Bittersweet goodbyes

I accompanied Mary the social worker on a trip out to the bush with my angel Cissy, to visit her grandmother and family. Cissy was abandoned 2 months ago by her mother at a police station in Kampala and after working with Cissy's extended family the social workers established that her paternal grandmother Ruth would be happy and able to take her in. 47 year old Ruth lives with her husband and 5 children (excluding Cissy's father) plus 1 grandchild, about a 1 ½ hour drive from Kampala, in the heart of rural Uganda. For little Cissy (not yet 18 months old), to go from life in bustling Kampala with her mum, to the relative plushness of the westernised babies home with regular meals, her own cot, clean floors, surrounded by so many other babies and adults and all within 4 walls, this environment was utterly alien to her inexperienced eyes.

We drove far off the roads, down dirt tracks, through small communities of humble dwellings, through lush pineapple and matoke plantations to reach our destination. We were met by Cissy's aunts and uncle, all between the ages of about 10 to 16, as well as Cissy's brother of about 6 years. They were gathered around the family homestead – a simple but sizeable building with 5 rooms, a couple of small out-buildings, surrounded by plantation, chickens, pigs and so forth. Mats were laid down on the dusty ground in front of the house and we were invited to sit down with Cissy. The children were intrigued and excited to see their new family member Cissy in their midst (named after her teenage aunt, so it appeared).

After a while Cissy's grandmother arrived from her work in the fields. She was an extremely elegant, beautiful woman, clothed in a wonderfully vibrant deep pink floor-length dress with bouffant shoulders and a sash around the waste. She had an open, smiling and serene face and immediately welcomed us to her home, encompassing Cissy in her grandmotherly arms. This lady reminded me somehow of my own Sazy, and that is saying a lot... It was easy to see where Cissy's enticing looks come from! (I know, I need to start detaching myself from this little girl...)

Cissy had met her grandmother once before when she made the long, laborious trip to visit the babies home in Kampala with the child's father and she certainly seemed to sit quietly and comfortably in her arms for the duration of our visit. I couldn't help but well up when we passed Cissy over to Ruth, sitting on the mat next to us; it was something about this tiny child who had been so traumatised, sullen and tearful when she arrived at the babies home, fresh from abandonment by her mother, but who has over the weeks become accustomed to her surroundings, become a real little princess outnumbered by so many boys, prancing around winning everyone's hearts, but who was now being placed back with her flesh and blood, in humble surroundings but with her brother and aunts and uncle to love and play with her and a grandmother to care for her as her own – it was very poignant.

We had no smiles or giggles out of Cissy during the visit, she sat quietly, rather stunned by the whole process (which had been preceded by a 2 hour trip in a car seat! So much to take in in 1 day...) and treated her family to none of her toddling performances, but she definitely perked up when we visited her grandfather at his small shop and he plied her with cakes.

So Cissy will return 'home' this Friday. My colleague Becks and I will struggle, but hopefully the little one will settle in before long & grow up in a loving family environment, which is the whole point of our work here.