Another malnourished child came to the Center this morning. He is 1 ½ years old and weighs 5 kilos. He did not have much energy and he has not yet started to crawl or walk. The mother was concerned about the child and she knew that his weight was very low. Hopefully she can get him to start eating more food. We gave him all the usual protein rich food to supplement his diet. Fortunately, he is still breastfeeding.
The little boy that has no use of his arms came back to see us this morning. The mother was sad that the doctors in Tamale told her that there was nothing they could do for him and that he would always be the way he is because parts of his arm bones are missing. We told her that we were going to help as much as we could to get him to do more things for himself. We gave them a little table that was about 14 inches high and a small stool that was just his size. We gave him paper and fat pre-school crayons. He can pick up things with his hands, the problem is that his arms are straight. We demonstrated how he would learn to color and to write if the table was low enough to support his arms and the paper was far enough away that he could use his hands to mark on the paper. He was not particularly interested in marking on the paper but when we got out a couple matchbox type vehicles and some cookies all of a sudden he became very interested in the table. We got a small basket for him to put the crayons and cars in. He picked the cookies up off the table and took them to his mother so she could open them and give him bites to eat. Later when his mother was not paying attention to him he sat on the floor and took a cookie out of the wrapper and took it to his mother so he could have another bite. Our biggest hurdle this morning was that the mother wanted to do everything for him. It was difficult for her to stay seated in her chair and let the little guy explore by himself. He went to her on several occasions and tried to get her to get up and go to the table to get the things he wanted. Once she saw that he could do some things for himself she stayed in her seat. A vendor came by that was selling baby items so we bought him a rattle that was shaped like a big dragonfly. He loved it. He started shaking it and started to dance. We gave all the things to him to take home. There is nothing wrong with his mind and if left to it he will figure out ways of doing all sorts of things.
Mr. Iddrisu burned out another clutch in the motor king. He rides the clutch and never fully disengages it. The mechanic talked to him today and explained how he should be using the clutch. It has not even been 2 weeks since he burned out the other one.
Thank you for all you do for us and the people here in Ghana.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
