Blog 21 Was it all worthwhile? Part 2

…and so, my final day in Lesotho and at Saint Angela's dawns, and in a way, it epitomises the contrasting emotions, hopes, despair, laughter and madness of my stay here over the last eleven weeks.

I go with Christine on a social outreach visit to the home of one of the children at Saint Angela’s, John, who has brittle bone disease. His mother died a year ago and Christine went to his home, a small round hut shared with his father, a herdsman, his two sisters, who also have brittle bone disease, and his brother.

The hut is dark, the walls black with soot from the open fire in the middle, a wall is falling down and braced with a plank. The family of five sleep on bed made from a door with a few thread bare blankets. When John returns in the holiday he is unable to negotiate the high mud step with his wheel chair, and get in and out of the hut.

Next door is a much better building owned by the grandmother, which for reasons of family politics was not being used. Christine told them this is ridiculous and insisted they let Johns family move into it. She is not a lady to be messed with so this has happened, but the problem of the bed and wheel chair access remain. Our mission is to build a wheelchair ramp and improve the sleeping arrangements.

I spend the last of the donations given to me on a couple of mattresses. Spare blankets are found in the cupboards at Saint Angela’s and we scavenge the grounds for bricks, breeze blocks and even find a broken bag of cement to make a ramp. The two care mothers join us with bread and soup and we set off in the Buckie, deep into the countryside outside Maseru.

We arrive and the driver, Kaneiloe, and I start assembling the building materials into something that looks like a wheelchair ramp while the care mothers sort the bed. John’s little sisters skip around and various relatives turn up, his father, grandmothers, nephew’s, and join in the construction work, bringing earth and mixing cement.

Everyone pitches in and there’s a holiday atmosphere. It’s a strange thing because John has been without a wheelchair ramp for all these years, and it would have been easy to build one out of mud and stones. Christine says it’s why the outreach program is so important, because sometimes when you live in abject poverty the obvious things to be pointed out.

The wheelchair ramp costs nothing, it just takes someone to initiate it and community action does the rest. This is what gives me hope in Lesotho, the community spirit is there and the desire to improve things, it just needs people like Christine to harness these positive aspirations.

The ramp may be the only one going into a private dwelling in the whole of Lesotho, certainly I’ve never seen a hut with its own wheelchair ramp before. It’s even set at the right angle and has a safety curb running at the side. It feels really good looking at it is knowing how much independence it will give John.    

We leave and not far down the road the Buckie is playing up. Kaneilo gets out and pulls something out from under the bonnet, which I think is the starter coil covered in melted plastic. I contribute tools from my first aid kit, a pair of pliers and scissors. Christine does some minor surgery on a plastic bag, and ties it round the wire, Kaneilo plugs it back into the engine, shuts the bonnet and turns the key.

The engine roars back into life and soon we are hurtling down a hill, with me wondering what other parts of the Buckie are being held together with a plastic bag. Also, the thought that the future of a country must be bright when there are young people who can fix an engine with a plastic bag, build a wheelchair ramp and bring a community together in the course of one day. Surely anything is possible with their enthusiasm and imagination.

So, was it all worthwhile? Yes definitely. Going back a second time and working with the same children meant I could build on the work I did here a year ago. I was able to research the children's problems and what treatment would be most suitable. Also, what equipment was needed. The equipment all worked well and there’s nothing I would change about what I took. It was a godsend being able to take 100 kg of specialised equipment on the plane. Thank you Dolen!

The walking frames worked well over the rough terrain, the donated 9 pairs of specialised orthopaedic boots all amazingly fitted the children they were given to, with one pair left over. The therapy balls were the right size, the kids loved the Duplo and it helped their motor skills. The blenders and special spoons helped the children with eating difficulties, the Lecky corner seat supported a couple of children who needed help to sit up. The water filters mean there is always clean water to drink in the dining room at Saint Angela’s.

However, the biggest blessing was the physiotherapy assistants. This was not planned, it just transpired. Christine happened to start on the same day that I did and turned out to be a talented physiotherapy assistant and social worker. When I went down to Phelisanong, Sylvia and Malineo just appeared and I grabbed them with both hands. Having six pairs of hands made a real difference to the number of children we could treat.

Hopefully training the physiotherapy assistants means the physiotherapy will be sustainable.  Christine has now been appointed as the social worker and physiotherapy assistant at Saint Angela’s, while Sylvia and Malineo are on the payroll of Sentebale as physiotherapy assistants. With a bit of luck the physiotherapy house will go ahead at Phelisanong and add to the physiotherapy resources there.

Now I am back in Wales exhausted. For various reasons the trip took a lot out of me but I’ll bounce back. I made a video of the eleven weeks and it looks like it was one long party. It wasn’t, it was just I tended to get the camera out when there was singing and dancing happening, and there was a lot quite a lot of singing and dancing. Here is the link on You Tube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYcv5W8QgsY

Thank you to everyone that supported and encouraged me and made donations of money and equipment. It was all put to good use, so know that your contributions helped some children in Lesotho have access to physiotherapy and a little more independence, have a chance to walk, sit up, be fed upright, have clean drinking water, take part in Taekwondo lessons, train three physiotherapy assistants, also train a bunch of teachers and care mothers in hand hygiene and that somewhere in a small house in the Lesotho countryside, there is a family sleeping on a comfortable mattress tonight. It was definitely all worthwhile.