The Boy Who Couldn’t Smile

In a quiet village in the African country of Tanzania, inside a small schoolhouse, a group of students sang with their teacher. As the kids’ voices rose up, their faces were bright and smiling. But in the front row, one boy sat glumly, his mouth barely moving, his eyes pointed at the floor. 

This was Osawa Owiti. He was 6 years old.

Osawa [oh-SOW-uh] had few friends. Many of his family’s neighbors viewed him with suspicion and even fear. Some said he was cursed.

What did Osawa do to deserve such a lonely life? Why did people treat him with such cruelty?

In fact, Osawa had done nothing. He was simply born looking different from most people. He had a condition called cleft lip, which means that his mouth and lip were misshapen. His upper lip rose up toward his nose. His front tooth poked out through his lip. The condition made it hard for Osawa to eat and speak.

Each year, one out of every 700 babies are born with clefts. Doctors aren’t sure what causes them. But they know that the problem begins while the baby is still inside its mother’s belly.

Here in America, most babies born with clefts have surgery. Their mouths are repaired, their scars quickly fade, and they live normal lives. But around the world, millions of children with clefts never have them fixed. Almost all of these children live in areas of great poverty, where trained doctors and hospitals are scarce. In Osawa’s village, a person could live an entire lifetime and never once see a doctor.

Osawa’s parents are farmers. They grow corn and raise cattle on a small plot of land. Their one-room house is made of mud bricks and topped by a roof of grass. Even if they worked for years and sold almost everything they owned, they could never save enough money to pay for surgery to repair Osawa’s cleft.

Instead, they watched helplessly as their beloved boy suffered. Like most kids with clefts, Osawa struggled to chew, to swallow, and to pronounce certain sounds. Even worse: Many of Osawa’s neighbors were cruel. His cleft, they said, was a punishment from the heavens, a curse on his parents.

Tragically, such superstitions are common in many parts of the world. Children born with clefts and other differences are bullied and teased. Many families are so ashamed that they abandon their kids with clefts.

Osawa’s parents did not abandon him. Instead, they showered him with love and tried to protect him. They ignored their neighbors’ suspicious stares and cruel whispered comments. But their hearts broke. “Sometimes I couldn’t eat,” admits his mother, Ada. His father kept Osawa close. His grandfather shed tears when he spoke of his grandson. “Will he get married?” he wondered. “Will he get a job?”

Osawa’s family had every right to be worried. In many parts of the world, kids with clefts die young or end up begging on the streets. It was hard for Osawa’s family to imagine a happy future for their son.

But that was about to change.

About 700 miles away from Osawa’s village is the city of Dar es Salaam. There, a hospital called Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT) works closely with an international charity named Smile Train.

Smile Train has trained about 2,100 doctors around the world to perform cleft surgeries. Working with partner hospitals, Smile Train has provided free surgeries to more than
1 million kids worldwide.

Kids like Osawa.

Osawa’s parents first found out about Smile Train’s program through an ad on the radio. When they got more information about it, they were astonished to learn that the entire cost of Osawa’s surgery would be paid for. The hospital would even send a van and a driver to pick up Osawa and his mother and take them to Dar es Salaam—for free.

The bone-rattling ride to Dar es Salaam took many hours on Tanzania’s dusty dirt roads. Neither Osawa nor his mom had ever been to a big city before. The crowds. The skyscrapers.  The deafening sounds of beeping horns and screeching tires and rumbling motors. All of this was new.

Osawa gazed in wonder at the big-city sights. At the hospital, he was brave. He barely flinched during his blood test. He shook the hand of the doctor who would operate on him: Dr. Edward Wayi. When it was time for his surgery, he fought back his tears.

Osawa was given a medicine that put him into a deep sleep so he couldn’t move or feel pain. And then Dr. Wayi went to work. Using delicate instruments, he carefully pulled together skin and muscles, reshaping Osawa’s mouth like an artist creating a masterpiece. He mended Osawa’s lip, closing the wound with rows of tiny, invisible stitches.

Within an hour, the surgery was finished. And Osawa’s life was transformed.

When Osawa saw himself in the mirror for the first time after the surgery, he stared in joyful shock.

“My mouth looks so good!” he exclaimed. “I look like my friends!”

Today, four years later, Osawa is 11. Watching him laugh and play soccer with his friends, it’s difficult to imagine him as the glum little boy he once was. He has many friends now. When his teacher needs help, he is the first to leap up.

For Osawa and his family, there is much to smile about.

Ten-year-old Ella Pastorelli of Greenlawn, New York, knows she is lucky. Born with a cleft lip, she had surgery to fix it when she was just 4 months old. But for many families outside the United States, the cost of this operation—about $250—is an impossible amount.

So each year on her birthday, Ella and her family set up a lemonade stand to raise money for Smile Train. In 10 years, Ella’s Lemonade Stand has raised $250,000 for the organization—enough to repair more than 1,000 smiles. Here’s what she says about it.

Your parents started this fundraiser for Smile Train when you were just a baby. Why do you choose to keep doing it on your birthday every year?

We really just want to help more people. Thankfully, our family had enough money for cleft surgery. But some families don’t, so we want to raise money for them.

What has been the most rewarding part of raising money for Smile Train?

I think that I get the privilege to help other people. And I just feel more thankful every year for what I went through and how it wasn’t that bad.

How does it feel to have helped change so many kids’ lives?

I feel needed and important. And that just makes me very, very joyful and glad.

What are your goals for the future of Ella’s Lemonade Stand?

I hope to continue the lemonade stand when I’m older. And I want to travel to other countries to help other children with clefts in person.

What advice would you give to kids
who want to make a big difference in
the world?

If you do a little thing like a lemonade stand—like how my family and I started out—that can make a huge difference as the years go on. People will start learning about it. You can make a difference in the world so easily sometimes.