Kojo

Kojo has a brain tumor. The doctors there have told the orphanage they have done all they can do, and that he has less than a year to live (this was at least six months ago). But that's not entirely accurate. I learned from a British volunteer that he needs his head drained, a surgery that they do in the US and Britain, but not in countries like Ghana. If he had been adopted by a family in one of those two countries, his life could have been saved. Now it's probably even too late for any surgery in the world to do any good.
Over the time I was there I watched Kojo go from slightly blind to fully blind as the tumor grew, and watched seizures gradually take over his body until he was shaking all the time. His only crime was being born in the wrong country.
Feeding Kojo could be a trick sometimes. He would often push away the spoon as I touched it to his lips. We developed a little game where I would coax him to eat, saying "Kojo, di. Di. Di baako." (Kojo, eat. Eat. Eat just one spoonful). When he would, I would congratulate him with "Ieko!" which is used to congratulate someone who is working hard. The mothers used to laugh at my dramatics, but it was fun and it worked.
Kojo is one of the children I said goodbye to knowing that only through a miracle would I ever see them again alive.