Hello again! The trials continue..today was an emotionally exhausting day. The kids here are often literally at death’s door before they’re brought in. And so much effort goes into reviving babies that are practically dead, that well babies don’t get the attention they need and crash too. Please pray for 10 year old Ajay Kumar. He was brought here and abandoned. I met him two days ago wondering around the children’s ward with tennis balls in his pockets, a very sweet and innocent boy. Today he is in ICU. It’s shocking to see how quickly kids go here. I think I’ve fallen in love with this one. I wish I could adopt him. He’s so innocent and so alone, the story of a lot of kids here, neglected until they’re practically dead.
The woman that I mentioned that was poisoned is still in the ICU. Today when I went in to check on Ajay, she was having a psychotic episode due to the drugs she was given (I’m told that this was actually a good thing, a sign that the drugs are working), anyway, she latched on to me and wouldn’t let go, screaming Didi Didi! (Sister, Sister!) and a bunch of other things I didn’t understand. I tried to find out what she was saying, but was only told that she had gone mad. She seemed terrified. I felt as if she was begging for someone to save her. I asked Dr. Baby last night what will happen to her. She said that in these cases, they are stabilized and they go away smilingly back to the families that poisoned them. There’s not much else to do since there aren’t really any enforcements for women’s protection. It’s very sad and scary for these women.
On a less depressing note, I ventured out yesterday with Sofia for an adventure outside the compound. We walked over to a lepor colony about 15 minutes from here. I have to give them credit. They’re doing well for themselves there. They’ve created their own little society. They raise chickens and cows, weave their own fabric, and sell it all. They’ve created their own local economy. Each family has a house with two rooms and a kitchen. It’s actually very impressive, the cleanest most civilized corner I’ve seen in Raxaul so far, by far. It’s run by catholics and funded completely by a source in Canada.
There really are good things going on. It’s just hard to focus on the happy cases when there are cases like Ajay’s. He was begging an old woman the other day, calling her grandmother, to stay with him. I’ll have some more happy stories for you next week, I promise! In the meantime, please keep these kids in your thoughts and prayers. There’s a baby in the nursery whose mother died during delivery; we don’t know if the family will take him or not. He’s such a sweet baby, number two on my ‘want to adopt’ list.