Nicolas, a post grad volunteer fro Belgium, Janet, a teacher from Canada, Lori and me all set off to Knar school bright and early to wash filthy kids. Armed with huge bowls, a ton of soap, shampoo, scrubbing brushes and all the medical supplies we descended.
It's the smallest children that are the most filthy; you cannot begin to imagine just how dirty these kids are. Many wil never have had a proper bathe. There is no soap in the village, no clean water, except at school thanks to the foundation and subsequently the dirt is ingrained in a way I have never seen before; tattoo like. The kids rarely have shoes, if they do it is just plastic flip flops and the state of their feet is just dreadful.
Some kids were reluctant to come at first, but then I think word got around that it was o.k., felt nice and you got to play with latex glove 'water balloons' afterwards. We started scrubbing, literally, to get the skin clean. Some kids were so filthy that it took many, many attempts. We concentrated on legs and arms but some we managed to wash their hair also. Women started to bring the naked babies from the village and we just stuck them right in the bowls and scrubbed away and washed their hair. How good must it feel to be properly clean for possibly the first time ever? The babies screamed at first but soon calmed down and were laughing and happy. Even the local dogs and chickens came to watch. Maybe they wanted a bath too.
After cleaning, we attended to their many skin wounds. We are getting fantastic results with gentian violet on the skin problems, thanks to my father-in law's advice. It's cheap and available here and even the most hideous looking conditions are responding well. There are now many purple children running around Knar village.
The queue finally ended and the childen were playing happily.
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