Now that you are in love with her, just like us, here's a little bit of information about her. She's 1 month old and arrived a little over a week ago. Her mother died from HIV within a week of her birth, leaving her father to care for a very small baby. She soon developed wierd sores with pus all over her head. The father has a nephew that lives with us here, so he came to us asking if we could care for his baby. When his nephew arrived a few years ago, he was very very ill with horrific malnutrition, Tuberculosis, untreated malaria, and HIV. We quickly took in Cleita, knowing that we couldn't trust this family to adquately care for such a small child, especially if the father wasn't really willing to. We have since find out that her mother was HIV + and she was given a single dose of nevirapime (anti-HIV drug) at birth, and then was to follow up with a month of AZT to decrease her chance of maternal transmission to only 1%....but the family didn't follow through. Her chances are good though, as she hasn't breastfed and did get nevirapime after birth. We are praying that she doesn't have HIV, but treating her all the same. She is getting a preventative antibiotic and we have drawn a viral load on her which we should get back in a bout 8 wks. This will determine if she will need to start on ARV's or she has only been exposed to the virus, but doesn't physically have it. Please pray with us. She is absolutely adorable and the other 3 toddlers in the Bercario already love her, saying "Beh" for bebe (baby) when I hold her. She is settling in quite nicely and seems really healthy. Her sores on her head are almost all gone now!Our other new tot, Chelsia has also settled in quite nicely and is quite a bright spot in the Bercario. She is crawling and pulling up and holding her own with Dionisio and Lucia. She also LOVES to giggle....not laugh, but giggle. It is super infectious. She's also learned this dancing song that I made up spontaneous one day to entertain Lucia (our 15 month old)....it's simple and repeats these two words over and over until you get bored of it...."Danca, Danca" which simply means dance, dance. I know, I'm dripping with creativity. Anyway, Lucia soon learned it and whenever she wants to dance she stands up, sings it, and dances with a big grin. Well Chelsia is only 10 months and can't talk yet, but loves to dance and play too...so she's learned to mimic the noise that Lucia makes....essentially she hums the dancing song and dances along in rhythm to it. It is precious. Here's a pic with her smiling away.
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