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(19.10.2004)
Dear Friends,
I have a bit of good news to share with you! The government has
strung high voltage light poles in the village of Don Wai and this week
we have full power electricity: both SARNELLI HOUSE and the villagers. So,
no more burned out refrigerators, fans and light ballasts from insufficient
power. I was running around like Uriah Heep, praising officials unctuously
and bribing like a mad man. They also brought in a grader to fix the road
in and out. Hopefully, they will work at it again in the dry season. Since
bribes seem to grease the squeaky wheel, our next target are the government
phone people, to get phone lines run into three villages that do not have
phones, and into SARNELLI HOUSE.
One problem has crept up. When Sister Godzilla of Blessed Memory
was head honcho of the school, she would brook no talk of kicking out AIDS
kids. She was strict with the teachers, and got in the face of any parent who
objected. There is a new pharaoh in town now "who knows not Joseph". On
Sept. 24, the new superior and new head mistress of the school asked me to
pull my 38 AIDS infected children out of school. A couple mothers saw the van
delivering the kindergarten kids and demanded that either AIDS kids be
barred from school, or they will take their kids somewhere else. The
superior was sympathetic to our plight, but the head mistress Sister
Josephina (dubbed "Mona Lisa" by a priest further upriver) is a quiet
person. (Pa always said ""Never trust a calm dog"). Well, I have at least
130 kids in this school, paying full for each one. They are my kids and
poor kids from other villages who want to go to school but their folks
can't afford it. So, we help. I asked them how the score 130-3 sounds,
because if I have to pull out my AIDS wee ones, I pull out everyone. The
kids are normal with no scars or signs of AIDS, and love going to school
with their lunches and backpacks. The nuns, teachers and parents don't even
know which of our 90 plus kids have AIDS. So far, there are 3 mothers
demanding rejection. Please pray they change their minds.
We received into our home two more little kids. A boy named Sawn, who has
AIDS and TB, and looks like a wizened little old man. We just put him back
into the hospital to begin taking his ARV medicine. He was taking TB
medicine first, so as to be sure he has no reactions to both TB and AIDS
medicine, we have him in the hospital for a week or so. Another is a 7 year
old girl named "Nuke". Nuke has no skin condition, etc., and we are waiting
for the results of her CD 4 blood test. She is a sweet little thing who
already has
buddies. Both have joined 11 other youngsters quarantined at the House of
Hope. We now have 113 kids under our care.
Thank you so much for your help and interest in these kids. They
are a wonderful, tough, resilient and cheerful little band. I don't want
them hurt anymore, especially by a group of women who need to crack the
Holy Book and do some serious Bible-thumping among themselves.
Every night at our four houses, kids gather in front of little statues of
the Holy Family, to pray for those who took their parents place, especially
those who help them so, but never met them. Rest assured that you are
remembered in our daily Masses and prayers.
Gratefully,
Mike Shea
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