What a Day!

Wow! I got pictures on today!

A few weeks ago, our pastor here invited me to go along on a day of interviewing people for wheelchairs. This is done by a group who gets donated wheelchairs from Europe and the USA. When I walked into the room with these people and others, I was nearly in tears for the first hour. Some of you know that the reason I got my special education degree was because I saw all the people with handicaps being shut in and given up on in Pakistan. The same is done here and that is why it was such an emotional experience for me to see these people.

We had to go pick up a few of these folks. You can see how tall the teenager is at the top. The mother carried this boy down three flights of steps to bring him to us and then transferred him over to the father's back who then carried him to our car. He has no education and no help.

The little girl teenager had a small and petite upper body, but an even smaller lower body and no leg muscles. When dropping her off, her cousin carried her from the car then placed her on the ground at the bottom of the stairs. The girl then hopped up about 20 stairs using her hands in her shoes as leverage. Her mind is completely healthy, but she does not go to school because one day she fell or was dropped there. That is the only explanation I got.

The street they live on has 6 people with severe handicaps.

The little boy with his parents was actually able to get a wheelchair the same day and you see him pictured in it here. This family has three children - all of them with handicaps.

The woman you see in the blue shawl was so lovely I just had to get a closeup of her.

These are just a few of those who were there. The hopeful thing is many of them could walk if they had physical therapy, so the group wants to train two women for three months in Fez (1 hour away) to do this! One of the women is going to be Fatima Ezzarha's (see earlier post) sister, Rashida.

Apparently there is a center for the handicapped 20 minutes away, but there are no teachers and there is no help for the many in this region. Their materials are locked up. My dream now is for Rashida to get training in PT and then to train me. At least I could help out and perhaps together we could try to open this center up again. Of course, before then I would have to actually be able to say a complete sentence in Arabic, so I'll have to conquer that first - sigh. I guess this is a long-term dream, but one about which I am hopeful!