Dedicated Mum

Several times before I've posted about the angel in our Tanzanian home. Regina is not only my house-lady who cleans, does the washing (laundry) and ironing  before going over to work in the Guest House for the rest of the day. She is also the cats' devoted and doting mama when I'm away in South Africa.

Regina's husband, Phillip works for the mine on Thys' production team; their two little girls, Serevia and Anna attend the school down the road from my house. It fascinates me when I see Regina riding past on her bicycle in the morning with both little ones safely perched on the bike with her. She drops them off at school and then cycles back up the road to my house.

In October last year, Regina told me she had to take Anna to the doctor for treatment. Anna had just turned five and been diagnosed with an over-active thyroid and the doctor prescribed a three-month course of medication. This treatment was very expensive and as Regina is a private (cash) patient, Grant and I footed the bill.

In February I asked Regina - since the treatment was over, - if Anna had improved any. She told me that Anna had shown improvement for a mere six weeks and was back to square one.  She was listless, she had no appetite and she'd lost a lot of weight.  Regina asked me to look in SA for better medication for this ailment.

While on leave in May, Grant and I - with the assistance of a consultant - went through the self-help medication in our supermarket pharmacy. Eventually we decided on a herbal three-month-course of thyroid medication. Ever since I've been here, I've given Regina a hamper of food staples at the end of the month: ugali (ground maize meal); sugar, tea, coffee, rice, dried beans, gravy mix; 15 kg of fresh vegetables and fruits; biscuits and sweets/candy as well as a bottle of peanut butter and jelly mix, these last three items especially for the little girls.

Every day Michael (my outdoor angel!) visits a man up the street who has a cow in his garden. There he buys me three liters of milk and I boil it on my stove. Regina sieves it into a bowl and when cooled, she decants into clean 1.5 liter empty water bottles. She takes one bottle and Michael takes the other for his children at home. 

A few days after I returned from leave, I asked Regina to bring the two girls in before she took them to school. When they arrived, I placed them on my bathroom scale respectively and weighed them. I recorded their weights and the date in the back of my prayer journal. Next month Regina will bring the children back again and I will check on their weights. As you can see, I weighed Serevia as well as Anna, so as not to make any distinction.  

I believe with a natural remedy for Anna's problem as well as wholesome meals and monitoring her progress, we could help the little girl over this hurdle.

Here's hoping...

Anna (five) and Serevia (six-and-a-half) look very solemn while posing for Bib's camera! 

 Regina loads the two little girls onto her bicycle

Regina is very gentle in everything she does; it shows when she deals with her children and also with our three cats!

Mother and two beautiful daughters!

Even when I was in my early thirties, like Regina is now, I'm not sure that I could have comfortably lifted two young children on a bicycle!

Big smiles and the girls are off to school!

I am linking today's post with Our World Tuesday which you can access by clicking here