She arrived in Ireland as she had spent most of her young life, crying with pain. She left carrying the broadest of smiles, the warmest of memories and the prospect of a far better life. She leaves behind, a community enriched by her month-long presence.
Report: Christy Parker  Photo: Eddie O’Brien and Michael Hussey www.youghalonline.com
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Three-year old Asley Guale hails from an immensely impoverished quarter of La Libertad city, west Ecuador. Asley lost her sight before she was a year old, coinciding with agonising pain that reduced her life to a cruel circle of crying and exhausted sleep.

Youghal priest Fr. John Keane, who formerly administered in west Waterford and now runs a mission in La Libertad, became aware of her story. “Anyone with a heart could not but be saddened to see a young child is such pain,” he recalls. The priest financed visits to Ecuador’s top doctors to no avail. “Nothing worked. They were just prescribing medicine and eye drops and her agony continued,” he recalls. In desperation, he contacted ophthalmologist Dr. Gerard O’Connor at Cork University Hospital, who agreed to help.

Eventually Asley, her mother Lucia and Fr. Keane flew to Ireland, where Dr. O’Connor quickly diagnosed a cancerous tumour behind Asley’s left eye. “He was absolutely fantastic in all he did for us,” says Fr. John, “and he couldn’t believe she had survived such pain. The surgeon subsequently removed both tumour and Asley’s left eye.

Following a week in CUH, during which she became adored by staff and patients alike, Asley recuperated in Youghal at the home of Fr. Keane’s sister Mary. She became a girl transformed. “For the first time in her life, she sang and she danced,” says her priest and saviour.

Local kindness

Locals took the blind little girl to their hearts. “The kindness and concern shown was truly incredible’” said Fr, Keane. “People arrived at the door with money, gifts and clothes.” Some shopkeepers refused to take money for goods. A party was held. A fundraising drive saw an autographed Cork football jersey auctioned and drinkers across the town’s pubs gave generously to collections.

Ever more touchingly, throughout her revival the little girl herself displayed an awareness and concern for her family back in Ecuador. She repeatedly asked that her older brother and sister back home had enough to eat in the wooden shack they call home. In her neighbourhood, where poverty is relentless, bad days see families flavour water with leaves from trees by way of sustenance. “That might be the main meal for the day,” says Fr. Keane.

The Irish Council for the Blind have provided advice as to Asley’s ongoing requirements and a fund is being established towards her future in a country where “80% of blind people endure lifetime begging on the streets,” says Fr. Keane.

Asley received a lot but in a time of economic woe, she enabled a community to unearth the golden generosity in their hearts.