a mournful update

baby kelly died the other night.

basically, she had a huge heart defect, or hole in her heart, plus the pnemonia and whatever else she had, plus being 2 months pre-mature.

she was doing better, which was the hard part. my volunteers and the staff at sonrise had been taking shifts with her, she was monitered and fed by a tube 24/7. brenda, the doctor volunteer who is here with her son tanu, especially got close with her...and brenda had a difficult time with the lack of hospital facilities here to deal with such a case.

basically she went into respiratory distress the other night (monday) and stopped breathing- brenda gave her CPR and mouth to mouth, tanu apparently lost it and started hyperventilating and throwing up and they ran out of their room at zamo (where we have been taking care of her, to not expose her to the other children's illnesses in her frail state), screaming for someone to drive them to the hospital, running out into the street and luckily a neighbor was pulling out their driveway and took them to the children's hospital, where brenda nd the doctor tried to continue CPR but it was too late.

i was at damali's with kelly and sarah for their last night, we were having a big dinner with them and the kids, when damali got a phone call from tanu freaking out saying emergency..emergency... damali got off the phone and immediatly broke into the biggest wail i've ever heard- which set off the ENTIRE staff, as well as kelly and sarah...I got back on the phone to tanu who was weeping and hysterical and tried to get him to breathe and tell me exactly what was going on and finally he could calm down enough to tell me that yes, she was dead, and they were at the children's hospital and to come immediatly.

so i had to tell the news to the staff that yes, she was dead. the noise of hysteria that emerged from that household that evening should never be heard by human ears and I tried to hold myself together as someone needed to organize this chaos- damali threw her phone at me and i ordered a car to come get us, called the probation officer who brought us the baby to meet us at the hospital and notify the relatives... notifyed the other volunteers, our boss, damali's friends... packed up everyone's things and basically pushed them all into a vehicle.

we arrived at the hospital and ran to the emerg room, where brenda was there with the dead baby...the screaching ugandan woman can do is the loudest noise i've ever experienced. brenda was actually calm, i think in a state of shock..but also because she is a doctor and knew the medical history and the likelyhood of survival..but still she got emotionally attatched. a few hours later at the hospital still we got word from the probation that the father could not come and pick up the body , so damali and some other staff got a vehicle and took the body out to the village. the rest of us went home.

yesterday morning sarah and kelly left for the airport, on quite somber terms as you can imagine. i took brenda and tanu to meet a van in town to bring us out to the village for the burial. the amazing thing was the community support network that exists for damali- growing up herself in an orphanage has given her a huge community of "brothers and sisters" who were all there- as well we stopped to pick everyone adn anyone who slightly knew of this baby.. adn stopped at the grandmothers house in Iganga, about 1 hour away from jinja.

the burial process was an entire day long event. the guys dug a grave in the back undeneath some banana and coffee trees, and put in bricks and poured in cement...we had stopped on the side of the road to buy a coffin as well. 16 year old tanu grew up immensley that day. he mixed the cement, and dug the grave, he helped place in the coffin and he stood up and spoke a few words at the ceremony. (as did myself and brenda, the pastor, the father and the probation officer). we finally drove home about 4pm.

what i think was the hardest for me, was watching the volunteers go through their first experience with first hand african death that happens every day here...but such a surreal culture shock to them. the same with damali- since sonrise opened they have had nothing but good luck and amazing things happen...so to have the first bad thing happen really threw them for a loop...it was a reality check of life here, and i believe that the honeymoon period is now over- for sonrise, and for the volunteers. which in a way is good to happen- as damali is going to have to be strong for this kind of thing is going to happen to her if this is truly what she wants to do with her life.

please continue to pray for damali and the staff at sonrise as they deal with their first child death at the home, and for the volunteers.