Let me tell you about our neighbors. To make a long story short, there are 5 or 6 children and a rotating group of adults- a grandmother and daughter-in-law, mostly- living in a 8' by 10' concrete block shack next door (the adults go off looking for day work and sometimes don't come back). Well, the grandma came over the other day with a boy who had cut his head on glass, asking how we should treat it. I got some hot water and antibiotic cream and started cleaning it up- he had a thumbprint sized piece of paper stuck on the cut-- and when i had soaked that off, there was a one inch gaping gash on his temple, deep. So one of our staff (who speaks Hausa) and I took him to a clinic in Maiadiko and he had four stitches. This kid is not related to the others living in the shack, his father went to his village to visit ("going to the village" is a common thing, they come to Jos to find work but often visit their rural village), his mother is dead, and his stepmother locked up the house and went off supposedly to sell meat in the next town (about a fifteen minute walk) and never came back, so for 4 days this kid was left on his own and the already overcrowded family took him in. The kid has no clothes except what he was wearing (which is now covered with blood) and his school uniform, and he IS going to school which is good. But he hadn't eaten since the day before, none of them had. So we ended up sending over food. (The grandfather was off drinking his salary.)
Unfortunately this boy and his story are totally common, orphanages are chock-full of kids like him that no one cares about. You have to live here daily with the knowledge that you can't meet all the needs you see even for one day. The boy needed a lot more than medical attention and a hot meal. There is a shame and fear that comes with poverty and neglect, and the kid would not really meet anyone's eyes. But at the clinic, after the doctor had jabbed the wound about ten times with a novocaine needle and the swelling had burst in bright red blood all down the kid's face and clothes, right to the floor, I grabbed some cotton to clean his face up because it was a mess of tears and blood and sweat and mucus. While I was wiping his face, for a second his eyes met mine. That was my reward, and I can't explain it, but I feel like I got more from the transaction than he did.
