Bringing a rare smile to sick, homeless kids
Spotswood faculty member describes her two weeks in Uganda
BY MARY ANNE ROSS
Correspondent

Clockwise from top: Spotswood school psychologist Melyssa Pokrywa shares some happy moments with children in Uganda, where she spent two weeks recently. Children who live on the streets of Kampala, the capital of Uganda, have been abandoned by their parents and are forced to fend for themselves. A girl who lives in a slum outside Kampala smiles for her visitors, who brought a soccer ball and jump-rope. The children, all barefoot, live among raw garbage such as that seen on the ground behind this youngster.

SPOTSWOOD - Like many people, Melissa Pokrywa decided to spend part of her break in a warmer climate. But this was no resort, and certainly no vacation.

Instead, the psychologist for the Spotswood School District spent two weeks recently in poverty-stricken Uganda, helping orphans and street children.

She and 11 other volunteers from the California-based charity Loving One Person at a Time, brought medicine, food and comfort to Uganda's forgotten children. The United Nations estimates that there are a million orphans in the African country.

"In some places, the entire middle generation has been wiped out by AIDS," Pokrywa said. "There are just grandparents and children."

The group traveled around the country, visiting orphanages, setting up one-day medical clinics and working with the children who fend for themselves in the slums of the capital city, Kampala.

The first orphanage they visited was the Sanyus baby home.

"The babies brought there were found on the road, or in latrine pits or outside the hospital," Pokrywa said. Conditions were not what one would expect in the United States.

"There were about 50 babies and toddlers. The floors were filthy. None of the children had shoes and most did not have diapers," she said. The 12 volunteers spent the day taking care of the children - holding them, feeding them, bathing them. "They seemed starved for a human touch. They just clung to us," Pokrywa said.

Conditions at another orphanage, called Mercy Home, were a little better. It is run by a 26-year-old former street child named Angela, who had been taken in by a missionary when she was younger. When she began living on her own, she started to care for homeless children. An American tourist heard what she was doing and was so impressed that he donated land and a house for her to help the kids, Pokrywa noted.

The most difficult part of her experience in Uganda was working with the street children. There are no homeless shelters, and no food banks or soup kitchens in the slums.

"These children are just abandoned, some as young as 2 years old," Pokrywa said. "They pick through the garbage and beg for food."

Many are riddled with disease.

"They had lesions and parasites. One young girl had a tumor the size of an egg hanging from her ear."

At times, the odor made the visitors feel physically ill.

Everywhere the group went, they brought food, clothing and medicines that Americans tend to take for granted, such as amoxicillin. The de-worming pills were particularly important.

Parasites can stunt growth and lead to an early death, and with the assistance of some local doctors and nurses, the volunteers would set up a clinic to distribute the medication and provide whatever care they could.

"The water there is very bad. It's filled with parasites. The children drink it, they bathe in it and people cook with it," Pokrywa said.

The group would also play with the children, sing songs and read the Bible.

"We brought a jump-rope and a soccer ball to a group of street kids, and they were thrilled," Pokrywa said. She noted, however, that there are no playing fields, and she was disturbed to notice the children playing soccer while barefoot, amid raw garbage strewn across the ground.

Living conditions were, of course, not ideal for the volunteers.

"The place where we stayed had running water but no air conditioning, and it was very hot," she said. "Every day we had to lather on mosquito repellent because malaria is rampant there. [The mosquitoes] are really bad at night, so we always had to sleep under mosquito netting."

Pokrywa estimates her group traveled 500 miles around the country, mostly in a small school bus. At times it was like being on a safari.

"We saw monkeys, antelope, wart hogs and water buffalo all roaming freely," she noted. They stopped at one point to take pictures of a herd of elephants, but moved on quickly when one of them seemed disturbed by their presence.

Some members of the group had sponsored children in Uganda through an organization called World Vision, and wanted to meet them. The only problem was that the children lived in remote villages close to the Congo border, which can still be a volatile area. It took them eight hours traveling along a small track. When they arrived, the whole village came out to greet them.

"They were excited that we were visiting one of their children," Pokrywa noted.

It was also in that area that the volunteers had one of their more harrowing experiences.

"Our driver had left the bus and it started to roll back. We looked behind us and saw a Humvee filled with soldiers carrying AK-47s. We tried to get to the emergency brake but it was too late. We crashed into the Humvee. They all jumped out and came running over with their guns," she recalled. Fortunately, the soldiers only laughed when they realized who had run into them. The driver, it turned out, had used a rock under a tire instead of the emergency brake.

Before Pokrywa could go on the trip, she needed permission to take the time off. She spoke with Spotswood Superintendent of Schools John Krewer.

"He was really supportive. He even set up a blog for me so I could share what I was doing with the students and staff."

The blog did not work out as they planned.

"The connection at the Internet cafe was very slow and then they would have these rolling blackouts when there was no electricity for 15 hours at a time," she said. Nonetheless, Pokrywa will be sharing her experiences with students.

"I took a lot of pictures, and the computer department is working with me on putting together a special presentation," she said.

Overall, Pokrywa felt it was an "amazing experience."

"The people were very warm and loving, and appreciative of everything we did," she said.

At times, she found it difficult to see so much pain and suffering. Her faith and her fellow volunteers helped her deal with those feelings, she said, noting that she is not discouraged.

"When I look at the pictures and think about what we did, I just want to go back," she said. "There's so much more to be done."