













Susan has been getting more involved in helping out with the malnourished kids up at the hospital. For me at least it’s a complete sensory and emotional overload up there. The rooms in the pediatric service hold 31 beds. Over the past several weeks there have been a lot more than that – I think it peaked at 89. Bear in mind that every child admitted has a care-giver (usually their mother) staying with them. And if the mother is there – that means that if the admited child has a very small younger sibling that needs to stay with their mother, then they are there also. So there are at least two, sometimes three people for every admitted child. So those 89 pediatric patients really means there is probably more like 200+ people – in those 31 beds in four rooms. It’s hot. The smell is overwhelming. The sight of twins (who are actually the two surviving of a set of triplets) who are 15 months old and still weigh less than any of our kids did at birth is almost too much to take in. Yet she goes up there essentially every day – to play with kids. And when there discharged she brings them bag of dried beans, BUSOMA porridge flour, soap, and an outfit for every. It really is a meaningful as these kids often are in families that are so poor that the children are starving in the first place – which is how they ended up in our severe malnutrition ward.




