we've got milk

I’ve written about the BBB outpatient nutrition program for children with moderate acute malnutrition, but those children who have severe acute malnutrition (less than 70% of the weight they should be, given their height, or edema due to protein deficiency) get admitted to the health center for an inpatient nutrition program. Watching these kids recover is like seeing a miracle. Some of them are little more than skeletons when they come in, unable to stand or even lift their heads, and in a few weeks time, they can be smiling, energetic kids again. It’s beautiful. The picture above is of a boy named Kagadisa, who came in looking significantly worse than the picture shows, unable to sit up, barely able to keep his eyes open - on the brink of death. Discharged about a month ago, he's now almost unrecognizable, a relatively healthy looking little boy with a big smile and a swagger in his step. Of course, it doesn’t always work that way, but no where else have I seen such radical changes and recoveries.

This program is run in partnership with UNICEF, who provide the powdered therapeutic milk that we give to these children. A couple of months ago we renewed our contract with UNICEF, and our milk supply began to dwindle. UNICEF seemed to be dragging their feet, never getting us the milk for the program, and we broke into the very last box of it last week. After months delays and expectant waiting, I was starting to think that the milk wasn’t going to come, and we weren’t going to be able to feed these kids. That was a sobering prospect, but it’s a reality in a world of scare resources – I can’t feed everyone I’d like to. There will be people who starve, those who can’t be reached for one reason or another, be it location, corruption, lack of manpower, or lack of finances. This was saddening and infuriating, especially since we had a signed contract for the milk. UNICEF eventually said that they had shipped all of the milk to other parts of Uganda and had none to give us.

When the Myhres were in Kampala this week, Jennifer went to the UNICEF office to plead for the milk. I think she manages to pull off both indignation and emotional supplication simultaneously. Two days ago I heard that the milk was on the way. And this morning, I got a call saying that the truck was at the health center, so I made my way down to help unload and store the 70 boxes of powdered milk – 2100 packets of milk in total. The truly amazing part of the story is that we had only 3 packets remaining for all of the nutrition patients on the ward. As we were unloading, a boy came in with Kwashiorkor (a syndrome resulting very severe malnutrition), and it was great to know that we now had the ability to treat him. Praise God that the food arrived just in time.

A funny side note is that, somewhere in the bowels of the UNICEF system, someone decided that 60 scooping spoons was the appropriate number to accompany 2100 packages of milk. Those aspects of working with big organizations make me laugh, but I guess I shouldn’t complain. So, we’ve been really blessed by this all working out with UNICEF, but it does highlight the tenuous nature of a lot of the work that goes on here, and in much of Africa. Delays, misplaced paperwork, confusion, miscommunication - those things can be very costly, especially to a small organization like ours. Sadly, we’ll never be able to care for everyone we want to or to feed everyone who needs it, but as of today, we’re able to offer good food to a lot of kids teetering on the very edge of life.