Its been a while since I blogged on here, one because I thought it would be nice for my mum to blog but also because I wasn't quite ready to start talking about something that happened at the time & yet I couldn't blog without having to write about it, anyway here I am back.
On the 9th April we lost one of our children at the school, Bonita to the horrible effects of tetanus. It seems that she was born out in the village & never received her infant vaccinations, but of course nobody knew this & her mum was not aware just how important these vaccinations are. Her mum has now paid the ultimate price for this.
There are many children at our school, but there are some with whom you have had more to do with, Bonita was one of them. At just 5 years old she sang at the front of the school choir. All the other older children stood behind her. She had the most beautiful smile, like an angel, that lit up the room. She was adorable, polite, hardworking & she loved to sing & dance. To get the message that she had been rushed to hospital with tetanus the day before she died was such a shock & I told my mum that we had to go there to check what was happening. I will never forget the events that happened between arriving there & her passing away the following day. Trying to find medication that was not available, trying to find nurses, doctors to help us, trying to find suitable food to pass into her feeding tube, begging every other hospital in Kampala to let me take her there, but unfortunately no one would take her & so we were forced to keep her where she was & watch the system beat us. See the reality of hospital care in an underdeveloped country. I have never felt so helpless in all my life & watching the horrifying effects of tetanus on this innocent childs body is something that will haunt me forever. Even now as I write this I am in tears for the waste of such a lovely child & that place at the front of the choir will never quite be filled.
In Uganda, funerals take place very quickly so the burial was the following day out in the village. Since this happened so many people have come & thanked me for trying to save Bonita's life. It makes me feel bad when they say this to me, for although I tried, I failed & its not a good feeling when the price of failure is a childs life. Welcome to Africa.
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