Lost and Found.

My morning started by walking in on a dead baby. It was just lying in the back of the ward. I’m only writing about it because it should have been traumatizing, considering it was a dead baby, but I see a few of those a week so I was able to brush it off...is that even more disturbing than dead babies?…regardless…there was good news!

Ray’s mother came back to the hospital [Ray = orphanged child left on a porch]! It was the talk of the maternity ward. People thanked Jesus, prayed, we all smiled…Ray was going to be with his mother…well…that’s what I thought…

I went to the eye clinic to check on the head midwife who had an eye infection and she insisted on taking me back to her house to meet Ray’s mother. We acknowledged each other, but didn’t talk much…because she doesn’t speak English and my Twi is sub par. But I held baby Ray and as I was sitting there in came a social worker to figure out what should happen to the reunited mother and son…

The mother didn’t come back voluntarily, she was found by the police staying at her “uncle’s” house. All her closest relatives were dead so she was forced to give birth with a close family friend she called an “uncle” on his farm…an orphan giving birth to another. The father was some fling she had in the capital (Accra) and had disappeared. She didn’t have the money to care for a baby, and she cried speaking of her hardships…it was decided that Ray may still go to an orphanage…unless the mother can find a job...trouble is she’s never been to school and has no working skill…except in making tea…so the social worker asked me what I would do…what would you?

After leaving the social work scene I walked through the open-air hospital to collect my thoughts and consider what could be done to keep mother and son united. That’s when I saw a little girl…around 5 or 6…pooping outside of the children’s ward. She was massive diarrhea in public. Poop in her underwear, poop on her dress, poop in her shoes, poop down her legs and on her butt. I was the only person to stop and stare… I went inside the children’s ward to see if I could get her help…the nurses came out and looked and laughed, promising they’d locate the mom…I watched her for a few more minutes and I said to myself, “now there is a chick in a ditch.” I laughed.