November 24-27th
Last week I spent my last bush trip of 2008 in Bani Bangou where I visited 3 out of 6 of our feeding centers. It was a good trip. I visited with each village chef to bring greetings, see if they have any questions about the nutrition work we are already doing in their village, and to update them on the status of our child survival program. The one village chef in Bezaize Koira is always so nice to visit. He is always so appreciate and thankful, and is not afraid to ask questions. When I came to visit him the other day, I told him we had finally received funding for the child survival program and could begin in 2009. I reminded him that we do not see this project as our own; it is the project of the community, not just SP. We really have to work together for any of it to be effective. He agreed and told me, “anything that you can help us with in terms of development, we want it, because we are a village that wants to develop any way that we can”. It encourages me to see that the chief is on board; this will help so much in terms of seeing big improvements in child health in this community. Praise God and please pray for continued collaboration and partnership with each community.
When we arrived in Gosso, already at the health center was a very severely malnourished child. This child is 14 months old, weighed just 4.6 kilograms, 68 meters. To give you perspective, a healthy 1 year old child should weigh 10 kg. This child was severely wasted, so much so that it shocked me. When they removed the blanket and clothing from the child, I was so shocked and horrified that I had to excuse myself. I think that is the first time this whole year that I cried at a feeding center. Thankfully we were able to drive the child to Ouallam district hospital, about 2 ½ hours away. At the hospital they have a CRENI, a center to take care of children who are severely malnourished with complications. We are only equipped to serve children at the CRENAM (center for recuperation for moderately malnourished child) and CRENAS level (for severely malnourished child without complications). I told Tanti I wanted to pray for Abdoulaye Aziz, so before he left, we both knelt down, along with Isaaka, and prayed over the child. Please pray for Isaaka. He is a Muslim, but I believe is interested in the Gospel. It was neat to see him participate in praying.
I told my team this was no coincidence that the woman arrived that day. We had two SP vehicles so one was available to take the child right away to Ouallam. This started another discussion where our supervisor, Tanti Tchima mentioned there were two other children in our program that were also needing evacuation to the CRENI, but both husbands would not concede to let the mothers go. So off we go to Garbey, we located the 2nd severely malnourished child, Djemma. Isaaka (supervisor) and I were able to convince the father to let the grandmother accompany the child. He response was, “it doesn’t matter if she goes to Paris or Texas, she can go”. Hmmm, must be the mother’s mom. That was interesting. But praise God, on our way back to Niamey, we were able to see Djemma registered in Ouallam, and we got to visit Abdoulaye Aziz. And before we left, it was Isaaka who asked Tanti to pray for our trip, and for Djemma. Before we left, we went looking for the 3rd sick child that Tanti told us about. We arrived in Bezaize Koira, and we were greeted with the news: the child had passed away a day after Tanti had pleaded with them to let her take the child to Ouallam. This was disheartening, but a hard truth here in Niger. Even when we were at Djemma’s house, a group of neighborhood women were arguing, “you’re wasting your time, can’t you see this child is going to die? Why are you going to waste your time and go all the way to Ouallam just to have the child die?”
Child death here is the norm, unfortunately. But that’s what we hope to make an impact with our child survival program. Please pray that God would do above and beyond anything we could ask or imagine with this program. We are committing this work to his hands.
A happy note to leave off on:
Recently we got new flipcharts from UNICEF to use at the centers to teach the women important health lessons. We gathered women together in Soumatt and I got to teach the women using the flipchart about how to properly breastfeed while Isaaka translated in Zerma, the local language. At the end, the women actually clapped for me, and thanked me for teaching them how to better take care of their child. Praise GOD! This makes me so happy! This is what the cs program is all about!
