More from Tanya and pictures!

The bathroom sink is black and it is moving.  Wait.  It is not moving, although movement is definitely present, as ants have taken over.  The bathroom is quite dark, so I can’t see clearly, but I can see enough to know that we have a problem – hundreds of ants.  I try not to keep the ants off me as I lean into the water barrel to get some water to dump over the ants, washing them down the drain and back to the earth.  I wonder if anyone cries for them?  Is there a mama ant out there, crying for her children?  At that moment, I don’t really care – all I want is to get those ants out of the sink which used to be white and is now black.

As the day progresses, I feel ants on me, in me and around me.  Sometimes, they are on me, but sometimes, they are just a thought, a feeling. 

As I walk from ward to ward at Tandala Hospital, talking to doctors and seeing first-hand what their needs are, my head swims with possibilities.  Everything needed is possible.  For a price.

Beds, birthing beds, mattresses, mattress covers, new floors, repaired windows, headlamps – all doable.  All available.  All out of reach without money.  God, give me wisdom.  Bless our work.  Help us help. Help us not do harm while helping.  The truth is that no child should have to spend the night in a dark hospital ward, all by themselves, scared and hurting.  No mother should lay on a metal bed without a mattress while waiting for the birth of her twins.

Twins. I hold a pair of day-old baby boys today and I felt full.  It was an especially sweet moment because both babies and their mama are doing well and they are healthy.  So soft and so new, these babies, yet uncounted.  Why count your babies, when they will likely die?  They’ll be counted once they turn five.  Until then, every day is a prayer.