Bridget

Bridget is the seven year old at school who doesn’t speak. I attempted teaching her some signs, I tried to assign a teacher to teaching her some signs and last week I took her to see the English Doctor and his wife who’s a therapist at the “Potters Village”.  The Village is a home to thirty-one babies and is run by an English woman, named Jenny Greene.  It’s also a non-profit clinic especially for children under 12 years old, it’s a nursery school, and an orphanage that takes in abandoned or orphaned babies. The mortality rate of women while delivering babies is much too high here.  If the surviving family members keep the baby they don’t “do” bottle feeding very well, so the child often ends up malnourished and very sick. It is common for the baby to be brought to the Village the very day it was born, after the mother passes. The compound has about twenty steep pitched green roofs, they are all round houses connected to one another with big covered porches. Many of the children at the Potters Village will go back to their families after their second Birthday; those who have no families to return to are sent to another orphanage, village or children’s home. Sometimes foster families take them in, with the monetary support of The Village. Teacher Happy, Bridget and I sit on the big cement porch while Doctor Mike uses a spoon dipped in sugar to see how much muscle control Bridget has over the tongue.  She quickly laps the sugar off one side of her cheek and then licks the other.  She struggles trying to get the tongue up toward the nose. They ask her teacher and I about her background, if she has ever talked, if she cries out loud, if she’s been abused. We don’t have many answers; they send us away telling us to keep reminding her to shut her mouth, to strengthen the muscles in her tongue by keeping it in her mouth. Her tongue pushes out between her lips and they seem to think her constant pulsing of it is for comfort. Sue, the Doctors wife is a speech therapist and agrees to work with Bridget after a couple of weeks of “training” her to keep her tongue in her mouth. She believes that Bridget is not speaking by choice.

The Potter's Village

The village has been operating for about seven years but Jenny has been in Uganda for nearly twenty years. There are many English volunteers who come, Doctors, Teachers, Nurses, Therapists, etc. They also employ about fifty locals. Jenny Greene is a big, blonde woman about sixty years old. She is an ordained minister and she preaches in Church sometimes. Everyone in Kisoro and the surrounding villages knows Jenny Green, she’s a bit of a legend. So, while riding on the back of the Reverend’s motorcycle with Jael in my arms through the village kids are shouting, “Jenny Green”, and waving to me! The Reverend laughs and tells me, “They think you are Jenny because you are carrying a baby.” I ask him, rather confused, “but isn’t she big….and blonde…and older??” “Yes, but all they see is a muzungu with a baby!” I’ve been told by some of the teachers that “we (muzungus) all look alike” so I guess I understand?!

Sunday was “Visitors Day” at Amazing Grace, one of two days this term when parents can come to see their kids. They anxiously await their parents. The parents are only allowed to come on these designated days and the last one was seven weeks ago. The highlight of the parents visit is of course that they bring them treats. When I ask what they hope their parents bring, it’s always the same, “bread, yellow bananas and avocados”.  Some of them come to me and sadly tell me, “They did not come.” A few of them even cry because they were hoping for their parents to visit and they never showed. I tell them, “I came to visit you!” They look at me very serious and ask, “But, did you bring me bread?” I stay the entire day waiting for Bridget’s mother to show up. When she finally arrives around 4 p.m. I have a list of questions for her from the Doctor. She sat up at one year. She crawled a little while after that. At eight months she had the surgery to cut the muscle under the tongue. She has never spoken, she cries out loud. She calls her mother “Mba ba”, she calls her little sister Maureen, “nee nee”, Her Mukaka (grandmother) is “ka ka”. Those are the only words she has ever spoken. At three years old she walked and “No”, she has never been abused, beaten or traumatized. So, we are back to square one. It is a relief. She hasn’t chosen not to speak because of some horrific past, she was born delayed. Today I stood next to the cooks and as they received their food, every single student had to say “Thank You” in sign language. I told them, “We’re helping Bridget”. I explain that she cannot speak, so when she says “thank you” in sign, now we can understand her.

Here there are no special workers or assistants assigned to Enock who is in third grade and cannot write his alphabet, no one testing him for dyslexia or any other learning disability. There’s no social worker who looks after Bridget, who ensures she learns to communicate. There’s no one who steps in on Christine’s behalf to protect her from her brother who may or may not be abusing her. There’s no one to advocate for these children. No one to ask questions, it is a survival of the fittest, a life where only the strong survive. Today two deaf girls came into the office asking for donations, they want to travel to Kabale to study. I gave them a donation, and then I told them I needed their help too. I explained on paper that I was trying to teach a 7 year old sign language, but I needed help. The answer to my prayers just walked right in the door. Peninah is now sleeping at the school. I’m paying her to be here for the next week and a half to see what Bridget is capable of learning. I think Bridget has some slight mental disabilities as well, so we’ll see how much she picks up. Some of the other kids are soaking it up like a sponge and loving it. Isn’t it funny how the universe works? Just as I was wondering how I was going to teach someone sign language when I didn’t know it myself…in walks Peninah, who happens to be looking for work, like most of the people in the country. 

Peninah, Bridget and Teacher Happy learning sign language.

Now a week later, with Bridget having the attention of two or three adults solely on her, bribing her with candy to get her to make signs, she is SPEAKING more than signing! One month ago I would have never guessed that Bridget was capable of making all the sounds that she does. When we sign "thank you" we also say the word in her local language, she responds with, "go". The proper response is "yeah-go". But this is progress, amazing progress. The speech therapist, Sue will be amazed when I bring her back and she sees this progress. Her mother came to visit and was nearly in tears when she heard Bridget say, "cow" and "Da-da". Pig is "ga" and tiger is "ga", one syllable at a time Bridget, slowly by slowly you will learn to communicate with the world around you.