SACH Fixed My Heart

Ok,

          So I think that this is going to be my last blog post. My plane is taking off in 12 hours. I am so thankful for my experience here, I don’t want to leave the house.

        Today was a great last day. I just hung out with the kids for the majority of it. We played, danced and coloured. The kids started to realize that I was leaving the next day, and wrote me cards and drew me pictures. Kassim told me many times how he didn’t want me to leave and how he is going to cry tomorrow. I told him that I am going to call him at home and he can call me whenever he wants.

Ester spent the day hugging and kissing me and asking when I will see her again. The truth is, that I want to go to Tanzania and Zanzibar in the next couple of years and visit my SACH family. The nurse from Zanzibar told me to come visit the clinic in Zanzibar.

         I know I have probably been annoying in this blog talking about how much I love this place and how it has honestly changed my life forever. I have volunteered in many different places in my life, but nothing quite like SACH. At SACH the kids here are all so loving and thankful for the work the volunteers put in. It is also nice to know that the kids are returning healthy and can start to live a normal life, go to school and be healthy. I have learnt so much about myself during my time at the house. I want to do something in my life where I can help others in a direct manner. I also know that I want to be able to work with children

         This will definitely be a trip that I will always remember and look back on. I am a little nervous to return back to life in the western world. I am starting school on Monday and I will just be getting used to not living in Israel. Hopefully my experience this month will motivate me to focus so I can do something in my life to help others.

I still need to pack, so goodnight for now. I will try to post some pictures once I am home.

Shauna

Only A Couple More Days

Hey Everyone,
       I am sorry I have not posted in a couple of days. I had my days off this weekend which was really nice. I was able to relax and spend some time by the beach in Tel Aviv.
I am leaving in a couple of days from the house, and I really do not want to leave. I am growing so attached to everyone here. I am worried about leaving here. There are 3 main things that I will miss. I am going to miss Israel, I am going to miss the children, and I think I am going to miss feeling like I am serving a purpose. I feel like my life back at home does not have purpose. At the house, I know that I am helping people. I can see it and it is very immediate. When I go home, I will be returning back to school and just focusing on my work. I am going to need to integrate volunteer opportunities into the semester to take a break from the work.
       The past couple of days at the house have been pretty routine. The weather has been groggy so we have had to stay in the house. I have become a lot closer with all of the mothers and nurses. They are teaching me how to cook all of the food they make. They are so warm and kind-hearted and have welcomed me into their hearts.
       A lot of the time I am using my hands to talk to the people in the house. Mamma Migdalia only speaks Spanish, so all of our conversations consist of her speaking to me in Spanish, and me responding in English. This whole time we are mainly talking with our hands and motioning and acting out different things. It is a lot of fun trying to understand what she is saying.


Ok. I need to go to sleep now. I am going to Be'er Sheva tomorrow with Momma Kevin and Kevin. We are going to the hospital to meet the doctors that are going to perform his bilateral surgery for his cleft pallet.


Goodnight for now.
Shauna




Ps. it is getting a lot harder for me to write these posts since it is nearing the end of my trip. With every post, it reminds me that I am leaving, and then I don't want to write about going because it makes me so sad. 

R.I.P Pink Ukulele

        So as you might be thinking after reading the title to my post, the ukulele has died. It broke yesterday after being played with by one of the kids here. I was not upset because it has served its purpose in the house. It has gotten me closer to the children and they have started to play with it and sing and dance a lot in the house.
        So I thought that for todays post, along with the usual events happening in the house, I would write about some of the people here and some of the overall themes after observing the SACH house.
       First with the update.
On Tuesday I went to the hospital for the day to visit Esther. When I got there I was told that she might be going home that day. Ester was so happy and was telling all of the nurses. Ester was moved to the childrens' ward and was full of energy that day. She was walking around feeding herself and smiling, which was the most important thing. Esther was placed in a room with two other babies and their mothers. These babies are SACH patients, but they do not live in the house. They are Palestinian patients who needed heart surgery. There were many Palestinian children at the hospital that have received heart surgery. The mothers of the other children were very nice to Ester. They didn't speak any Hebrew or English, but they made her feel at home with the simple smile or hand gesture.
           We ended up waiting around the hospital for almost the entire day and then we were told that we could leave. Ester was so happy. She said goodbye to all the Nurses and then we left.
           For the past two days, Ester has been feeling better, but is very tired and mostly sits around the house. I think she is upset with how she doesn't have a lot of energy now.
           Today was a really simple day. We just hung out around the house and played games, went on a walk and then watched a movie. The kids didn't really want to do anything today. Kassim made me a ring out of beads. It is so beautiful. Nassor made me a bracelet. I love those boys. They are always playing together and smiling. Nassor came back to the house a week ago from the hospital, but he is still weak and cannot be doing a lot of actions. Both yesterday and today Kassim has been my dance partner. He speaks very little English but just by using hand motions, we are very close. Kassim is 13 and he has never gone to school because his heart condition made him too tired. Yesterday he told me that when he is going back to Zanzibar, he is going to go to school. He is so excited to go.
          I don't think I have ever spoken about this boy in the house. He came back from the hospital when I was a couple days into my volunteer service at SACH. His name is Adisu. He is from Ethiopia. He is 17 and came to Israel with a nurse named Ababa. He speaks very little English, but we have slowly been getting to know each other. He doesn't really play or hang out with the rest of the kids in the house. Adisu is a kids from the slums in Ethiopia. He doesn't have parents, but he has a younger brother. He was involved in a gang and was into drugs and smoking back home. Hopefully when he goes back, he will not go back to the slums. Adisu is a very nice boy. When he speaks he is very gentle and kind. He had to have an emergency heart operation after his first operation because something went wrong. The other day I was sitting next to him and I heard a ticking sound. I thought that it was his watch. When I checked his wrists I realized that he had a pacemaker installed in once of his surgeries.
            Kevin is a child that I haven't really spoken a lot about. He is the baby from Indonesia with a cleft pallet. I just found out that no one from the mother's family has ever seen him. Where Kevin comes from, he would be cast as an outcast if they saw what he looked like. Hopefully he will get an operation soon to fix his cleft pallet.
           Migdalia is the one year old from Panama who is always running around the house looking for her mother. She has already had her heart surgery, but in two months she needs to have another one because the problem was worse than expected. Momma Migdalia is very sad about this because she has been here for almost 6 months and she has 5 children back at home who she has not seen in a very long time. Momma Migdalia also has no one else in the house who can speak Spanish.
        

It is getting late, but I still have more to write about. I will try to write about the nurses tomorrow.
Goodnight everybody,
Shauna

More Water

Hey Everybody!
        I hope you are all enjoying your weekend. My weekend has been good. Both yesterday and today I went to the hospital to visit Ester. Her surgery went well and the doctors were able to fix the leaky valve in her heart. When I saw her for the first time yesterday I didn't know what to expect. I was told that she was going to be in the ICU and will have many tubes hooked up to her.
        When I walked into the ICU the nurses had just finished extubating her. She looked at me with very glazed tired eyes. I was so happy to see her and know that she was alright. I sat beside her bed and with all the strength in her body she said the word "water". The nurse that was tending to her told me that she is not allowed a lot of water after surgery and can only receive one syringe of water every couple of minutes. I was allowed to give her the water. Every couple of seconds she would ask for water. I felt so bad denying her of something that is so basic. After about an hour she said to me, "Can I have some water Mom?". I know that she was on a lot of very heavy medication, but Ester started calling me Mom a couple of days before the surgery. It almost made me start to cry.
        After a couple of hours she asked if she had had the operation. When I told her that the surgery happened she said thank you God for all you have given me. I cannot get over her undying love for God. All of the women in the house  are religious. They always tell me, "There has to be a higher being". Maybe there is.
         When it was time for me to leave on Friday, Ester started to cry and asked me to stay with her until she is well enough to go back home. I told her that I needed to go back to the house to take care of the other children. She held my hand very tight and didn't let go until she fell asleep.
         I left the hospital once she fell asleep.
         Ester was a lot more alert when I visited her today. She was still in the ICU, but was not hooked up to as many machines as before. she is starting to eat and drink which is great progress.
         The house has been pretty normal these past couple of days. We have been doing a lot of arts and crafts and today we went to the park to play. I love being around these children. They are so inspiring. Even though it is difficult to communicate with some of them, I still understand what they are saying and hopefully they understand me.

Ok, I am going to leave the house tonight until Monday night. I have my days off now which I definitely need. I am very tired and want to get re energized before another week of SACH.
Enjoy the rest of your weekends!
          Kennedy is going home on Monday and I will not be here to say goodbye to hime then. Our goodbye is going to be in 20 minutes. I am so sad that he is leaving, but at the same time know that he has been given another chance at life because of SACH. I plan to keep in touch with him and his family and hopefully see him if I go to Africa next summer.


Shauna
Ps. I have been here for almost a week at the house. It feels like I have been here for a month. Living with these women and children all the time makes me feel so close to all of them.

An Emotional Roller-Coaster

         I have pretty much pushed off this post because I don't know if I am emotionally ready to talk about it. The past two days have been very up and down. Wednesday started off pretty happy. It was Momma Kevin's birthday party. We had decorated the house with balloons and then had some cake. I knew that I was going to go with Ester to the hospital to prep for surgery so I started to collect some games to bring to the hospital that we would play while we waited around.
       We ended up leaving the house around 2pm, because a news camera crew wanted to film Ester leaving the house and then walking to the cab with me. They also filmed us in the taxi on our way to the hospital. Once we were there, two other volunteers met us and we played with ester in her bed in the pediatric surgical ward of the hospital. Every once in a while, the camera crew would ask us to leave so that they could interview Ester. Every time this happened, Ester would not really answer the news crew and was very nervous and shy.
        When it was time for the other volunteers to leave I started to feel uncomfortable knowing that Ester would be sleeping at the hospital alone the night before her surgery. Ester was starting to talk abut how she was very scared for the operation. She told me that she wanted me to sleep at the hospital with her and not leave until I she was well enough to go home. I called the house mother, Laura, and asked her if I was allowed to stay the night. She was very pleased that I asked. So Ester and I spent the rest of the night at the hospital together. We played some games that I brought. Her favourite was the card game war. I helped her take a shower and get ready for bed.
        She then started to tell me how she was scared for the surgery and did not want to die. I promised her that the surgery will go fine and that is going to be a healthy girl after the surgery. She will be able to dance without getting tired and she will be able to run around more.
       Ester told me that she believes that God is her mother and God will watch over her. The song "Jesus is my savior" was then sung by Ester. I love and admire her undying faith in God. Before we went to bed, she asked me to pray with her to God to ask for a good surgery. It was very hard for me to emotionally keep myself together. This child has gone through so much in her 8 years of life. I quickly began to pray, but then sat there thinking, that this is one of the first times I am praying to God and meaning every word of it. Ester then told me that I should always be praying. Even when I am talking, I should be thinking about my prayer to God. Ester then told me that even now, before the operation, she is happy. That god is always with her in life. When she speaks, God is helping her speak and live.
       It was a very long night because Ester could not fall asleep easily. She started to get more scared. We talked until she fell asleep.
        We woke up in the morning to camera crews in our face. The news station was back to film Ester. A Christian television station also came to video Ester. For the rest of the morning until her surgery, Ester pas panicked. The camera men pretty much kicked me out of the room and filmed Ester. Ester just sat there staring at them. When it was time to go downstairs to the operating room. The two camera crews got in a fight about who would have certain parts of the hallway to film. We had to stop many times because they wanted to film it perfectly. Ester just kept staring at me with a scared face. I didn't know what to do. There were other SACH office people there coordinating this. I felt terrible for Ester. the night before, she was emotionally ready for her surgery, and now she looked terrified.
           We took Ester down to a waiting room before the operating room. I went with a nurse from the house, Khadisha to put on scrubs and then follow Ester. We were alone in a room with a nurse from the hospital. She was so nice to Ester. Ester started to panic and yelled that she didn't want to die and that she wanted me by her side during surgery. We eventually calmed her down. The nurse told me that she didn't like the camera crew following Ester. That it wasn't good for Ester.
            After five minutes, the camera crews walk into the waiting room in scrubs and start filming Ester. Ester begins to panic again. Khadisha and I are basically pushed out of the room and Ester was there by herself staring at the cameras with a petrified face. The nurses began to move Ester from the waiting room to the operating room. They also gave her some medicine to fall asleep. once that happened, the Khadisha told me that we were done and we were going home.
            I didn't know how to feel. The whole morning at the hospital I was trying to hold back my tears. I was so nervous for Ester, and I hated that I wasn't there to walk her into the operating room and the camera crew was there.
           The taxi ride back to the house was very quiet. I kept asking the odd question about random things to Khadisha to distract myself. Once we got to the house I quickly changed into clean clothes and then resumed my role as a full time volunteer. We had a group visit in the morning from Birthright Israel. When they were there another group from the Canadian embassy arrived at the house. SACH staff introduced me as the Canadian and the embassy officials were asking me many questions about SACH. It was a fun visit. Then in the afternoon another Birthright group came to visit.

Tomorrow I am going to the hospital to see Ester when they wake her up.


Goodnight everybody
S

The Africa Inside Israel

Good evening everyone!

I hope you all have been having a great day. Today was very exhausting in the house. For a large part of the morning, I went to a supermarket with one of the mothers to buy food. Her birthday is tomorrow and she wants to have a party at the house. When I was still at the supermarket, I got a phone call from the house that told me that we needed to run back as soon as possible because an ambassador was making a surprise visit to the house in ten minutes. We then ran back to the house to meet the Vietnamese ambassador, which was really cool.

The rest of the day I spent in the house playing with the kids. Around dinnertime, a musician came to the house to play with the kids. He is from Yemen and plays African music. All of the kids danced with him and had a great time. Afterwards a film crew who are shooting a documentary came by the house. They filmed us all dancing with the kids. It was a lot of fun. Ester, the 8 year old from Tanzania, has not had her surgery yet and when she was dancing was getting very tired and had to rest from all of the dancing.Ester is going to have her surgery on Thursday. I am going to be the person who she wakes up to, which I feel honored to be.

When everyone was dancing, Kennedy and I were partners and danced together. He is such a lovely boy. Even though he has a physical disability it does not stop him from enjoying himself. After all the dancing was done, he gave me a kiss on the cheek, which was so adorable. He then asked me to eat dinner with him. At the house, dinner is usually prepared by each mother for her child. Momma Kennedy made rice and some soup, but a nurse from Zanzibar gave us some beans to eat with the rice. Kennedy was so happy to be eating with me. He is such a cute and smart little boy.

I don’t think I ever introduced Kadisha. She is a nurse from Zanzibar. There are 2 children from Zanzibar. She helps all of the children in the house with administering their medicine.

The kitchen is the perfect place to understand the atmosphere in the house. All of the mothers and nurses are always cooking. And when some of the baby’s mothers are preparing food, the other mothers hold the babies. It is so nice and cute to watch. Today I was about to clean my dishes from lunch and Momma Midalia cleaned them for me. I gave her a big hug and kiss as a thank you.

The two girls, Ester and Julia, who do not have a mother in the house get fed by the other mothers in the house. It is a very nice system with the kitchen. Each mother has a designated day she has to clean the kitchen.

I don’t know what it was about today, but it made me appreciate what I am doing here for the 3 weeks. I love being able to play a part in these people’s lives at such an important time for them

Goodnight to all of you. Here are some pictures from today.

Shauna

Momma and baby Zaineb

Kassim holding a trophy he just made

Ester on left and Julia on right

From left; Momma Zaineb, Kadisha, and a volunteer.

Kennedy

Celebrity for the Night

Good evening everyone!

I hope you all have had a great day. Today was a lot of fun in the house. I started volunteering around 8:30am. There is always music playing in the house and this morning the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” was the song of the day. Momma Kennedy heard the song and was so excited because it is her favorite song. We had the song on replay 10 times and all of the kids and mothers were dancing in the family room. Momma Kennedy kept saying how important it is to not worry and to be happy. It was really inspiring. After all of the issues with Kennedy she is still happy, has faith and loves life.

All of the kids except for Midalia and Ester went to the hospital for their heart check ups. So for most of the day the house was quiet. I got to know the house mom Laura. She works for SACH. She runs the house. She is really amazing. She has been working for SACH since it started in 1995. She is at the house every day, making sure that everything is running smoothly. In addition to being the house mother, she has a family of her own and comes home from work everyday and prepares dinner for them.

Ester and I did some math and English that Ester brought from her school in Tanzania. Her orphanage pays for the girls to go to university if their grades are high enough. We also played some arts and crafts and did some puzzles.

Once the other children came back, we did some more games and danced some more. I got really close with Kennedy today. He is such a special boy. He was so tired from the day at the hospital that he sat beside me and fell asleep on me until dinner. He is such a sweet kind boy who is very smart. His body is physically handicapped but mentally he is there.

At around dinnertime tonight a news crew from Israel came to the house. They wanted to show what we do at the house and to interview Ester. Ester is the 2500 child that SACH has had. Dr. Ami Cohen was the man that started SACH and he died ten years ago while climbing mount Kilamenjaro in Tanzania. Ester is from the area close to mount Kilamenjaro so she is the child that represents the achievements SACH has made, and the amazing things it has done because of Ami Cohen.

My computer has one minute left of battery so I need to go.