The Suburbs (or into the bush)

Today I got my scouting badge.  It was time to do follow up with the family of little Leya, the month old baby girl.  Since a family is interested in adopting, we need to determine if Leya’s family will allow her to be adopted.  I picked up the social worker at his office about 8 a.m. and off we went.  We took a road I knew that was on the outskirts of town, this was going to be a quick trip I thought.  We followed the road as it became more and more sketchy and further into the boonies.  After about 10 km, we reached a village with a school.  Our arrival prompted all the children in the area to come running like we were really special.  We stopped to ask directions (I did the stopping, the social worker did the asking) since a school was the only landmark we had to go on to find the aunt who had been guardian.  The directions were that this wasn’t the right school and we needed to go further.  There was a lady with a parcel on her head who wanted a ride, so we loaded her up and off we went.  She was somehow a shirttail relative of the lady we were seeking and knew the way.  We went on another 5 km or so as the road continued to get narrower and more rutted.  I only had to use 4-low a couple of times to get up steep rutted pitches.  Finally we came to the intersection with a foot path and that was where the driving ended.  We all took off down the footpath and after a half km or so we came to a junction and the lady dropped her bundle and told us to follow ahead.  We went a few hundred yards and she pointed out a couple of houses on a ridge top about another half km away.  We struck out and were soon there, although the only ones around were children.  A short discussion revealed the mom was down in the canyon getting water.  After a bit she returned and we found that the aunt we were looking for had gone back to her village about an hour and a half away (by foot).  We discussed the situation of Leya and it was decided to summon an uncle who lived a short distance away.  Off went one of the kids to fetch him.  After a bit another set of women showed up from the opposite direction (more relatives) for more discussion.  They agreed they needed the men involved to make any sort of commitment, so it was agreed they would discuss the situation and send someone to town with the findings.  About that time, a man showed up from the direction the child had gone to fetch.  A few minutes later an older man appeared who turned out to be the village headman.  He spoke fine English, and told me I needed to learn the local language.  More discussion about Leya and the final conclusion was that they understood our purpose and were quite grateful for our work and were all for a foster or adoptive resolution to her problem.  The Headman said it was God who had brought us here to help with this situation, and he was right on.  My reply was to give God the thanks for it all.  After all of this, we were offered food (raw cassava root) for the trip home along with a big bunch of plantain bananas that one of the kids carried to the car.  We made our way back to town, picked up a couple of ladies that had loads on their heads (one was so heavy the lady could barely lift it, around a 100 pounds I’d guess) who were grateful for not having to walk 15 km to market their goods.  Back home around 2 p.m., all in all a very good day.

 

Andy