JESSICA RINALDI

Stories: Saving Leo

  • Leo Ikoribitangaza was two years old when he fell into a cooking fire at home in rural Burundi. He suffered severe burns on his face. Without proper treatment he was destined for blindness or possibly death. When his mother learned of a Christian missionary passing through the village, she brought Leo to him and asked for his help. Her plea catalyzed a remarkable team effort to save Leo’s life. The missionary connected Leo’s family with Alex Gitungano, a devout Christian in his 20s from the Burundian capital, who volunteered to be Leo’s caregiver. Alex accompanied the boy to Boston in the summer of 2014 for intensive treatment at Shriners Hospital. A trip that was supposed to last a few months morphed into a year, then longer. At 26, Alex found himself playing the role of single parent in a cold, unfamiliar city, relying on his compassionate instincts, the guidance he felt from God, and the unending generosity of others.Leo lay on the operating table inside Shriner's Hospital in Boston as Dr. Ehrlichman prepared the area around his face so he could release compressed tissue and repair his nose.
  • Alex carried Leo into the operating room before his surgery at Shriners. Alex had never been a parent, when the pair first arrived in Boston he wondered how he would care for this wounded, spunky boy in a place where they didn't know anyone.
  • Dr. Richard Ehrlichman worked to repair Leo's nostril as he performed surgery at Shriner's Hospital. With burns, doctors often have to space out surgeries, because children's bodies grow and change. Some patients will come back to Shriners year after year into early adulthood. Ehrlichman's hope is that 25 years from now Leo can walk down the street without most people noticing the skin grafts. {quote}I'd like his face to represent who he is inside, which is just this amazing kid,{quote} Ehrlichman says.
  • Leo, who did not know how to speak English when he first came to the United States, is now fluent in American cartoons and video games. Ladd's father, Richard Serwat, obliged with a screening of {quote}Scooby-Doo{quote} at the family's home in Rathdrum, Idaho.
  • Alex embraces Leo at the home they are staying at. {quote}He loves me so much, and I love him so much,{quote} Alex says.
  • Leo playfully threw up his arm at Logan Airport as he looked out the window at the plane about to take him and Alex to Minneapolis, on their way to Idaho to visit Carley and Ladd, the missionaries who connected him with Alex and Shriners Hospital.
  • On a day in March 2015, Leo playfully climbed onto an exam table at the Boston hospital for a checkup. Initially, Carley, Ladd, and Alex sought treatment for Leo in Africa. Carley posted updates of Leo’s progress on Facebook. After a failed surgery in Uganda, a friend Ladd and Carley knew from church helped connect them with Shriners, whose mission is to treat needy children free of charge.
  • Alex woke Leo before the sun rose to prepare for surgery in a small guest room at Shriner's Hospital similar to the one they stayed in when they first arrived in the United States. When Alex and Leo first arrived in the United States, in late June of 2014, they knew almost no one. Bit by bit, they forged a community, a network of strangers who opened their homes to them.
  • {quote}I'm smart. I'm wonderful. I'm handsome.{quote} Every morning or night, Alex makes Leo recite these words in the mirror. Even before Leo knew English, Alex made him say it. Alex sees Leo’s self-esteem as his project.
  • Leo hid in a closet as he played a game of hide-and-seek with Alex. With political unrest in their home country of Burundi the future is uncertain for Alex and Leo. So far they have been unable to return home. Leo is now enrolled in kindergarten on Cape Cod and Alex remains here as his caretaker. Alex worries about his family who has since fled to Rwanda and mourns the friends in Bujumbura who were killed as a result of the conflict there. Questions remain about what it will be like for both of them to return home, once they are able. Leo no longer remembers how to speak Kirundi and it's unclear how the transition from American life back to his small village in Burundi with nine siblings will go.
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    • A Life Unraveling
    • An Overwhelming Loss
    • Home now, but for how long?
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    • Saving Leo
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    • The Unforgotten
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