Fulaha (pronounced “foo-LAW-haw”)

Fulaha is a teen-age girl who was born without femurs. At least, that’s how the story goes. I don’t really know how much I trust any of the medical histories I am given around here. However, it does become more plausible when one sees how her legs extend to just below the knees and then stop (like a post-war amputee). Many patients stay at Shyira while they are waiting for their appointments at other hospitals. (for example, children with osteomyelitis receive antibiotics here until they are ready for surgery at Gahini, one of the best surgical and rehab facilities in Rwanda and a five hour drive away). The rumour about Fulaha is that there is someone in Kigali making artificial legs for her. She is waiting here until they are made. She has been here as long as I’ve been here (two and a half months so far) and I suspect she may still be here when I leave.

I made Fulaha’s acquaintance my first week here at Shyira. Everyday she sits outside the pediatrics ward in her wheelchair, watching people and traffic and working on her baskets. At first I was drawn to her by the brightly colored basket-weaving that was going on in her lap. Jeanne, my nurse friend, told me her name was “Fulaha,” which means “Joy” or “Joyful” --and that she is! Now whenever I pass in eyesight of her station, I hear a loud “Mariiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiia!” followed by giggling and ear-to-ear grinning. Of course I shout back “Fulaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaha!” which triggers giggling among most of the other chronic pediatric patients that have by this time emerged from the ward to see what the commotion is. Whenever I approach, she says “Mar-EEEEEE-YA!” and throws her arms wide open, giving me no choice but to give her a big hug. During the first few weeks when I missed Cameroon and still felt out of place here, her daily greetings were one of the things I most looked forward to.

The basket she is currently working on is one I commissioned. After a few days where I hadn’t seen her working on her basket, I went to visit her with Theogene (my trusty translator) to see what the matter was. After a five-minute-long discussion in Kinywarwanda, he turned to me and said simply “Her needle broke.” “Oh,” I said. The next day at market, Carina and I tackled the challenge of finding needles. Without knowing the Kinyarwandan word for ‘needle,’ this can be somewhat of a challenge. The first four “shops” didn’t have them, but the fifth one did. I bought her ten (for only $.75 total!). I wish you could’ve seen the look on Fulaha’s face.

Last weekend, Natalie asked why Fulaha doesn’t come to our Sunday morning Bible study. Coming up with no good answer, we marched over there, loaded her on one of our backs (much to her nervous excitement and delight) and tromped piggy-back-style the three minute walk to our back porch. She had put on her best outfit for the occasion, and was (as always) grinning ear-to-ear.

Only once have I seen Fulaha sad. It was the day she was scheduled to go to Kigali to take measurements for her legs. Walking into the ward later that morning, I was surprised to find her still lying in bed with the sheet pulled over her face. Sitting down on her bed, I said my usual greetings (Mwaramutse, Amakuru?). She murmured a response, pulling back the covers just enough for me to see tears glistening on her cheeks. We just sat together like that for a few minutes. Later that afternoon, she was back at her usual post with her usual grin.

Fulaha’s name means “Joy” or “Joyful.” I have always liked discussing the difference between “pleasure,” “happiness,” and “joy.” (As a side-note, I have decided that if I have two daughters their names will be “Hannah Joy” and “Rachel Leah.” If my future-husband is not okay with that, it might just be a deal-breaker.) I love the idea that although pleasure and/or happiness is a feeling, emotion, or experience, joy is a gift from God that we desperately long for and yet cannot acquire on our own. C.S.Lewis (my favorite theologian) was agnostic for the first years of his life. Later he wrote the story of how he discovered Christ. The title? Surprised By Joy. Some forty-fifty years later, he was married to a woman a year before she died of leukemia. Her name? You guessed it. Joy. The following are a few of my favorite Lewis quotes about the subject.

What does not satisfy us when we find it was not the thing we were desiring…I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are a substitute for joy…But then joy is never in our power, and pleasure often is…Our best havings are wantings.

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. INDEED, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.