She is 17 years old and cares for her six brothers and sisters. Her parents died. They live in a dilapidated wood and mud hut. It is dark and dingy inside and the thatch roof leaks so bad that the children move outside during the heavy rains for fear that the house will fall on them.
When I visited them the children were surprisingly happy and playful and polite. It was a good sign that the older sister is doing a good job as the "mother". She had to drop out of school to work their small plot of land but she makes sure her brothers and sisters go to school as much as possible. It is hard to let them go due to the need to draw water every day from a well some distance away.
We delivered corn meal, cooking oil, sugar and tea and the children were so graceful. When we saw the hoe she was using to try to till her field we were amazed how well she had done growing a small plot of maize and cassava.
To see children is just distress was something I am use to but it is never easy. To think that they are on World Vision's priority list but had not received assistance as others had greater need. At least these orphans had a sister who cared for them. Most didn't.
As we left the church members I had taken there left money for World Vision to buy 3 hoes with handles, blankets and mattresses, maize, bean and groundnut seeds.
They are next in line for a new house, with beds and bed nets, a cow and goats and more seeds. Soon they will be safe, warm and dry and within in a year will be able to sustain themselves but with a deep loss of their parents always with them.
