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Adjuah is 19 years old. She's not a Liberian refugee - she's a Ghanaian who lives in Buduburam. Before Buduburam was a refugee camp, it was other things, among them, a Ghanaian village. Adjuah used to live there with her mom, but now she lives there alone. Her mother has moved back to the family village - about a 15 minute drive from Buduburam, through the cemetery, and on into the bush. Adjuah is deaf, and from what we understand has always been deaf. Until two years ago, she had never been sent to school. Often, the attitude here towards people with disabilities is that they'll never amount to anything or never be able to do anything, so why waste resources on sending them to school? Even families often reject their own members who have disabilities.

The result of that thinking is the predicament of Adjuah… a young adult woman, living pretty much on her own in the refugee camp, uneducated and capable of only very minimal communication. Fortunately, the founder of the school for the deaf met her and encouraged her to attend classes. She was quick to pick up sign language – or at least the imitation of the signs. It's taking her longer to make the connection of actually using these signs to communicate, but she's coming along.

Because Adjuah lives on her own, she is sometimes victimized by others in the camp . Some days she comes to school complaining of fights she's gotten into, of how some people have treated her, and of being forced into sex. Concerned for her safety, we tried to get her into a boarding school for the deaf, but no one would accept her due to her age and her lack of education. So, she has stayed on the camp, and has continued to attend our school.

When the school year started in 2004, Adjuah started to show up at school with a little girl about 2 1/2 years old. Over time, we learned this is her daughter. Eventually, from what we observed and heard from her neighbors, we were concerned about how Adjuah was taking care of the child. Then one day, Adjuah came to school extremely upset and weeping. We found out her daughter had disappeared. Her neighbors told us that they thought Adjuah's mother had come for the girl - so we took Adjuah and went to the mother's village to find out if she knew anything about the situation. It turned out that Adjuah's mother had gone to visit her daughter, but instead found the little girl alone in the room. She waited awhile, but Adjuah didn't return. So, she took the girl back to the village.

Adjuah felt better knowing her daughter was safe, and agreed that it would be better for the little girl to stay in the village.

Just this past February, Adjuah was coming to school feeling very tired and nauseated much of the time. We helped her get to the clinic, where we found out that what we suspected was in fact true. She was pregnant again. It was agreed that she'd continue going to school as long as she was able. However, after a few weeks she was no longer attending and we didn't know where she was. Eventually, we learned she'd gone to stay with her father in Accra.

Then, in mid-April she showed up again. She was struggling, not eating well, and apparently not practicing good hygiene. So, we went with her to her village to help discuss with her family what to do to help Adjuah and her unborn baby at this time. After much discussion, it was, at first, agreed by all that Adjuah would go back to Buduburam and gather her belonging, and later that day, a family member would come for her to bring her back to the village.

However, Adjuah wasn't happy with this arrangement, and, upon further thought, we all agreed with her. The water supply in the village is best described as a deep shade of murky. Food supplies are minimal. Medical care was distant. So, when we returned to the camp, we went to another student's house - a friend of Adjuah's who has helped her out in the past. She and her family agreed to take Adjuah into their home, to help guide her and take care of her throughout her pregnancy. We are using some of the donations we receive to help the family provide food and meet other needs Adjuah has while she is with them. We think the baby is due sometime in July or August - I'll keep you posted.

At the end of the five or six hours spent on working out a solution for Adjuah's well-being… time spent with the school headmaster, two of Adjuah's teachers, the head of the PTA and several others who were interested in Adjuah's well-being, I was touched deeply by the commitment and concern shown for this young woman. These were all Liberian refugees sacrificing a lot of time and energy to help a Ghanaian. I felt fulfilled to have helped find a solution for Adjuah's needs…but I was also encouraged by how her predicament brought out the best in those around her.