learning to walk

I forget that this is usually just after the halfway point in an outreach, that there are normally still four months still to work. We've gotten ourselves so fully immersed into the beginning of pack-up that I'm losing sight of the fact that there are still patients in the wards and lots more coming and going from our outpatient clinic.

Today, I was sitting in the nearly-empty C Ward making a spreadsheet for everyone in the hospital to input the weight of every single thing that isn't bolted to the ceilings before we head off around the Cape. I'm not actually kidding about this; every monitor, mattress and mirror has to be weighed and charted. (Don't even get me started on the bed frames. It's awfully tricky to stand on a bathroom scale while holding one of those and still be able to see the numbers.) I heard a little chirp outside my door and looked over to see the jug-handle ears and huge smile of one of my favourite little boys from this outreach, Godwing.

He's six, and when he came to us, scar tissue on the back of his leg held his knee at a right angle. He would hop around the wards on miniature crutches like a little bird until the day we were finally able to do his surgery. Afterwards, his healing took a long time. He required a skin graft to cover the area where the scar was released, and he's been coming back to the outpatient clinic every few days to have his bandages changed, his leg now sticking straight out in his custom-made splint.

Today, when I looked up, Godwing wiggled his eyebrows and beckoned me over. Va, mi jo, he told me. Come on, let's go. I got up and peeked around the door to see his leg covered with just a little bandage instead of the big, bulky splint he was used to wearing. I threw him a questioning look, and he started to giggle as he showed me how he can bend and straighten his leg now.

I thought that was it; I thought he just wanted to show me that the leg that used to be frozen by scar tissue could now bend like a normal little boy's leg, but it turned out Godwing had saved the best surprise for last. With one last look and a kiss on my cheek, he took off down the hall. No crutches. No support. Walking proud and tall (as tall as you get at six years old) down the middle of the corridor, slowly but surely making his way towards the stairs that would take him home.

I forget that this is the time in the outreach that the patients are learning to walk. We've seen them come and go from the wards, but the outpatient nurses and physiotherapists have continued on, bandanging wounds and stretching muscles, and this is what it all means.

And Godwing wasn't the only one. Over the last two days I've seen so many of them. Little Ali, who was burned with boiling porridge when he was a baby, has finally taken the first steps on his own, on an foot that can now rest flat on the floor. Tossedi is using little sticks to help him, but his crooked legs are straight, free from their casts, and supporting his weight.

All around the hospital, little boys are learning to walk. With my head full of packing up, my heart is full of this.