Last Thursday, three other interns, Awara, and myself traveled three hours to a town called Rhanya to visit a Yousif, a six year old boy in need of heart surgery. The trip was three hours of driving through mountains. It was not the easiest of rides (especially after being sick for a week), but it was beautiful. For the part of the drive that I was awake for, the scenery was beautiful. The mountains were not covered in trees like I’m used to seeing, and it makes everything seem so much more open. Also as we drove, we would come up on these rivers that seemed to come out of nowhere. It was beautiful.
As we arrived at Yousif’s town, we pulled into an area where every person’s property was blocked off by concrete walls which in turn lined the very narrow roads we drove on. After finding our way through the maze of roads, we arrived in front of Yousif’s house and were greeted by his sisters. Walking into the back yard past the chicken coupe and cement block concrete shed, I was trying not to initially assume things like how poor this family is, how “better off” I am, or how much this family “needs’ us. There seems to be a bit of a superiority complex when it comes to volunteer or aide type work at times, and while I’m here I’m want to be very weary of what I assume and how I act on these assumptions.
We sat down in a back patio area while we waited for Yousif and his mother. Turns out, they had been working. His mother walked in wearing multiple layers (keep in mind its like 112 degrees) with dust rolling off of her. This lady seems like one strong woman. Skinny little Yousif came strolling in behind his mom with a bashful look on his face while trying to keep his pants up. This kid has a debilitating heart disease and he was out doing his daily labor! Maybe that’s not such a big deal, but he definitely struck me as tough little fella. We all greeted Yousif and the family, and Yousif smiled. His face was already a little blue from working, but when he smiled the dark blue tint of his gums made it obvious that his body was not circulating nearly the amount of oxygen he needs. After a few seconds of being shy, Yousif warmed up to us, especially when I pulled out the soccer ball. Last time someone visited him, they had to borrow a ball from the neighbors. We only stayed about twenty minutes because they needed to get back to work. During our short stay we briefly talked about his medicine and other needs,but most of time we just kicked a ball around with Yousif, his brother Younis, and their many sisters. It was really calm, and everyone had the biggest smiles on their faces. Yousif had the largest of them all. Before we left, i showed Younis how to air up the ball, and when I got close, I could here him breathing so hard like he had to work for every inhale. He was starved for oxygen after just a few minutes of lightly kicking a soccer ball.
Making a connection is hard to do in twenty minutes. I’m sure I didn’t affect Yousif tremendously, but being around him has made my trip to Iraq worth everything. It might be a little selfish of me to think the trip important enough to use three hours worth of gas to kick around a ball with a kid for twenty minutes, but it allowed me to finally connect and associate a physical face to the cause of PLC. No longer is Yousif, or any child with congenital heart disease for that matter, just a picture or a blog post. He is the little guy I kicked a soccer ball with on June 17th, and because of that I want him to enjoy not having to struggle for every breathe that little bit more now. Hopefully PLC is a part of making that happen, but PLC is a group of people. It is the people in the office, and you and I at home working and donating to give Yousif heart surgery. Working with PLC is has value to me because money is not only being donated to some abstract idea, it goes to help ease Yousif’s next breath.
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