wasti

I'm sitting in a darkened ward, empty beds all around me. The patients have gone, and all I can hear is the thrum of the generators instead of the chatter and swell of this place when it's full. Somehow, they have all gone.

Wasti was the first to leave this morning. Last night, we gave her the money for her cow, and it was one of my favourite moments of this entire outreach. We brought her to an empty room, away from prying eyes and listening ears. (You can never be too careful with that much money.) We pulled out a picture of a cow and she pointed to it, making a sign to show us that, yes, she used to have one of those. But it's gone now. I showed her the little plastic bag full of brightly coloured bills, and her eyes grew wide. She sat, frozen, looking at us, hardly daring to hope. We laughed and pointed to the cow, pointed to the money, pointed to her. Incredulous, she slowly pointed to her heart. For me? This is for me? More laughing and nodding and pointing, and after a short forever, she finally worked up the courage to hold out her hand. We dropped the bag in her outstretched palm, her eyes got even wider, and she threw up her hands, praising God in a language we had never heard before. She made lots of signs, and the only word we really understood was bebe. Through her wildly moving hands, we were made to understand that her baby was not okay before, but now he is fine. He is fine.

When we got back to the ward, after cautioning her not to tell anyone, she was bursting with the news, so she ran to her bed and scooped up Wasti from his pile of blankets. She held him close, kissing his little cheeks and whispering in his ears, telling him all about the cow and the hope for their future. And this morning, in the darkness of near-day, Esther and Liz and Natalie bundled mama and baby into a LandRover, all her bags of formula and rice cereal and her little pouch of money tucked securely under her shirt. They drove through the sticky air to the bus station where they piled them onto the bus and waved them away. Her family will meet her up north. Wasti is going home.

As the morning wore on, we raced around, trying to beat the clock. The translators were working until noon, when the ship threw a huge thank-you party for them, and we had to get everything done by then. Around ten, Therese and Beatrice and Josua climbed into the elevator and then headed down the gangway to a waiting car. Their nurse went with them, to see them safely to the clinic where they will be staying until their wounds have healed.

Not long after that, the next volunteer came bearing car keys. Christine and all her bags of supplies were packed into the car, and her nurse, too, headed out into the heat of the day, along with one of the translators, in search of the local private hospital she's being referred to.

I was left alone in the ward, two patients still in their beds. I worked methodically, enjoying the feel of charting and bandage changes and discharge instructions after such a long time sitting at the desk. When the first patient was dressed and ready to go, I turned my attention to the very last patient. It was only then that it hit me. The last patient was Benedicte.

Benedicte, the very first patient I took care of when I came back to the ship after getting married. There we were, alone in the wards, a little baby who was born with her lip and palate torn open who now looks normal. Who can now grow up with no idea of the ridicule she would have faced otherwise. She was the first for me, and it's only fitting that she was the last.

So I gave her grandma the instructions. I gave Benedicte one last snuggle, kissed her fat cheeks one last time, and they were gone.

They're all gone.

It's American Thanksgiving today. On a ship filled with people from thirty nations, in a country only one or two of us call home, we're celebrating in style. Tonight's dinner promises to be one to remember, and I have friends who have decided to make it even more special. At least, that's what I'm assuming based on the hand-turkey invite (stuck to my door with a magnet, of course) that tells me to come dressed looking my best.

And today there is much for which to be thankful.

In the dark watches of the night this week, as I stared up at the ceiling, all I could see were the faces of the patients still in their beds in B Ward. I ran them through my mind one after another, wondering how we could arrange everything before Friday. The time seemed so short, and they were so many.

Therese. Beatrice. Christine. Veronique. Francoise. Benedicte. Jacob. Kossiwa. Josua. Ali. Wasti.

Over and over, all night long, I would wake up with their names on my lips, on my heart. All day, I would work to gather supplies, write letters, arrange transport, and still the time has seemed so short.

One by one, though, they are going home. Kossiwa yesterday. Jacob, Ali and Veronique today. The rest in the morning, to homes and clinics and hospitals where they will be cared for until they are well. By lunchtime the wards will be empty, the outreach finished for the year.

And somewhere, on a bus heading north, will be a mama and her little baby, his huge black eyes staring out at the world around him, his lip held together with a row of tiny knots. Somewhere in her possession, hidden away from prying eyes and thieving hands, that mama will have a little plastic bag filled with her future: the money to buy a new cow.

Today, I am thankful for Wasti's mama. I'm thankful that she sold everything she had to come to the ship, seeking a new life for her baby. I'm thankful that she kisses his face and rubs lotion on his skin and patiently feeds him every three hours. I'm thankful that she almost didn't accept the small sum of money we've already given her, the money she will need when we drop her off at the bus station tomorrow morning before the sun has risen. It's too much, she told her nurse. You have already done too much for me.

I'm thankful for all the people here on the ship who heard the story of a broken baby and jumped at the chance to be a part of his healing. I'm thankful that I get to be there, later this evening, when we give her the money for her new cow.

I'm so thankful for that cow.

I just want you to know who you're praying for when I ask you to pray for Wasti. Here he is in all his glory, before and after. I found out today that, on the wooden bench outside the operating rooms, where we stop and pray for every patient that goes through, Wasti's mama almost said no. She was told that there was a chance he could die on the table, and there was a long moment where she almost said no. Her broken baby was precious enough to her that she was almost willing to stay an outcast, to endure the ridicule and spite, just so she could be sure of waking up next to him in the morning.

Now when she wakes up, it's next to a little boy who isn't quite so broken anymore. Which is what's keeping me going in the face of all the other wounds, all the other heartbreak.

That, and the fact that Kossiwa's papa came to collect her today. He took one look at the hole in her lip, gathered her in his arms and kissed her tiny cheeks. He loved her even before we gave them the paper that will allow them through security next year and onto the ship in Togo, where we hope to repair the damage. The small family left, Kossiwa's mama waving at me as she headed down the hall. Edabo! A l'anee prochaine! Until next year!

I'm looking forward to some more happy stories.

Little Wasti is doing better than anyone expected. He spends much of his time propped up, sultan-like, on a pile of the softest blankets we've scrounged from whatever linens haven't been washed and packed away for the sail. His mama dresses him in a motley assortment of clothes, and she makes sure to tuck the pillows securely around him when she leaves his side.

Today, Wasti was also wearing eyeliner.

This might seem strange, wrong even, that a six-month old baby should be sporting charcoal rims under both his wide, black eyes. Over here, though, it means everything. It means that his mama has decided that he's hers, decided that she wants to mark him as belonging to her, with all her wild, tattooed beauty. It means that, for the first time in his short life, she sees his future.

Over the course of the day today, Wasti's story was fleshed out, the pitiful bones we'd heard on Friday taking on heartwrenching shape. His mama is one of many wives. I'm assuming her husband is well-off, because when each wife came to stay, she was given a cow and a small piece of land, a pittance with which to scrape out a livelihood for whatever offspring she would produce for him. Wasti's mama made nothing but broken babies, and one after the other she sold her land and her cow, trying to find the money to put together the pieces of her shattered children.

It wasn't enough. It's never enough, here, and so she was turned away, sent from the village. I'm guessing that the sum total of her possessions is represented in the two small bags and several bowls that are tucked beneath Bed Twenty right now.

The ship was her last chance. She came on the razor's edge of too late; his would be the very last surgery of over six thousand for the year, and we almost said no. Go away. Your baby is too sick. He's too broken, just like everyone has always told you. No.

But instead, in the corner of B Ward today, there's a tiny family on its way back from the darkness. Wasti's mama looked hopeful as she told us that she's almost sure that they'll let her back into the village. That there's more than a good chance that she can go home again. I just have to figure out how much a new cow is going to cost so we can take up a collection for that little boy's mama. But all that will come in time.

For the next few days, my job is just to sit back and watch. To watch Natalie, our pediatric coordinator, work her magic as she teaches a completely illiterate woman how to tell time, how to count precisely, how to measure water and mix the formula so that her baby will get enough food. To watch a little boy soak in all the love he's never known. To watch hope grow in a barren heart.

To watch a mama find her way home.

My heart is so full right now that I don't know how I'm keeping it in my chest. It's threatening to burst, spinning colours and light into every corner of this ship.

It started last night when, in a truly symmetrical end to my day, I got wind of yet another baby on the dock. I headed out into the damp night air to find Wasti, a little one who had come to the ship from way up north earlier this week to have his cleft lip repaired. He was too sick, though, and so he was sent away to a local hospital. We knew it was too late, that there was no way he'd be well in time. And yet there he was, his eyes bright, his skin hot, but not burning like it had been. We brought him on the ship.

All through the evening we pondered, weighing life and death, trying to decide what to do. You see, Wasti is not a normal little boy. As far as we can figure, he was born with a condition known as holoprosencephaly. Normally this is fatal, but the fact that he just had a little cleft lip pointed to a less severe case. Either way, this little boy has a brain that is not normal, and a life expectancy even lower than usual here in West Africa.

As Wasti's story unfolded through no less than four translators, our path became clear. His mama is strikingly beautiful, her face covered in tribal tattoos. She has two children; Wasti has a big sister who was born with some kind of eye trouble. Much of the family's money was spent on her treatment, and when Wasti was born broken, too, his mama was cast out. Abandoned by her husband and shunned by her village, she had nowhere to go. Sending her home with a baby still broken on the outside, whatever might be happening inside, just wasn't an option, because unless he was repaired, there was no home to go to.

And so we prayed. We prepared little Wasti for surgery and we prayed strong prayers to Jehovah Rophi, the God Who Heals. There are currently three pediatric ICU nurses on board the ship, so the three of us got together and worked out who would be on call for all the shifts over the next few days, should anything go wrong. I drew tonight, and so I donned scrubs and booties and headed into the OR to see how the surgery was going and whether or not I was likely to be needed.

As I stood in the corner, quietly observing, the anesthetist, Michelle, called over to me. You can see much better from my seat if you come ventilate. I laughed, assuming she was joking, since the little boy, no bigger than a newborn at six months of age, was already totally covered with sterile drapes, a breathing tube in place. When she held out the bag attached to the tubing, I knew she was serious, and so I moved around to the other side of the table and took her place on her stool. She coached me for a while until she trusted me, and then she stepped away, leaving the bag in my sweaty little hand.

Throughout the entire operation, I sat no more than three feet from little Wasti, pushing air into his tiny lungs, my eyes torn between watching the monitors and staring at Dr. Tony's hands as he meticulously stitched Wasti's lip back together. I couldn't keep the grin off my face, incredulous at the thought that I was a member of the team performing the last surgery of the outreach, the surgery that seems so symbolic of everything we do here. Neat rows of sutures. A ticket home.

When the surgery was over and the breathing tube removed and Wasti was making a mockery of all our worries, I left to eat dinner. I shared the news of success with so many people I passed, people who had been upholding us in prayer. And when I had finished eating, I went back down to the recovery room to check on him.

Now, I know that God provides. It's just that I don't always see it as clearly as I did today. When the recovery nurse called the ward to ask if she could bring Wasti back, the ward told her no. That there was another sick baby. That the nurse didn't have time. I headed over to help, and ended up admitting Wasti back into his bed while his nurse worked with a team of anesthetists and other nurses to stabilize her other patient. Just the right people, at just the right time.

I settled Wasti's mama on the bed, propped up on a throne of pillows, her baby in her arms. I cooed and kissed, changing his diaper and mixing formula so she could start feeding him. And for the first time, I saw her smile. The austere beauty of her face was transformed, softened, as she gently touched her son's downy cheek with a finger roughened from hard work. She looked up at me with wonder in her eyes, and she laughed. She laughed and stuck her thumb in the air, repeating a word over and over in her language. Through those four translators, I learned what she was saying.

It's good. It's good. It's good.

And so surgery is finished for the year, and I can't think of a better way for it all to have ended. My hand is stiff from pressing the ventilation bag for an hour. My arms smells like sour milk from where Wasti drooled on me while I held him and his mama ate her dinner. My back is sore from bending over the bed, trying to get him settled.

But my heart is full. Full of hope and light.