My first day in St Martin De Porres Catholic Mission Hospital

I followed Tim around and saw the pediatric ward first. This room had 7 or 8 little ones in there from maybe 5 months old to 5 years old. It was all very overwhelming… very, very overwhelming. 

There was a girl in the corner bed, with her grandmother at her bedside for the last 2 weeks. She came in with a fever that has not responded to anything… she is in a coma-like state… and she’s HIV +, now looking at a potential brain abscess. Looking around and seeing all these young little lives… it was like a punch in the gut.

Sr Natalia with Aday

Yesterday, in the orphanage, I had an opportunity to talk with Sr. Natalia at length about the orphans. When the mother of a baby/child dies, sometimes the family will be able to care for them. If this is not feasible, the baby/child comes to the orphanage. The father of the baby/child comes to spend time with them occasionally. There are 2 brothers who do not have a father or a mother. Terrence, who is 13y/o and his brother Moses who is 2 y/o. Sr. Natalia was encouraging some member of their family to visit with them and I believe that she has established some communication with an uncle. In Cameroon, when these boys get older and want to marry, as orphans, they have “no background”, no family. This is something that is very important in their culture. No one would want to marry someone who has no mother or father as it shows ‘who they are’, so this is why Sr. Natalia struggled to keep a relationship with some member of Terrence’s family.

Sr. Natalia would like to help the older girls gain a focus for what they would like to be when they grow up. She wants them to keep hope in their hearts. In the afternoon, we had a little fun discussion about what each of the girls wanted to be: Florence 22, a seamstress; Absetu 16, a surgeon, Shalot 8, a teacher, and Dzuran 11, a tailor. They were very shy and giggling about sharing these aspirations, and it was great to learn more about them.

There are 4 babies with HIV in the orphanage. It is a struggle at times, but they put a lot of effort to make sure that theses little ones eat well, bond, and play to help them thrive and fight the virus.