Burkina Faso Outreach :: BFOAfrica.org

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Salam and Leprosy

I’ve been able to visit the sponsored children a bit more now that the rainy season is ending.  I had heard the story of 2 children who had come for help with their father riding in a donkey cart.  His legs were eaten away by leprosy.  His name is Salarm and as it turns out, my mother is sponsoring his oldest girl.  As I entered the courtyard, I greeted Salam in the native Moret language.  He laughed and laughed and blessed me over and over again.  I was so touched by his incredible attitude and fun personality as he sat there in the stench of his own filth, unable to move on his own, working away at shelling peanuts with what is left of his hands and one eye.

Elephantitis

Then there was the woman who grabbed my arm, did not speak, but was clearly trying to tell me something.  Confused, I finally looked down and hope I managed to hide the horror of seeing my first case of elephantitis.  She was asking me to pray for her.  It’s shocking to see this stuff is real.

Frogs In the Toilet

I think we must be in the midst of a plague of frogs.  Or maybe the frogs are here because of the plague of insects!  Whatever - they’re everywhere.  One night as Stephanie and I were sitting quietly in the room, we suddenly heard a loud thud in the toilet.  We looked at each other, ran to the bathroom, counted to 3 and lifted the toilet lid.  There, staring us right in the face was a frog – IN THE TOILET!  He came right in through the drain, and I’m told this was not the first time.  As I was chasing another out of the room, he ran into the bathroom and tried to make his escape the same way he came in – through the shower drain.  When I come home at night, there are literally at least 100 in the courtyard, the majority of them hanging out on the terrace fighting over the millions of insects.  Oh well, I’m counting my blessings as I’ve not yet seen a scorpion.  (Although, I might prefer a scorpion to the huge cockroaches.)

I visited the hospital the other day and as I was leaving I saw a little old woman with a baby in another room, calling for me.  I greeted her and entered the room.  With a sweet little smile on her face, she seemed to be pleading for help.  With hand signals and body language, she kept showing me how this boy’s head just kept falling.  As she removed the cloth from his body, I saw his skeleton – the large ribs clearly protruding from his body, no bottom, sagging skin on his arms and legs.  And yet, this woman kept telling me he can’t hold his head up.  She would put her hands out as if to say “What’s wrong?  What am I to do?”  I wondered - does she really not get it?  Does she really not know she needed to be concerned months ago when he wasn’t eating?  When his ribs started to become so obvious?  When he slept for hours?  - A 2-year old boy – just a skeleton?  Is she still wondering why he couldn’t hold his head up?  Why he died?

It was clear the doctors knew.  I wondered why she was left to sit there, apparently for hours, alone with the child, waiting for a doctor to come.  Then I saw the treatment plan, a prescription for ibuprofen.  Just ibuprofen – no IV, no attempt, it was too late; and the reality of it made me nauseous.  The ibuprofen was to pacify the woman and comfort the child while he died.

So, the next few days, Yako was a ghost town as soon as the sun went down.  Everyone was hiding in fear.  I’m still not in any danger.  Everyone knows they would never bother the white women, partially because they fear how our Embassy would react.  But it bothers me even more to realize they look at us as superior beings.  They treat their own people like dogs because they know there's nothing they can or will do.  Oh, how I'm tempted to give them a piece of my mind; but fortunately wisdom reigns and I am leaving the vengeance to the Lord.