Who Can Carry and 18 Year Old?
Who Can Carry and 18 Year Old?Dedza District, Malawi … The question poses all kinds of thought and response:
“I might for a few feet.”
“I might if she were not too heavy.”
“I might if the ground were level.”
The problem comes when one realizes these conditions cannot be met.
Sandida needs to be able to go far greater distances than just a few feet. She is now too heavy for her aged mother to carry, and the ground is seldom level enough for anyone to carry a heavy load very far without falling. Yet, it has been the plight of Sandida’s mother and family for weeks, months and in fact, for years.
Sandida Boko is 18 years old, and comes from Nkutu village, Traditional Authority Kamenyagwaza in Dedza District, Malawi. She was a normal child until 1999 when she was attacked by epilepsy. It resulted in periodic impairment of consciousness, and this was accompanied by convulsions. Overtime, she lost her ability to walk. She was relying on her mother (the lady in a blue and gold shawl with one side of her face swollen in the picture) and her young sisters and brother to move around.
In a nation where the average person walks 10-miles a day it is nearly impossible to get around if you cannot walk. There are no sidewalks anywhere in the Dedza district. There are almost no paved roads, outside of M-1 and one road that goes over toward the lake well south of the Trading Center. And there is no way to get around in the village, seldom even a bicycle that can supply transportation to a crippled 18-year-old.
No wonder the gift from the Free Wheelchair Mission to the Malawi Project and on to the Dzidalire Community Development Agency for delivery to Sandida and her family was such a fantastic gift to the entire family.
When Sandida’s mother received the wheelchair from the Dzidalire Community Development Agency she was very excited and full of praise of the Malawi Project which donated the wheelchairs. She said, “Sandida was getting too heavy for her and her other children to carry around. Sandida will from now on be able to move around on her own. She will be able to go out and mix or play with her friends on her own. May God bless the donors of the wheelchair.”