Dusousa

 

Photo by John Carroll
Cite Soleil
Valentine's Day, 2011

This beautiful little boy's name is Dusousa.

He is 19 months old and weighs 15 pounds. He is in the malnutrition clinic in the back part of Cite Soleil.

Dusousa also has another problem...he is blind.

Well, he can see the light from my otoscope and will follow it. But that is it.

He has dense cataracts in both eyes. Children with congenital rubella can develop cataracts.

The rest of his exam is good. No heart murmurs and he cruises around the chair holding onto his mother's dress. He doesn't wander away from her.

He and his mother live in a Project here in Soleil.

Dusousa has no father and mother has no money of course. She can't even feed him adequately let alone pay for cataract surgery.

However, Dusousa is lucky, in a way. He is no longer starving but receiving two hot meals each day Monday through Friday.

But in several months he will be discharged from the malnutrition program. And he will still have his cataracts. He will still be essentially blind.

What do we do?