DATE: Wednesday, May 21, 1997               TAG: 9705210485

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   85 lines

AFTER EXTENSIVE SURGERY, LITTLE GIRL IS ALL SMILES

Maureen Chemeli and 10 of her closest friends did lunch at McDonald's Tuesday.

While Maureen kept her eyes firmly fixed on her Chicken McNuggets and fries, just about everyone else's eyes were on the 7-year-old from Kenya who was sporting a flowered ball cap on her head and a couple of pieces of gauze on her new nose.

The youngster was one of four children brought to Norfolk by Operation Smile last month for extensive reconstructive surgery. On May 2 she was operated on at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters.

Her personal lunch bunch included Plaza Middle School students and staff members who were directly responsible for bringing her here. Earlier this year, the school raised more than $5,229 for Operation Smile. ``It was the most money raised by any school in Virginia,'' said Ann Catena of the Operation Smile staff, ``and the most raised by any middle school in the country.''

Still, the lunch wasn't really about the amount of money raised. It was about one little African girl and a lot of American kids who have come to love her.

The outing marked the first time the group from Plaza had seen Maureen since her surgery. It was a meeting that left both the students and the child subdued. For about 10 minutes.

By the time the McNuggets and fries had given way to ice cream sundaes, Maureen had reached out her arms to her friends and the friends had responded.

The last time they had seen Maureen was several days before an Operation Smile surgical team of eight had spent 15 hours reconstructing her face. At that time her eyes were close together and mis-aligned, her mouth was badly misshapen and two holes marked the spot where her nose should have been.

Missing, too, was her frontal skull, the bones that protect the front of the brain from trauma. ``Where her forehead should have been there was no skull at all,'' said nurse Josephine Nyakiti who accompanied her from Kenya.

A 7-year-old Nicaraguan girl who underwent similar surgery the day before Maureen died of complications three days later. It was the first fatality in the 14 years Operation Smile has been bringing children to this country for reconstructive work.

But Maureen is a survivor. On Tuesday, 2 1/2 weeks after the surgery, her eyes had been repositioned and her mouth reshaped. Bone, taken from her own body and from a donor bank, was used to complete her skull. Still protected by bandages was what delighted the child the most. ``She's always wanted a nose and now she has one,'' said Nyakiti.

``I think they did a really good job,'' said eighth-grader Jessica McElligott, one of five Plaza students who joined Maureen for lunch. ``It's good that we got to see her both before and after her surgery,'' added Ben Engstrand, another of the eighth-graders involved in the fund-raising project.

Moments later Maureen made a dash for the restaurant's play yard, her benefactors in tow. It was the second trip she had made to McDonald's with the Plaza students. On the first one she had been terrified of the Ronald McDonald lurking in the corner.

On Tuesday, she was terrified of nothing. Dashing up ladders with the students following her, tossing plastic balls at anyone in sight and throwing herself into the arms of first one, then another, of the students, Maureen was just another kid on an outing with friends.

Next week she will return to Kenya, where Nyakiti, whom she now calls Mama, will visit her twice a month. ``I will follow her and teach her mother how to care for her,'' the 31-year-old government nurse explained, adding that the transition for the small child will be difficult. Maureen's family is poor and uneducated. Her deformities are not accepted by others in her tribe. ``I will try hard to make sure that they keep her in school. She is very intelligent,'' Nyakiti said. ``She may live to remember this and miss it for the rest of her life.''

Plaza's principal, James Walker, watched thoughtfully as his students showered attention on the small child. ``So often we make donations but never see the end product,'' he said. ``But this is different. No matter where Maureen goes, she will take a part of us with her. I like to say that life touches, and here we have touched a life.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by BETH BERGMAN/The Virginian-Pilot

Jessica Hosang, an eighth-grader at Plaza Middle School, holds

Maureen Chemeli at a McDonald's restaurant in Virginia Beach.

Photo by BETH BERGMAN/The Virginian-Pilot

Leann Fare, center left, plays with Maureen Chemeli, right, and

other Plaza Middle School students who helped raise money to pay for

Maureen's living expenses during her medical treatment. Tuesday was

a day for celebration for all of them. KEYWORDS: OPERATION SMILE

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