The day after Ascension, we had Mass in the afternoon. It was a votive "Mass for the Sick", for Canon Fragelli, whom we had heard that they wanted to take to a hospital in Florence. "I hope he's back before I leave!" states my journal.
Later, closer to the evening, Canon Sigros asked me if I had a key to the dispensary. I didn't. He asked if I had something for "disinfecting", as one of the littler altar boys (three of them were hanging around Canon that afternoon) had a large, superficial cut on his arm. I jumped at the opportunity and told Canon I could do something. He replied with, "I want this boy disinfected".
The wound was large, taking up most of the boy's forearm, and while it wasn't deep, it was four days old and I guessed it hadn't been cleaned. My supplies were less than I would have hoped, but they were sufficient. I was able to clean the wound with soap and water, rinse it, and put antibiotic ointment on it. I didn't have gauze with me, but I had clean tissues and first-aid tape, which worked to make a perfectly good bandage. Canon (who had been in medical school before he went to seminary) asked the boy if he had a soap at home, which he said did, so he reminded him to wash the area with soap and water before he went to bed.
It was so satisfying to actually use my nursing skills a way that felt meaningful! I wrote in my journal that "It's exactly what I dreamed of doing".
A couple weeks later, I was working in the kitchen on Friday afternoon while a group of boys were playing soccer. Modeste came into the kitchen to tell me there was "un petit avec un blessure", a little one with a cut. "Le petit" turned out to be the sweetest little boy, about 7 or 8 years old, whom Modeste addressed as Baudoin. He had what looked like a popped blister near the ball of his left foot, not deep enough to bleed but still needing to be cleaned. I washed and dried his foot (my journal mentions that his foot was really dirty, but "he is a seven-year-old boy in Africa"), then applied antibiotic and dressed the wound. I told him to come back on Sunday and let me look at it again.
Sunday was Pentecost (and a busy one with 12 baptisms; more on that later). After Mass, I was again in the kitchen when Modeste came in -- again (I later dubbed him my CNA) -- and told me Baudoin was back. I recall being, admittedly, a little surprised at that. Anyway, I had Baudoin sit in the shade and went to get my things.
I cleaned the wound better than I had previously (the old dressing was gone -- no surprise there), dried his foot and redressed the wound. Taking a cue from Canon Sigros, I asked Baudoin if he had soap at home. He said no. I told him (with Modeste's help) to rinse his foot with plenty of water before he went to bed -- that would be better than nothing.
Baudoin then asked to take a picture.
Someone said to me during this whole thing, "Laissez-vous les petits", meaning, in this case, "Don't worry about the little cuts". My journal has a paragraph I wrote justifying myself: infections can get nasty in Africa, his parents probably aren't going to take care of it, he doesn't even have soap at home, he could develop an infection that wouldn't get treated... All of which may be true. Or what I did may, medically, have been overkill. That, however, doesn't matter.
"Laissez-vous les petits" literally translates as, "Let the little ones go." Let them go! Our Lord said, "Let the little ones come to me". Had I let this little one go, he likely would have been physically fine. But he and I would not have been able to make each other the happiest people in West Africa that Sunday afternoon.
"Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such." (Matthew 19:14)
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