The little boy was crying. He is 11 months old. He weighs hardly 6 kgs. Severely malnourished. Severe dysentry. The pungent smell of his leaky bottom pervaded the room.
I had walked into the JSK centre at the end of a working day. Sheba was there praying with the nurses and little Bablu (all names changed of course). Mohan - Bablu's father - was with him. Sarita, his mother, had gone back to the tiny room they stay in to be with the other three children.
Bablu's parents are both HIV positive. One of his older siblings is positive too. It is too early to test the boy (we will wait till another 7 months before we can be sure that any antibodies for HIV are really his own). But Bablu was clearly sick. Very sick.
We came back later at 10.30 pm. We had been to a prayer meeting and my friend Jolly and I dropped Sheba off at the centre to see how Bablu was getting on. When Jolly tried to start the car again it didn't. The two of us spent another 20 mins outside trying to get it going - finally a friendly mechanic helped us start it up and with a vroom Jolly was gone.
Sheba had still not come out - so I walked back into the centre. The child was crying - Sashmita - one of our nurses was holding little Bablu. I think his mother was cleaning some of his clothes. When Sarita took Bablu into her arms again he calmed down.
Sheba was worried. "The boy is very sick" she told me. High fever. Frequent passing of stools. Very undernourished. We prayed with the family again and walked home in the night to our children (who were sleeping with Agnes - Sheba's cousin who has just joined us).
It was a tossy-turning kind of night (thanks to Enoch practicing judo on me in his sleep) and in the morning we were groggy. But the good news we got when Sheba called up Sashmita at the centre was this: Bablu's fever has gone - and he did not pass stool again all night after we left.
Small miracles.
What a privilege to serve this family and be part of their lives at this very difficult time.
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