Hello friends!

BRAZIL'S NEW WAVE: THALIDOMIDE BABIES
GERM WARFARE IN HONG KONG
SOUTH AFRICA - Arrived
FINE TUNING!


BRAZIL'S NEW WAVE: THALIDOMIDE BABIES
We received a strange photo album recently from a group in Brazil for whom
Crossroads is currently preparing a shipment. At first glance, flipping through
the album, you see smiling family groups, a birthday party, babies in their
cots. One photo in particular, shows a black-haired woman of about 26, with a
hesitant expression on her face, holding a tiny baby wrapped in cloth. She is
sitting in a hospital ward. It's only upon looking closer that you realise why
the baby looks so tiny - he doesn't have arms or legs at all. If you flip the
photo over, a hand-written caption says 'Luciene took 8 pills of thalidomide
while pregnant. Rafael, her son, was born in 1994 with no arms and no legs. He
survived 3 months. His case was known around the world.' In each of the
following photos there is at least one person with missing limbs, deformed hands
or twisted arms.

For anyone who lived during the late 1950's (not us, obviously), the word
'thalidomide' holds fairly strong associations. It conjures up images of babies
with awful deformities such as flipper-like arms, hands growing straight out of
shoulders, or missing legs. These are the thalidomide babies. At least 12,000 of
them were born in countries around the world after their mothers took a drug
called thalidomide during pregnancy believed to be a remedy for morning sickness
or insomnia. It was discovered within a short time of the drug's release that
just one tablet taken in the early stages of pregnancy is enough to cause foetal
deformaties. The World Health Organisation banned the drug worldwide and these
Thalidomiders, as they term themselves, were hoped to be a tragic but once-off
blip in history.

So why did Luciene give birth to thalidomide-deformed Rafael as late as 1994? It
turns out that thalidomide is still widely available on the streets of Brazil.
Since it was discovered to be a very successful treatment for leprosy (Brazil
has one of the highest incidences of leprosy in the world) it has been
reintroduced under strict controls in some countries. Unfortunately, 'strict
controls' have different meanings in different areas, especially areas with a
thriving black market and places, like Brazil, where more than half the
population lives below the poverty line. An illiterate woman, unable to read the
warning on a Thalidomide package passed on by a friend, doesn't know not to take
it while pregnant. Another woman, suffering from leprosy, doesn't know she's
pregnant as she takes the pills to treat her disease. Thalidomide deformities
are hardest for the poor. Any chance of employment, slim anyway, is eradicated,
meaning worse poverty for life. The stigma of having missing or deformed limbs
makes things worse. For the ones without legs, a real, working wheelchair is the
kind of thing dreams are made of.

The group that sent us the photo album is doing wonderful work with Brazil's
thalidomide sufferers. The kind of goods they asked us to pack is indicative of
the range of training and educational programs they are setting up. They hope to
teach skills to people with these disabilities, that may help them find a job.
They also run educational campaigns to reach those who don't know about the
effects of taking thalidomide during pregnangcy. If we get a chance to scan some
of the photos the group sent, we will post them on our website. It's cool to see
the faces of the people who will be benefitting from a shipment.


GERM WARFARE IN HONG KONG

"Keep germs at bay for a healthy day"
"Just say hi and wave goodbye" (don't shake hands!)
"Cleaning is fine with 1 to 99" (your recommended disinfecting bleach solution
ratio)
and our personal favourite:
"Keep your hands to yourself.... for the good of your health"

These are just a sample of the snappy sayings currently being played as
community service announcements each ad break on Hong Kong television.
Accompanied by jaunty music, Hong Kong citizens are shown being clean and
healthy going about their daily tasks, scrubbing their homes with bleach and
keeping their hands very much to themselves. The fine for spitting in public has
jumped from $600 to $5,000, which has got to be a good thing, regardless of
Sars. (Although, it hasn't made much difference to the old men in our village
who still hock away with delight when they feel the urge). We are hoping that
reports of the Sars epidemic having peaked in Hong Kong are true. It does give
us a new empathy, though, for people in areas where contagious diseases are a
constant part of life, rather than a scary but short-lived episode.


SOUTH AFRICA - Arrived

Recently, Crossroads sent a container of goods to a group working in South
Africa where 20% of adults (that's one out of every 5!) are infected with
HIV/Aids, many of whom don't even know what they are dying of. This particular
group is educating their small town community about how Aids is transmitted, as
well as making house calls to give care and advice to patients already infected.
One of our friends and co-workers, Lisa, was able to visit this group when she
was on a trip home to South Africa in January. As she drove with the
organisation's director into the rural area where the house calls are made, she
couldn't help noticing mounds of earth in the front yard of every house they
passed. Some houses had three or four mounds, but each had at least one - they
were the home-made graves of each family member claimed by Aids. In the face of
this seemingly insurmountable problem, the group who we sent this container to
is trying to make a difference. They had been donated a large building in their
country town, but had nothing to put in it. Crossroads sent them all kinds of
medical equipment, beds and a variety of other stuff to furnish the place, which
will be an Aids counselling centre, hospice and educational facility. A poignant
detail Lisa pointed out in the photos she brought back was the entrance to the
building: set in a side alley, so people can sneak in without neighbours seeing
and stigmatising them for seeing Aids advice. It was awesome to hear from this
group when they had received the container.

Here's a snippet from the letter they sent us after the goods got there:

"The container arrived yesterday, all I can say is that I’m totally overwhelmed.
I don’t think there was a dry eye when we swung the door open. All the contents
have been unloaded and it was like a nest of ants fetching and carrying. It’s
going to take quite a while for us to be able to unpack this wonderful treasure
chest."

Always humbling to see what a huge difference the goods that others don't want
can make.


FINE TUNING!

We had an interesting little miracle last week. As we were walking to the ferry,
we passed the home of Mark (of Update#34 fame, the hairdresser), who called us
over. "Do you know anyone who plays the violin?" he asked. Ad immediately piped
up that, yes, she did. "Well, do you want this one?" replied Mark, "I found it
in the street!". We went inside to have a look at the instrument which was
dusty, but looked playable. It even had two bows and a full set of spare
strings, probably indicating that the previous owner was a reasonably serious
player. Mark had intended to hang the violin from his ceiling as an arty
decorative piece, but was quite happy for Ad to put it to good use.

It turns out that the violin is beautifully playable and Adelaide is looking
forward to many hours of enjoyment, not to mention the satisfying aura of
mystery that surrounds the instrument...why was it left on the street? Who would
trouble to pay good money for an extra bow and all the paraphernalia inside the
case, and then abandon it? Has anyone seen the movie, 'The Red Violin'? (A
mysterious instrument makes its way from baroque Italy to 1960's China to a US
Auction House, carrying with it a strange curse). This could be it!!! Come on,
use your imagination, people.

Wow, this was a long one. We probably owed you a big report for being so slack
with these updates. Thanks for reading!

Love,
Matt and Ad