Priscila pulled me aside yesterday afternoon in the Emergency Room.
“Ansley, I found Jirata today out on the street, he’s so dirty, do you mind, well, I mean, would it be okay—“
I interrupted her, “To bathe him in our shower? Of course! Priscila, you don’t even have to ask!”
She beamed at me, already imagining the scrubbing the little boy from head to toe.
Jirata is an orphan. We think he is somewhere between 8-10 years old. He recently had a long stay at the hospital due to a leg ulcer, complicated by his HIV-positive status. Priscila told me that at first Jirata was reserved and hesitant to accept the attention from the hospital staff. You would never guess it now.
Jirata runs up to us when we leave the hospital gate and nuzzles his face into our clothes. He hugs us and kisses our hands and looks up with a shy sweet smile. Then he’ll take our fingers in his and walk with us, wherever we’re going in the town.
We are trying to find a home for him, a family to give support and love and a daily routine, especially because he needs regimented anti-retro viral drugs every day.
In the meantime, Priscila has appointed herself as surrogate mother. She makes a point of feeding our leftovers to Jirata and his friends, and has washed his clothes and repaired his shoes several times.
Later in the evening she brought him to me, after perhaps the first hot shower of his life.
“Smell his hair, I shampooed it!” she said, fluffing out her mother hen feathers, “See how nice he looks!”
She loves him so much, this precious ragamuffin of a child.