Maria, Hyena Lady

Sunday 23rd October

An update on the hyena family. Michael, the little boy, was discharged home last week. He is able to move his hand, but cannot flex it back. So, if he ever learns to write, which I am sure he will, it will be with his left hand (nothing wrong with that, many in my lot are!).

Since he went home his little sister, about 2 years old, has come to join his mother in hospital. She is just so quiet and shy, and looks like her Mum. I think the grandmother has been finding it hard to look after all the children on her own.

Mum should be going home this week. She ended up having the first two digits of her left thumb removed after a lot of persuasion with her husband. If we could have acted earlier, we could probably have saved one digit. But that was the way it was.

We remove the stitches tomorrow. Her heel has healed but it is still a little painful to walk on so she has a slight limp. When I think back as to what it was like that first day I saw it, it’s a miracle it could all be stitched back together again.

She says I am not allowed to go back to Australia until she has gone home!!
Her father in law did not have an amputation in the end, we changed the way his traction was rigged so his thigh is now at 90 degrees to his body and the bones seem to be knitting together quite well. The pressure sore he was developing has now healed, thanks to a lovely air ring donated by our Aussie followers and delivered by Ian. He was thrilled when we slipped it under him. I wish you could have seen his face, he says a big ‘thank you’.

He has another two weeks in this position, when we will see if the bone has healed. He has lost a lot of weight and muscle tone has gone in his good leg, so he will have a very slow recovery.

When I think what happened to this family, and the way the mother fought with the hyena to save her child, she is the bravest women I have ever met. Incredibly she told me that her mother and her baby sister were taken and killed by a hyena when she was a small child and she was brought up by her grandmother.

If this had happened in Australia, especially with what happened to her mother & sister years ago, she would be on the cover of every magazine, and on every talk-back radio show and news channel around. She also could have made a small fortune for her story. Instead, she goes back to her little tukul and picks up the pieces of her life, as best she can with her terrible injuries. The children have all received Target tee-shirts and shorts, but that is where it ends. Perhaps it is for the best, but I will never forget this family.