A very small malnourished baby came to the Child Center. He was 2 years old and only weighed 4.4 kilos which is about 9.6 pounds. He was so pitiful. He was miserable. He has several things working against him. His mother has a baby that is 6 or 7 months old. Once a mother in Ghana finds out that she is pregnant she will stop breastfeeding the older child so this little guy was probably weaned around one year. It is very difficult to feed a child that small from the table. Baby food is not readily available in our area and most are too poor to be able to afford it. The little guy has 7 brothers and sisters; the one that was born before him passed away of unknown causes. If you are in a house competing for food with 7 brothers and sisters and you are weak and sickly you will go hungry more times than not. It is the custom to feed all the children from a common bowl. You can imagine what is going to happen if a 10 year old and a 2 year old are both hungry and struggling for something to eat! Another problem that we identified is the over use of enemas. The mother said that she uses it multiple times a week because the child is not pooping regularly. We explained that if no food is going in no food could come out. The mother is concerned about the child’s health but she is over whelmed and exhausted. Feeding the malnourished children after their weight gets so low is a struggle. It takes a long time for them to eat and lots of encouragement. Can you imagine having 7 children to feed and bathe not to mention all the other work the poor woman has to do! We loaded her up with lots of food and lots of advice. She is going to come back early next week so we can check to see how he is doing.
Dawda finished patching the wall and he repaired the damage from the tree. Red came this morning to start putting up the rest of the metal grates. Mr. Iddrisu was busy all day taking the barbed wire apart. Just between me and you I think I could have already finished that job! Mr. Iddrisu cannot see and he needs both reading glasses and glasses for distance; a few years ago we bought him a pair of prescription glasses but he just can’t bring himself to wearing them.
When Red finished today we went with him to the back of the property to see how things were looking and we found children in the back field! We had opened the padlock this morning so Dawda could work on patching the wall. Evidently the children figured out how to open the inside push lock. We were surprised and annoyed that the children were back inside the wall. As soon as they saw the truck coming they sounded the alarm and the children came running out of the field. We got there in time to pull the gate shut with 2 boys still inside. Red was with us and he gave them what for! We said that we were just going to lock the gate and leave them inside. They started pleading for us to let them out; when one of them started crying we had pity on them and let them out. We then had to run the neighbors sheep out of the field! Please.
Thank you for your love, prayers and support.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
