Weds 4th September

Hello again friends! :)

Today I am going to start with first of the stories of the children and today I am going to start with Vinitra. 

Vinitra is 13 years old and has been living at the Hospice for one year. Her story of how she came to be here is both interesting & unusual but also sad. This is the story I was told about how she came to be here. 

Just over a year ago the Hospice received a call saying that a very sick man with HIV had been admitted to hospital and that he had a child with him. The hospice decided to take Vinitra's father into their care and care for his medical needs. Unfortunately he was very ill and he died within one week. 

Now he was an interesting but strange man. He was a very highly paid skilled engineer but he didn't have a home. He chose to move from hotel to hotel bringing Vinitra with him as he went and spent all his money every week not putting any aside for his daughter even though he must have known he was dying. When his illness became obvious and his employers found out he had HIV he was unceremoniously fired after which he soon became very unwell and was admitted to hospital. I would like to have met Vinitra's father and got to know him a bit. Although he seemed to be an incredibly irresponsible man he had a different way of living, a different approach to life I am curious to why he made the choices he did and chose that life for himself & his daughter. 

Now Vinitra's mother died when she was very young and her father never kept any record of any extended family, neither did he divulge any information in his last few days, he may have been too sick or there may not have been any extended family we will never know. The Hospice has searched for family but has found none. 

So, as the hospice does in situations like these they decided to take Vinitra in as their own, giving her a home here and making her a part of the family which was the first good thing about this story. The second is that Vinitra is one of the few HIV negative children here. 

Vinitra is a very intelligent girl and a quick learner, she is doing very well at school and is very quick to understand and pick up instruction in the guitar lessons I have been giving her. So far she is the only child with both the interest and aptitude to succeed in this. Her English is very good and is foremost of all the children. She always has a smile on her face and I have never seen her looking the slightest bit down. 

I have high hopes for Vinitra. In a part of the world where given the unusual upbringing, being left with nothing in a poverty stricken part of the world, she shouldn't really have a chance in life but with the chance at a better life given to her by the people here at the hospice, I have a feeling things are going to keep coming together for her here and that she will make a success of her life. Stuart :) x