Evan

Well, anyone who knows anything about my experience in Ghana knows about Evan. I was looking at this very odd-looking baby when a Dutch volunteer came up and started telling me about him. She first pointed out that he had six fingers and six toes, which I thought might be a side-effect of whatever made him look so odd. Then she explained to me that this tiny thing was actually six months old, but was starving to death because he threw up everything he was fed. When I expressed that there were doctors for that sort of thing and why wasn't he in the hospital on an IV, she looked at me and said, "Please, he's positive." He had aids so the doctors didn't bother to make sure he didn't starve to death.
Then I was asking one of the mothers his name, and found out the he was really a she named Evandra. I was like, ok. However, when I went to go change her diaper, I discovered my original instincts were correct. She was a he. The mothers had read the wrong line on the form and were calling him by his mother's name. When I pointed out their mistake, they decided it was too late now to learn his real name, so they decided to call him Evan. I was like, so a baby's dying of AIDs in Africa, and no one even knows his name.
I soon discovered that if you didn't allow Evan, who was surprisingly full of life, to guzzle his food like he wanted to, but fed him in tiny sips and gave him time to swallow in between bites, he would keep everything down. Not that this was an easy process. Feeding him took an hour or more, but I was willing to take the time to prolong his life until some organizations in the States I had begged for money from responded. However, the mothers resented the time I took with him. Why spend hours on a lost cause when they are bogged down with work for children who have a chance in life? I didn't mind when they yelled at me, but it was really hard to see a mother take the child from me and pour the rest of the food down his throat and watch Evan throw up not just what she fed him, but probably everything I painstakingly gave him also. But despite everything, he began to get better.
As Evan improved, he began to act more like his age, though he still looked like a premature infant. He loved to beat the air with his fists. We developed this game where he would shove his fist into my face, and I would kiss it until he snatched it away. When he did so, he would give me a hint of a smile. Then he would shove his fist into my face again.
Then one day, out of the blue, Evan died. I heard that he woke up unable to breathe. They took him to the hospital, but the hospital wouldn't admit him. I guess they thought he was a lost cause. I knew he didn't have much of a chance, but it was really hard for me anyway, because I had fallen totally in love with him. Now every time I see a fist I think of him.
Maybe he's playing the fist game with Jesus right now.