Thank you to everyone for your prayers and encouragement. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks getting organized and rested. We went on vacation for a week and I organized my pictures and inserted some into the blog entries my mom did while I was away. As I am inspired to write, I will post new entries with pictures. Here are some stories I thought of today.
Spiders, ants, and cockroaches were everywhere. Not that they particularly bothered me, especially not the cockroaches.
But by far the worst of all these offenders were the ants, (because the spiders, while big, didn’t do much). These particular ants were in the house, behind the house, on the porch, on the ground, on the road, everywhere. And they bit. They could bite even if you were stamping your feet in an attempt to deter them. The kids (and me too) hated them and called them “devils”. After the initial bite, which hurts more than a bee sting, they itch for at least a week or two afterwards. It wasn’t long before my feet were covered. J
This is a little albino girl named Baboa (Ba-boh). She is the only white-skinned child at the orphanage. Albinism is caused by a lack of melanin in the skin. Actually I saw quite a few albino people during my stay, often in town, and they just look like all other Africas except with white skin and hair. But Baboa and albinos typically are, sadly, mistreated by some of the children and sometimes even by the matrons. She tries hard to fit in, but even at her young age she probably knows she can’t completely, because of the color of her skin. I tried to give her some extra attention and love. She is one of the sweetest girls I met while there. She has a great sense of humor, she’s not shy, and I can see that she loves me back for who I am, not for what I can give her. Baboa is one that needs to get adopted, and she almost has a greater need for getting out of the country than some. She desperately needs the love she has never received, and she needs basic hygiene. Her light skin shows how dirty she is and she often has a runny nose. She is also severely sunburned and needs to be in an environment where sunscreen and basic skin care is an option. We’re praying for little Baboa!
There are so many fights erupting each and every day about “slippers” (flip-flops). The older children will steal slippers from the younger ones and sell them on the street for 5 LD (Liberian Dollars), which in US dollars is less than ten cents. The children need slippers, though, because of the many worms and parasites contracted through the feet. The slippers, although flimsy, provide that much needed protection against these nasty bugs. Often one of the things we treated in our homemade “clinic” was ringworm and simple parasites (the ones that could be killed: many needed a proper hospital). For ringworm, I washed the affected area with soap and water, then dabbed on rubbing alcohol and rum (yes, any kind of spirits will do the trick!!) with a cotton swab. To finish suffocating the fungus, I applied Vaseline thickly. If I treated the worm for three or four days, it would completely heal. Eric had ringworm on his nose once and after treating him for just three days, it was completely gone! And back to slippers, there are more fights about who took whose slippers or who got them dirty or who ruined them, and revenge is almost mandatory. The slippers end up like this:
These are Hannah’s slippers and her feet are so small they end just before the holes start. One day shortly before leaving, I threw away my green pair of Old Navy flip flops which had holes in the soles. The next day I saw a little boy named Day wearing them, holes and all. To me, they were completely unsuitable, but to him, it was a pair of brand new slippers.
Day enjoying a new book
Ellen in Liberia 