Children of Fire

19th May 2013 4:22:52 AM



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Precocious Tswana

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Zany Tswana

Zany's improved hairline after tissue expansion, August 2008

Zany Tswana (not her real name) was brought to Children of Fire many years ago, by a kind church minister from the North West of South Africa.
She and her first cousin Precocious had both lost their mothers; one in a fire and one through HIV.
Zany had lots of emotional issues because of the trauma of being terribly burned, feeling abandoned in hospital, being placed in language environments that were alien to her and suspected abuse.

Once with the charity, she underwent successful surgery to her fingers, hand, arm, neck and scalp. Zany went through tissue expansion of her scalp for many months.
The hair has been moved into position and in late 2008 she was due to start repeating the entire procedure, so that she was no longer half-bald or a quarter-bald but simply a pretty girl with a good head of hair.

Insertion and removal of the expander was carried out at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, where the regular saline injections to expand her scalp also took place.

Sadly a doctor W.E. scared Zany about the pain of procedures which we subsequently learned could mostly be avoided by the use of Topla topical anaesthetic cream placed on the port area some 40 minutes before the needle was inserted.

In addition to that, a foster mother prevented the child from finally restoring her hairline as it should be, by not understanding the child's deep-felt psychological needs. In fact when the child repeatedly phoned Children of Fire asking to return to the charity and to be removed from the foster mother, Department of Social Development social workers refused to assist.

As the social worker also did not comprehend that Children of Fire had initially placed the child with the foster parent, and that the charity had ensured the girls places in a good model C school, she did nothing to improve the situation and focused instead on the skin colour of the people involved!

Due to the lack of effective social work help, the two cousins remained in a non-ideal setting and despite being from a Coloured Afrikaans and Setswana speaking heritage, were largely amalgamated into an Nguni linguistic and social culture instead.

History
Mr Willie Neser contacted Children of Fire in March 2004 to help with three sisters from North West Province. Zany and Precocious were both badly burned in a house fire. They lost two sisters in the fire. Zany's sister who was not burned, needed psychological assistance.

Mr Neser said that one of the little girls has one side of her head 'looking like a lizard, like a fin of a fish'. The 5 year old and the 6 year old came to stay with Children of Fire in April/May 2004 for initial assessment of their medical needs and their psychological needs. They benefitted from time spent with child counsellor Barbara Lancaster-Tidy and also from time spent with Children of Fire's reflexologist, Sue Richardson.

Mr Neser worked with a project to assist Aids orphans - increasingly a source of referral of burned children to the charity. He uses the offices of the Dutch Reformed Church's Welfare section.

Birthday party

Zany had her sixth birthday on May 6th in Johannesburg and went out with all the other children for a pizza supper. It was her first ever meal in a real restaurant and her first ever birthday party.
After their initial assessment, during which time the girls attended the Johannesburg School for Blind, Low Vision and Multiple Disability Children which is a sister charity to Children of Fire, they returned to the Vryburg area briefly. They then came back to Johannesburg for surgery on July 19th 2004 on Precocious' leg and foot and for surgery to straighten Zany's right hand. This longer stay with Children of Fire had an extremely positive effect. The Tswana and Afrikaans-speaking girls became increasingly fluent in English. They both lost their initial enormous fear of dogs and they became great friends with fellow burns survivor Sicelo Maduna, who is two weeks younger than Zany. They became relaxed and confident.
When they first met Dorah they were scared of her appearance, but as time went on, they helped to feed Dorah, to walk with her, to take her on and off the swing and even to help her in the bathroom.

Hatless and happy

Most importantly, through a little 'tough love' Zany learned to live without her hat. She still wore it if the weather was very cold or a sun hat in mid Summer, but she no longer hides beneath it.
Zany accepted that she was half-bald and beautiful. She understood that when she was old enough to withstand the pain of weekly saline injections, she could have tissue expansion and her hairline could be largely be restored.
The girls also befriended Tryphina Mtolo, who was a year younger than Zany, who came to stay at the school when her squatter camp home was illegally demolished by Metro Police on September 8th 2004. They shared the large number of Barbie-type dolls that they had by then accumulated from various well-wishers including volunteer Helene.
November 2004 was an exciting month for both girls. It was decided that a young hydrologist would foster them, that they would probably start attending Rivonia Primary School, and that maybe this would lead to a permanent happy home for them. On November 8th, Zany went into hospital for her second batch of surgery, this time to straighten her left hand.

The charity supports fostering for orphaned burned children or those who would be at risk if they returned to the home environment, but only where it can continue to provide the full surgical care that they need. If you would like to foster a Children of Fire child, please email Amanda Simanga on firechildren@icon.co.za

Zany and Precocious with Willie Nesser, the man who brought them to Children of Fire for help.

Tristan, Sicelo, Zany on the river
Zany with Tristan and Sicelo, white water rafting near Nipika, British Columbia, on the Canadian outreach in September 2005

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Zany and Precocious 2007

We would have kept the damaged toes and got them realigned, even if they could not function but unfortunately sent a volunteer to Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital with Zany who did not stand up for the little girl's rights not to have amputation without informed consent. By 2007 with two defunct toes removed, at least Zany could fit her foot into cuter shoes that match her fashion sense.

Zany started tissue expansion to restore her hairline. She had weekly injections of saline (salt water) into the tissue expander in March 2008. Once complete, the hair could be moved into position and she would not have a bald patch anymore. Her foster mother prevented her from having the final procedure that she needed

This material is Copyright � The Dorah Mokoena Charitable Trust and/or Children of Fire , 1998-2013.
Distribution or re-transmission of this material, excluding the Schools' Guide, is expressly forbidden without prior permission of the Trust.
For further information, email firechildren@icon.co.za

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