In a small village in the mountains lived an old man with his daughter who was left by her husband because the only child she had given him was deaf and blind .As long as the child was small it was drinking from the breast of her mother but when she was three years old the mother had no more milk and the child learned to drink from a bottle, because they could get some milk from a neighbour who had a cow. There was no work in the village for the mother and the small Irlis became a burden for her.

So on a day she left the child with the grandfather , went to the city far away and never returned. The small girl slept together with the old man on the ground like a small animal with her tiny hands feeling the feet of the old man . When the sun become warm she walked around in her dark and always silent world and she went around feeling the wind come from the sea far away and she felt the tree standing near the house and some times she climbed on the roof of the small house and was sitting there as a lonely bird.
But she did no learn anything except drinking from the milk bottle. She could not eat rice so the only food she got was the milk from the cow of the neighbour. The grandfather was very sad seeing his grandchild growing up as a small animal. Once he brought her to the community health centre and the told him that nothing could be done because she was completely deaf and did not see. When she was six she could not go to the village school and she just walked around in the village, and bit by bit she knew the way, and than she returned and lay down in the sand and curled up and when it was to hot or too cold she slept in the small house close to the old man. She got some cloths of the village people and the old man gave her a bath when she was to dirty.

Two hours away from the village was a centre for disabled children and the rehabilitation workerss there went around in the villages trying to help the disabled together with the village people because there were no facilities for the disabled around .They taught the village people and the parents what they could do them selves for the handicapped amongst them.,They brought the children who had no legs to the city .They tried at the village school to teach the blind children Braille ,and the deaf to understand some sign language but they could not do much for the little Irlis. But they came every week cleaned the house and tried to teach Irlis to bath and to put down her pants .

They were helped by an old priest who got some help from an organization called "People in Need " and the old priest trained village girls to help disabled in faraway villages and he called this Community Based Rehabilitation .


But than there came a very bad year .It did not rain at all for many, many months. And the neighbours had to sell the cow and when the draught lasted still longer even the goats and so there was no milk any more for Iris. So the grandfather filled the little bottle of Iris with some tea so that she would not cry. The girls of the centre for the disabled helped with some milk because it was a very hard time for every one in the mountains.

So they went to the old priest who told them that "People in Need" was not longer able to help them because the people overseas did not contribute enough any more and moreover they thought that Indonesia was already rich and should be self supporting. He had been waiting for the whole year but no help had arrived and People in Need overseas were still talking and thinking wether it would still be possible to give some help And the priest did not understand it, and the girls did not understand it, and the village people did not, and the small Iris also.


So the old priest sat down with the grandfather and they talked and he told them that he would take Iris in his own house and take care of her and would try to teach her and that he had sisters who would love her ,take care of her and not leave her.
And than the old man kissed the little girl and gave her to the old priest who told him hat he would look for people who would help her, and from time to time bring her back Siapa yang akan membantu Irlis,anak yang buta yang ditinggal oleh ibunya.