat
Here's a picture I took of the mother, grandmother, and a few of the kids:
But I've seen all that before.
Then we saw the sick kid. A 6 year old boy, who looked horrible. He had cloudy, yellow eyes and was the only kid in the entire group that I never saw smile. This kid will be dead or blind if he doesn't get some help.
Immediately we told her that he needed to see a doctor - but she didn't have any money. How many times has my life, or my kids lives been saved simply because we had the right medical care. Kids are dying of a fever - kids are dying of diarrhea, kids are having convulsions because they can't get the simple medicine they need to survive. I've heard this all before - but today I saw it.
We gave them $20 to get some help but Kwame thought they would probably buy food.
I took his picture
No comments:
Post a Comment