Mr. West is in the building

First day of volunteering at the Brooklyn TB hospital and I am most officially in love. When we arrived I felt lost for a moment among the flurry of nurses who seemed to not even notice the 3 awkward looking white people. I approached one of the nurses and let her know who I was and why I was there and her response was, "Great, here's a baby." She tossed a beautiful 6 month old baby girl into my arms and before whirling around to go about the rest of her tasks said, "it's time for her to eat." I made my way over to some sort of nurses' station where bottles were resting in a tub and I asked the woman supervising said bottles for one I might give my baby. She gave me one and my little nugget ate away hungrily. Having a vague idea about 6 month old's eating habits, I attempted to slow her eager gulps by pulling the bottle away from her every once in a while, but her expressive little face let me know that she was not pleased with me.

I burped her. She spit up on me. We laughed. We cried. Her name is Nahkanye but I've taken to calling her, "Kanye." You could say that she's pretty cool for a 6 month old because when you smile at her she smiles right back. After the feeding debacle I tried to feed some other children, but when I put Kanye down she immediately began to bawl. Mind you, all the other infants were hysterical for contact as well and this left me very distraught. So I picked K back up and double armed infants for a while. But ultimately me and little K were a match made. I changed her nappy and discovered the most horrendous diaper rash. It took some angling, but I managed to convince one of the nurses that this child absolutely needed diaper rash cream, which is apparently some sort of delicacy here. Its not suprising that her little bum was so raw; the nappy's they use would probably fit me. And when I was changing her onesie I noticed a chest tube scar and it became apparent that this tiny 6 month old who was born on Valentine's Day had been through way too much in her short life.

I spent the rest of the day with Kanye as a fixture in the crook of my right arm. I remembered my mom saying that swaddling calms infants, so I wrapped her tight hoping she'd feel like she was being held even after I left. But her little cries broke my heart despite all my best efforts.

Love from Brooklyn Chest TB Hospital,

A