Marie-Odile has a charming smile. It’s delicate, subtle, and very feminine. She usually sits on a bench in the park in front of the Franciscan Sisters’ school in Dakar. Marie-Odile’s shyness and her smile show her gentleness. Among her friends, she feels at ease. She treats new people with a slight hint of mistrust.
With embarrassment and hesitation, she tells us her story. Her barely audible, subdued words tell a tale of helplessness. Little Marie-Odile had a problem with her leg. She doesn’t remember when it started. She was a child, she thought it was temporary. She had more important things on her mind. Her parents dealt with the problem. She thought herbal compresses and various ointments would help. They didn’t. A weeping wound regularly opened on her leg. The muscles atrophied. The pain radiates up to her thigh. Her foot hurts a lot. The authors of previous diagnoses vanished into thin air.
She just finished a course of antibiotics. It should be better, but it isn’t. The wound near her ankle has opened again, it hurts again, she can’t walk again. Marie-Odile dreams of someone who can tell her what’s wrong. The healers she met in her life have already tried all their traditional remedies on her. It becomes clear to us that the girl’s shyness is primarily a distrust of further diagnoses, disappointment, and helplessness.
Marie-Odile dreams of a future not overshadowed by the pain in her foot and disability. She dreams of a doctor who will tell her what’s really going on and know how to treat her. Sister Ewa really wants to help. She has already sent the girl to the best doctors in Senegal. We need to support her. We can’t let her down.
On International Women’s Day, instead of a bouquet of flowers, we want to give Marie-Odile something much more beautiful – faith that she will stand on her own two feet without pain and make the most of her life. By donating a symbolic Bouquet of Good, you will help us finance the girl’s examinations and treatment. We are sure she will repay us with the most beautiful, charming smile.