(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Ghana- Call Me Ishmael [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-09-12 It has been a difficult week for John and my friends in Ghana but we made it through. John’s homeless brother Joshua had stepped on a nail while scrounging in the garbage dumps to find junk to sell as scrap and tore his foot up. He wound up in the hospital for two days for treatment and shots to prevent infection. But the doctors managed to help him and he is now back on the streets and recovering. I might add that I know Joshua personally and have chatted with him online many times. He aspires to be an artist and asked me for books on art and art supplies but then things got bad and I was unable to do anything for him. He has since been in a mental institution and later in prison but he is free now. Free on the streets, homeless and starving, but at least he is not in a cell. If he starves to death at least the last thing he sees will be the open sky. And he may well starve. Then John suddenly disappeared for two days, something that never happens. I knew something was wrong and it was. Finally I got a message from him that he was passing blood again. He sent photos of himself standing in a thick pool of blood with blood streaks on his body. He had admitted himself to the hospital but had simply been to weak to text me. I admit I was almost in despair. John has had numerous surgeries for his bleeding and perhaps the treatment has helped but it keeps happening. John’s English is not good enough to explain exactly what the doctors are telling him and they may be keeping things from him anyway. Last October his doctor told me that he had a cancerous hemorrhoid but that they had not told him. We got that removed but the bleeding keeps returning. More than once it has almost killed him. Part of the problem is that John needs to be on a special diet and a man as poor as John finds it impossible to be able to afford the food the doctor tells him he should be eating. At any rate, John was in the hospital for days getting blood. I don’t know what other treatments he was given. He was too weak to do much more than send me occasional notes that he was still alive. Finally John was released and he is at home, very weak but he says he is doing better. I would say ‘until next time’ but I don’t want to jinx us. Of course John has been unable to help anyone else. Hopefully as he regains strength he can return to his ministry of helping the desperately poor to come to him in need. Anabel, the abandoned four year old girl we have been helping, is okay as far as I know. John gave me the name of the place we are paying to house her, feed her, and care for her. (I had not asked before.) I looked it up online and it is actually quite a well-known charity organization that cares for abandoned children and children who are the victims of trafficking. I will not give that name here for privacy reasons but they are legitimate. They also have their own schools for the children and they have been trying to get us to pay the tuition for Anabel to go to school there. We have simply not been able to do it. It’s a small amount of money but no amount of money is small if you don’t have it. I have no updates on the others we have been helping. Hopefully as John grows stronger we will be able to do more. About a month ago John bought a lot with a bare framework on it, intending to use as a headquarters, school, and shelter for the homeless children there. He has already given it a floor and four walls and has made it livable and comfortable. He is presently living there and also using it as a small shop to sell things. For whose who said it was doomed to failure, he has already proven them wrong. The boy in the photo above is one of the homeless children living on the beach in Accra. John has been working to help the young dancers, singers, and musicians to gain some publicity and to further their careers. He recently put on a show, at his own expense, where they could all perform and he paid them all a small amount (mostly from his own pocket) for their participation. The boy is one a group of five boys about the same age who are a dance group. They call themselves the Small Killers. I have photos of each of them, including photos of them holding up the small information cards John made them fill out. (I have blocked out his last name.) He wanted each of them to have the chance to chat with me online but he got sick before we could do it. These seem like good kids. They came and visited John when he was in the hospital. Not everyone did that. Well this is the update for this week. I will try to find out what is happening with Anabel and the others and maybe give another update with what I find out. We badly need to get the little girl into school. Incidentally, yes I know the name on the paper is spelled Ishmeal. I’m not sure which is his correct name but I’ll try to find out. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/12/2192872/-Ghana-Call-Me-Ishmael Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/