TFC

Add caption

When you first enter the property of Magbenteh Hospital, you notice a group of buildings to the left with a gazebo in the center. This is the Theraputic Feeding Center, or the TFC.   The TFC is a program that works with World Food, Unicef and the Minister of Health to deal  particularly with the problem of malnourishment.   In the last year or so the program has moved toward sending workers out to the villages to teach people how to deal with these issues, referring the more critical cases to Magbenteh for stabilization.  This is a good situation as many of the children who are severely malnourished have other medical issues which require a doctor's wisdom  The families stay in one of these buildings, in large rooms with plastic covered foam pads on the floor.  There is no privacy, no deluxe accomodations, no tray of food delivered three times a day.  But this is a dry, safe environment in which learning and hope dovetail. 
During intake, each person who comes to the TFC  receives malaria meds, de-worming, folic acid and antibiotics for stomach infection.  Some things are just so common that it makes sense to have a blanket response initially.... what's crazy is that these are the needs that are common.  Because it is not the rainy season, and because of the workers going to the villages, the numbers are down right now at the TFC. (malnutrition rises in the rainy season)  I think that is a yeah.... and yet there are still are too many big eyed, distended bellied little people living there.

Three times a week Musa records the weight of each child to make sure he/she is gaining.  This happens at 7:30 a.m.... when it is a brisk 65 degrees or so.  That  temperature is heavenly to a northerner who rues the approaching 90 degree day ahead, but these tykes have no natural insulation on their bodies, so the process is pretty uncomfortable for them.   The babies are stripped down, slipped into a vinyl 'seat hammock' (brrrrr) which is hung on a scale.  This is not a happy time at the TFC, especially when some ghosty white woman shows up clicking pictures their indignant morning.  (Some kids really are scared of our white skin and think we are ghosts.)  

 

Add caption

weigh in time

In addition to the Feeding Center, there is a day clinic where women can come for a check up on their baby, or help with a cold or other ailments.  I happened to be in the waiting room one morning when the medical staff (a nurse?) came out to instruct them on hand washing, but first lead the group in the Lord's Prayer.  

thank you, Dale Linton

Muhamud Suaree, the director of the TFC was kind enough to show me around and answer my questions.  He introduced me to a staff person, Fatmata Cici, who works with Family Planning.  Dr. Moosavi was a blessing to them with her collection of birth control. I also met a woman whose job is to work with the mothers and children together to learn to play.  Every afternoon she would lead in a game (we learned to play musical chairs) and open the play room for the kids to play with toys, and the mothers to drum and sing together.  Dale Linton, a Saint Louis, MI man generously gifted me with 20 little wooden vehicles  to share with the kids.  Many of them ended up at TFC.  

beautiful, colorful laundry

The TFC is where Mallory and Kendall learned how to 'strap' the babies on their backs, African style.  "So me bambah" is what they were taught to say.  This action, so natural to even the smallest  African girl, was an amusing show for the moms.  Balloons were a happy event as well....for the short duration of their lives.  We blew them up and tossed them around, then worried about the little pieces that could be swallowed when they popped.  These events were happy diversions from day to day living where life still demands laundry and cooking over an open fire even in their added stresses. Finding health is a long, slow process that requires patience and certainly, in such poverty, the help of those who already have it.

"so me bambah"

K"ariatu

1. 
   

Abu