This picture above, brings good news!!!!! It is a test result of a HIV test of one of our children. We still get children who are at risk, their parents are HIV+ and we don't know their status. Every child which come to Amecet and we know that the parents are HIV+, needs too be tested for HIV. Also children who are found or who were abandoned, need to be tested, because we don't know the HIV status of the parents. Every time there is that tension, when I go for the results. I know what it will mean to the child if the result is positive...  The child will be started on triple HIV treatment and that is for life!!!! Some children come from a difficult background en we are not sure if the parents manage to give the child every day their ARV medication. When the child was abandoned, and we can't find the relatives of the child, it will be very difficult to find a foster family who wants to adopt the child..... So it is a tense moment when I get the results from the nurse......

This is the same baby as on our last blog: Messach!! We did shave his hair, but there is another big change........... Messach knows now how to smile!!! This is so important that children smile, it shows that they feel content, happy and safe. I think we can't let a child go back home when the child doesn't smile! It is good to work on the malnutrition, the medical problems, but we also need to think about the psychological problems. We have had children who were very rigid and always  you felt their tension when you carry them, we need to find a way that we can help the child to unwind and to relax and to feel happiness.....

I realize that there are several children, where I asked prayers for, who are doing now very well, so I think it is also good to share our thanksgiving with you and one of them is Messach. He weighed 1 kg. when he came to Amecet and now he is 3 kg. On this picture he cries, he has quite a temper, you can hear his cries from far, very high pitch. And he is not smiling much... But he is such a cute little man, you can read his story in the blog of  23/7, we have tested him and he is HIV-. We have to go back to the hospital with him at the end of the month, after that he will go back to his mother!!

We went to two burials, yesterday, we went to the burial of Emmanuel and today to the burial of Joshua. It goes so very different than in the West. As you can see on the picture, in the middle is the bed, with the coffin on it and everybody sits around it. When you arrive, someone of the family brings you to the coffin and you can see the person through a window, or the coffin is open. This is very emotional for many people, they cry and shout and sometimes fall on the floor. After seeing the person, they escort you to the place where you can sit. This picture is of Joshua's burial, there were many big  mango trees, so there is a lot of shade. When there are not so many trees, they hang big cloths, where people sit under in the shade. there is a lot of noise and a lot of introduction of relatives and special people.

As I was getting ready to have breakfast and to leave to Amecet, we are going to the burial of Emma, I got a phone call from Simon. Josh died yesterday evening.......... Josh is also one of the boys we had living with us in Amecet in 2003. After living with us for a while, we re-settled him back with his relatives, his grandmother and his uncles. He died in the same hospital, here in Soroti....

It is not easy to be a teenager and being HIV+. There is a lot of sensitization in Uganda about HIV, but there is still such a stigma.   We get stories from the children about living with an uncle or auntie (often their parents have already died of AIDS),. They have stories that they only can eat from a special plate or are not allowed to play with their cousins or other children. We try to counsel the relatives, but they still suffer.  This picture of Emmanuel (Emma) is taken during one of our Amun weeks, where they meet their pals and we talk a lot about stigma and how to react on it. But it is hard when you are a teenager, you start dating, you don't want your friends to know that you take ARV's and that you are HIV+, out of fear for rejection. 

Yesterday I wrote about the new twins we had in Amecet and how the little boy, Simon Peter, was fighting for his life. Sadly I have to tell that he lost his fight... In the evening at around 9.30 his saturation (oxygen level in the blood), didn't come up anymore and his little heart stopped beating... The whole day, yesterday, we struggled, every time his saturation went down, but  came back up, the doctor came several times to see him, he was on oxygen and several IV medications and IV fluids. But God decided to take him HOME, he is now with his mother.

Last week twins went home, James and Samuel went back to their village. Around 6 weeks ago they were brought to Amecet, not because they were sick, or because their mother had died or because they were malnourished, they were brought to Amecet because their family feared for their safety.... Their mother has a mental problem and can be very aggressive at times. In the past she had two times twins before, they all died. The family was afraid that James and Samuel were not safe..... So they came to Amecet and in the meantime the family had clan meetings and our social workers went to talk with the grandfather. There was an auntie who was ready and willing to take the twins in her home and to raise them as her own. The mother didn't come there so the children would be safe. And last week, Simon brought them to the auntie and they were received very well. We pray that they will be united good in the new family and we pray that the mother will come to her senses...

Lots of things are happening, in Amecet, our days are not boring at all!! Some children went home, the picture above is Nalibe, he was brought by the Probation office (children protect unit) from another district. His mother has passed away and he was so vulnerable. His father came to pick him and was very happy to see him so healthy and smiling.

James was brought to Amecet after his mother passed away. During the pregnancy the mother had been sickly and the delivery was too early. Around 6 weeks early. The baby was born, but then suddenly the mother started to bleed and died..... James was very small, weighing only 1,6 kg, he was at risk, so the family brought James to Amecet. That was one week ago. We laid James in the medical room, with the windows and door closed it is a warm room. We took him to the doctor next door and James was put on IV medicines and we started to feed him by NG tube. There is a place in another district, where we can get special pre mature formula. We order it and they bring it to our home. We use that also for James. It looked to go well, but two days ago he started to have a temperature. For premature baby's it is difficult to maintain their temperature, so we check it every two hours and if it is higher we take away a blanket, if it is low, we ad a blanket. Normally that is enough. But with James not, he started to vomit a bit. We took him back to the doctor, and his medicines were changed, the milk intake a bit lowered and we observed... Two nights ago, his stomach started to grow and was a bit hard. When I came in the morning early (after some phone calls in the night), I took him back to the clinic next door. James had many prickholes from needles, I think even in the hospital, where he was born,, they tried to get a vein to give him IV medication. The cannula he got the previous day was blocked again... his veins are so tiny and now we had to stop the oral feeding and only give him IV fluids, so we had to get a new cannula. 

At the moment, we have 3 sets of twins in Amecet. .On the picture above you can see our last set of twins, Moses and Tom. They are 1 week old. They were born with a caesarean operation, everything went well, the mother was discharged and at home she started to bleed. They rushed back to the hospital, but it was too late, she died. The two little boys are brought to Amecet for 2 or 3 months. During that time the family can organize themselves and then they will take over the care for them.

This is Samuel, he is 13 months old and very malnourished, we picked him and his 3 months little brother Daniel today. But let me start at the beginning:  Yesterday, we got a phone call from a nurse, who works in a village Mission hospital in a neighbouring District. There was  there a young mother with two baby's , only 10 months apart, who were malnourished. The mother has a mental problem and the baby's are crying from hunger and mostly laying naked on the floor.