Today we took a team of 20 youth (from our home church, Pathways) to the Malnutrition Center. It's located about an hour north of Antigua, has between 35 and 40 children under the age of eight, and has attracted our attention because it has become neglected in recent years because of its out-of-the-way location.
As several of us were working with the children, the director of the clinic came in and invited me to meet a family that was admitting their daughter. As I entered the room, I saw a mother crying for her two year old child as she said her goodbyes. One of the assistants came in a minute later to take the child to what would be her new home for the next five or six years. I stood there awkwardly as the director asked a few questions from the family in order to update their records. It went something like this....
- How many children do you have? Five.
- One of them is already here, correct? Yes.
- So, you will now have three children at home and two here? Yes.
- Are there any illnesses? For the father, one kidney does not function, and he was admitted to the hospital last week to have his lung drained of fluid. (On his arm was also a very large growth of some kind).
- Actually, how about the child you are admitting? For the child, just a cough.
- Only a cough? Any stomach problems? Yes, she also has frequent diarrhea.
- Are you pregnant? Yes.
- You're pregnant? Yes, (embarrassed glances at each other)... and four months along.
- So this will be your sixth child? Yes.
- Are you breastfeeding any longer? No.
- So, what are you giving the child to drink...milk? No, she doesn't like milk.
- Ok then, some kind of nutritional drink? No, just coffee.
- Coffee? That's all she drinks? Yes, we can't afford nutritional drinks and she won't drink regular milk.
- Ok, tell me about your home...how many rooms, etc? Two rooms, no kitchen, no electricity.
- What type of work do you do? Laborer in a coffee plantation.
- How much do you earn to support your family? Q25 each day (about $3 daily).
- Only Q25 ($3) each day to support a family of eight? Yes.
- How old are you? 35, and my wife is also the same age.
After the questions, the director politely dismissed the couple. As they walked away, the wife patiently waited while the man hobbled with great effort next to her. I stood in stunned silence for a while. Here was a couple my age, looking twenty to thirty years older as the years of hard labor, poor nutrition, and no hope had etched their faces and wrecked their bodies. The child they left behind weighed half of what she should have for her age.
I asked the director if this was typical, and she said yes, since this is such a poor village. An entire village in this same condition is too much to digest, too much to take in. What's harder to grasp is that the pain of poverty and hunger is only a faint shadow of the spiritual darkness and emptiness that is the root of all of this. Where does one begin to help?
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