7/12/10 An all around tough day :(

Mondays never start out right, but today seemed especially draining. The morning began amazingly, Melody and I followed the nurse and physician assistant in our group to distribute their crayons, stickers, and notebooks to kindergarteners. The kids were so cute and very excited about the stickers, Frisbees, and blow up balls. They also taught me how to count to 10 in Swahili and I taught them how to in English. We left the school and met up with our translators. Pili and I were following up with a household that had an old lady that took care of her grandson sine she had requested a net a few days ago. We knew that this older woman was widowed and her son had died so she was left with her grandchild whose mother had also ran away. Halfway through the interview, Babou, the cute kindergartener we saw just an hour ago comes running in. He was super excited to see me. In primary school which is paid for by the Tanzanian government, kids are provided with uniforms. Once Babou got home, he switched into his regular clothes which were shorts that were so torn that his arms and buttocks were exposed. When we went inside the grandmother and Babou’s mud hut home, we saw that their bed consisted of ripped pieces of mattress, a fire cooking pit, and very worn ragged items. Monday is known for its weekly market a few towns away. The grandmother said that she walked all the way to the market to beg and managed to get a few oranges and a cabbage. She said that the boy is hungry and she had oranges for him since the school does not provide many meals. She also said that she would probably have relatives care for Babou. Just seeing this site made me want to change it. I decided right then that I want to pay for Babou to go to secondary school which is an unattainable task for the poor.
Moving from that heartbreaking moment, we went to another household. It looked abandoned since there was a nice brick house but half of it was exposed to the outside and a dead thorny bush was covering this open space. The only reason I decided to proceed forward was because they had a few small rows of corn which meant somebody had to have lived there. Pili knocked on the door and we heard a noise that sounded like a cat but more like a person. We knocked again and then looked into a window. To my horror, there was a boy inside naked and on the bare mud floor in the fetal position looking back at us. It was clear that he had serious mental disabilities since he looked about 7-8 years old and could not speak at all, he just muttered sounds. We started walking away after being shocked about finding this boy and he started to cry until we returned. The door was locked from the outside, clearly not wanting the boy to go outside. There was no couch for him to sit on and he was next to the thorns growing into the room. The windows were barred and the entire setup looked like a jail since he had no toys, bed, clothes, or food there. This was the most horrifying thing I have ever seen for a child, especially one with a developmental disability. A neighbor then came by and opened the door to where the boy sat. She explained to us that the boy was normal until the age of 2, his mother would leave him from early morning to night, he stays alone in the house, and that she would occasionally give him porridge when she came over. We thanked her for the information and left completely shocked and speechless. I had to fight back tears seeing this skinny boy locked up in what was like a jail cell and neglected so badly that he cried when strangers left him…all of these circumstances just because he was mentally handicapped.

Pili and I decided to survey one more house before lunchtime. This household did not hold any happier times. The man that we interviewed had a very bad leg that did not function well for walking. During the survey, we found out that he only had one tattered net, 6 children, 3 of which had malaria, he could not afford to buy nets, and he has had 2 children die of malaria in the past. He also said that for his three sick children with malaria, we went to buy an inexpensive drug at the store. The translator told me that this was no more than a pain reliever. I told him that I would try to get some of our med students to his home if I could. At this household, we gave 3 nets in total hoping to replace the current ragged net and cover all 9 people living in that household. The man was extremely grateful for the nets and the rough time hanging them up was completely worth it.

By the time lunch rolled around, I was so emotionally drained from the 3 households. I told Melody about the situations and she felt equally as shocked and compelled. We started to talk to one of the SHED members who is Dr. Kawira’s husband about the situation with the orphaned Babou living with his grandma. He gave us such constructive advice and is basically helping us set up a sort of scholarship for him to ensure that he has food every day and has the opportunity to go to secondary school through donations. I felt so much better about Babou’s future since without secondary school, he would have no chance of breaking out of poverty. Melody and I also went to the large Monday market and with about $5, we purchased bananas, peanuts, large fried fish, anchovies, tomatoes, and onions. The market was so vibrant and so full of people from different regions. We then gave the food out to the grandma and Babou and attempted to give food to the boy who was locked up. The grandma appreciated the food and when we headed back to the mentally handicapped boy, nobody was home. The boy seemed excited to see us and lept on the window bars and was biting down on them. We tried to give him a banana through the window bars but he did not seem to understand how to eat the banana. We further investigated his situation with another neighbor. The boy’s name is Julio I believe and he is actually 10 years old though he looks much younger. His mother is a widow that works all day with 3 other children. Apparently he is left naked since he takes off all of his clothes when he has them on. The neighbors explained that the door is locked from the outside since he runs away. We started walking back since it was about dinner time and ironically ran into the boy’s mother. We gave her the rest of the food and told her that it is intended for Julio. She explained her situation and it sounded much like what the neighbor was saying. I think a part of me wants to be angry with her for leaving this poor special needs child locked up for 10 years and then another part of me realizes that what were her alternatives. There are hardly any special needs schools or programs in the entire country, no special ed teachers, and money is always a barrier. I still can’t get the disturbing image of the naked boy sitting on the bare floor crying out of loneliness. Even if he does not have full mental capacity, he still has feelings and is a human being.