Today was a laid back day since my aunt and uncle had to go into the office to finish up some work before we head out the rest of the week, so my mother, Carlie and I had the day to do what we like. Yesterday we hit up the mall so today my other aunt (mothers sister) took us to the hospital that she runs to show us around. On our way in we stopped at the gift shop and picked up some candy for the kids in the childrens ward, which incidently I am very glad that we did, its a good way to break the ice. After the tour of the hospital, which is called Crompton, we went and spent some time with the kids. Most people who know me know that kids are not really my thing. Its not that I necissarily hate kids, its just I don't really know how to relate to people who are younger then me. This held true for most of the kids in the ward today, but I must say that they were so cute. A bunch of the kids were about between 3 and 6 and their english was not amazing, so it was funny to watch them babble at me in zulu and point at the candy we brought, which we surrendered to them, much to their delight.
Anyway I'm going on a bit so I'm going to get to the whole point of this post now. Whilst all the kids at the hospital were cute enough to eat, there was one that specifically touched me. He was about 15 years old, alough it was kind of hard to tell. I stumbled upon him largely by accident whilst I was looking for more kids to give candy to. He had a private room and I saw the slight bump of feet displacing a blanket so I stuck my head around the corner to see if someone was there and I saw this very large, dark head, with these huge eyes staring at me poking from beneath the blanket. His skin was pulled taut against his skull making his eyes seem even larger. His chin and cheecks were bony and hollow, but he had a soft, sweet look about his face. I stared at him for a moment and then waved, unsure of what he would do. He looked at me for a second then shyly waved at me, a small smile touching the corners of his lips. I then noticed that his mom was in the room, and she got up to say hello to me. A sweet lady who was obviously very concerned about her son, she allowed to me give him some candy and chat to them for a while. As I was getting up to go I leaned over and patted him on the arm and it gave me quite a turn. Instead of muscle, or even fat it was mearly a bone sheathed in skin. I froze for a second, I felt as though I had found out something that wasn't mine to know, and I wasn't quite sure how to react. In the end I gave the mom a sad smile and walked out of the room. I found my aunt who was checking the meds of some of the other kids and proceeded to girl her about the little boy and what was wrong with him. Turns out he is HIV positive and is trying to recover from TB to boot. Needless to say, whether he beats TB or not, his projected lifespan more then likely does not span beyond 25, 30 at a stretch.
After a discussion with my mom, who also wandered into the room accidently, we decided that there must be something we could do to at least make his stay a little more fun. We talked to his mom and found out what types of books etc.. that he likes and we went to our local market and picked up books, paint-by-number sets, pens, funcky socks and a little fleece jacket for him. Tomorrow we plan to go back to the hospital and deliver this loot to him, and hopefully brighten his day a bit. At the end of the day there isn't much that we can do for him, but at this point I hope we can at least make a small difference.
