Staff at a clinic in the coastal slum of Kroo Bay, in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, are keeping a diary of their working lives for the BBC News website.

Here, Adama Gondor, who runs the clinic, talks about the challenges of its malnutrition programme and renovation works on the clinic building.

Every Friday we distribute a corn-soya blend with oil and sugar mixed in for making porridge.

Every Wednesday we distribute plumpy nut - a peanut-based paste with all the nutrients a malnourished child needs, which comes from the World Food Programme.

We started more than three months ago and have now started to discharge our first patients.

First we had 60 in the programme, now we have 102. When we discharge we admit new ones.

[Parents] beg me not to discharge their children, they need the food for survival

We’re often low on food. I think we didn’t expect to find so many malnourished children.

It is because everything is expensive now. People cannot afford to buy food and the nutritional status of people has dropped.

If a mother who is breast-feeding is not eating properly, how can she have a healthy baby?

The plumpy nut is for severely malnourished children and at the moment we have 17 children who fall into that category.

Every day now, food prices is all people talk about.

It is poverty and rising food prices that are making people suffer here in Kroo Bay.

We are seeing many more cases of malnutrition - even though the children we treat are gaining weight from the food we give them.

We only discharge them when they are 85% of their ideal weight for three consecutive weeks.

It is difficult to discharge the children because the parents often get upset, they want the food which is a real supplement to what they can afford, they have come to rely on it.

They beg me not to discharge their children, they need the food for survival.

I try and explain that their children are no longer dangerously malnourished and other children need the food, and they leave sad and sluggishly.

It is so hard to discharge them, children here are vulnerable, they need good food.

Rebuilding

About a month ago, reconstruction work in the clinic started. It is very exciting.

We are really happy knowing that in four or five months we will have a new, extended clinic.

The clinic is being extended and fixed

Now we are getting three wards and an under-fives area. In the wards we’ll be able to admit patients for up to 72 hours.

The construction workers have just completed the foundations. On top of the new wards they’ll put an extra floor which will be my staff quarters, meaning I can always be on call for serious cases.

So far all the work is in the hall and although it is loud and dusty, it is not bothering us because we really want the clinic to change and be clean and hygienic.

The work is being done by Save the Children in collaboration with Concern, and I want to say thank you to all the people who have donated.

We really appreciate them sharing their earnings. We sincerely hope they’ll continue helping us - once the clinic is finished we’ll need drugs and equipment.

Save the Children is running an interactive website where Kroo Bay residents answer questions about their lives. Visitors will be able to access 360-degree images of the site, and catch up with the latest news from the slum through regular “webisodes”.

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Our Poo Art struggles continue.

The victim this time (or should I say the canvas?) was the living room couch and the Oriental rug. The artist herself was covered from head to toe when I discovered her, so after giving her a bath (hosing her down, scrubbing her head), and cleaning the bathroom (b/c everything she touched was soiled), I set out to see what could be done about the couch and rug.

For some reason, the ongoing Poo Art episodes are very upsetting for the husband and me. It is not necessarily the fact that our property is being destroyed or that we have to repeatedly clean it up (although this is certainly bad enough), it’s the fact that our beautiful little girl seems oblivious to the messes she’s made. She does not seem to understand or care that she’s covered in filth.

This time as I cleaned I was determined not to get (too) upset, so I played music and sang as I cleaned. I decided it was time to purge (no pun intended). The rug must go. We bought it in Germany five years ago, before kids, but now it’s been pooped on, puked on, juice-spilled-on, banana-smushed-on, one too many times!

I know that not all of my friends who read this blog are Christians. My faith is the biggest part of me. And as I try to make sense of these struggles, I can only return again and again to the One who has been my faithful God for as long as I can remember. I’m always asking, ‘So Lord, what are you trying to show me or teach me in all this? How can I know how to live, how to respond, how to breathe in the face of daily disaster?’ With that said, I hope that even if you are not a Christian, you will continue reading.

While I was scrubbing the furniture , I thought of a verse in the Bible where David, contrite from the sins of adultery and murder, prays “Purge me with hyssop, and I will be clean.” Ps. 57:7

I did not know exactly what hyssop was so I did some Google-ing and found out that it is a plant that was used in ritual sprinklings and is an analogy for cleansing. Today, hyssop oil is used for disinfecting, therapeutic purposes. In the Old Testament, hyssop was used to brush the blood of the Passover lamb over the Israelite doorposts. Hyssop was also used in the cleansing of a leper. Most significantly, when Jesus was dying on the cross, a stalk of hyssop was lifted to his lips to give him a drink:

“After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost” (John 19:28-30)

How symbolic, how God-like, that in the ultimate act of redemption and forgiveness of sin – Christ on the cross – hyssop was used as an emblem of cleansing and purification.

So my conversation with God went like this: What in the world do I need purged? I’m the innocent victim here faced with a lifetime of scrubbing poo!

Then the montage played: my arguments with the husband, my murmuring, my complaining, my jealousy, my lack of patience with people, blaming all of my poor behavior on the fact that I have a child with autism.

It hit me like a ton of bricks that the thoughts I had about my daughter really applied to me: I don’t even understand that I’m covered in filth.

Well, I had no hyssop to clean my couch. But I asked for a spiritual dose of hyssop to cleanse my soul… to purge away the dross… to prune the undesireable.

Every time I get angry because these circumstances don’t change - she still has autism, she’s still non-verbal, she’s still a Poo-Art painter,

I feel a swish-swish of the hyssop plant.

Every time I give in to my fears about her future - Who will care for her when I am gone? Entrust her to me. She is mine. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jer 29:11 (NIV)

Swish.

Every time I allow bitterness and resentment to invade my heart when the going gets rough. “Keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent. A thistle or two gone to seed can ruin a whole garden in no time. Heb 12:15 (MSG)

Swish, swish.

Every time I get impatient with people who do not understand what life is like with a disabled child. “Be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Eph 4:2

Swish.

Every time I doubt myself - God, clearly you picked the wrong parents! I picked you on purpose. “You can do all things through me who strengthens you.”  Phil. 4:13

Swish.

Every time I allow discouragement and self-pity to dictate my actions… “Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart.” Psalms 27:14 

Swish, swish.

Cleaning me and the couch is a process. We’ve hired professional upholstery cleaners to handle the furniture. I had to chuckle because the upholstery care web site promises to apply a protector “to preserve the color, beauty and life of your upholstery.”

I imagine God is giving out the same kind of professional cleaning with the intention of preserving color, beauty and life.

“…wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” Psalms 51:7

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