I am not a good enough storyteller, nor a skilled enough author to accurately give account of my last two days. But seeing as this is a place to vent and let you in on what is going on here I will attempt.
I was in an area of town fondly known as “the ghetto” yesterday, visiting some friends who live on the street, when I found a pretty disturbing scene.
Now the ghetto is not exactly somewhere you want to find yourself alone and unwelcome. In fact a more apt name would be the trash heap, because for all intensive purposes, that is exactly what it is. Although this is true, it has also somehow become a place where many street boys, street men, and even street girls hang out. These are the “for lifers”, the ones who have mostly accepted the fact that this is their hand in life, and usually if you hang out here your involved in something less then saintly.
Anyways, as I walked up I could see that there was unrest. I was immediately mobbed with people who were for the most part the worse for the ware. Even more then usual there seemed to be a large number of injuries. After some confusing chatter, I discovered that there had been a raid on the ghetto the night before.
A raid is in essence a way of dealing with the street dweller problem. Basically, as the sun sets a group of police officers role up on a given area, without notice and begin to arrest those who are Illegally squatting in private areas.
From what I gather, and usually what I gather is a little hazy, the police stormed the ghetto and everyone scattered. Now it isn’t exactly a well-lit area of town, and the ground is usually covered in various things that hurt to fall on. That being said, as the residents fled they were falling and being stabbed by glass and metal, not to mention the usually unfriendly exchange once caught by the pursuing police.
As they finished the story, they told me that there was one boy who I needed to see. I am usually a little hesitant at people telling me that they need help, because to be honest, there are a lot of people who need help here, but I was interested in the fact that it was the street boys who were telling me to forgo helping them to help someone who really needed it. What I found was a boy who had been completely devastated, his name was Vincent
Again, from what I gather, Vincent decided to escape the pursuing police by means of hopping onto a roof and running from rooftop to rooftop. As he was running the roof either collapsed under his feet, or he simply miss-stepped falling three stories, directly onto this chin.
When I first saw him he looked like he was falling in and out of consciousness, and the swelling was so bad it looked like he was storing an orange in either side of his mouth. There wasn’t a doubt, we had to do something.
We called for a cab and took him immediately to the hospital. It was about five at this time, so the x-ray was closed, so we were forced to check him into the hospital (I could spend a whole other blog entry just talking about the hospital, but this is already too long winded).
So now we come to this morning. We headed over to the hospital at eight to begin one of the longest days of my life, not wanting to make you relive it, nor wanting to myself, I will just tell you the outcome. It turns out that Vincent has a fractured lower jaw. I will upload the x-ray soon, but there is literally a half-inch gap between one side of his lower jaw and the other. So we had a dental surgeon wire his lower Jaw to his upper jaw so that there is no movement, and it can heal. Honestly, what can you do with a fractured Jaw? Surprisingly the Hospital discharged him today, but there was no way that we could drop him off in town and tell him to get along, so he is now under the watchful eye of the doctors and nurses at sister Freda’s.
Honestly, after spending almost a year’s time here between all of my trips, this has by far been the most draining. Physically I am just worn out, and emotionally I am destroyed. I think that most of my exhaustion comes from the fact that this kind of act goes against a lot of what we do here. I know that sounds strange but it is very true.
The big picture is what you must aim for here. There is so much need that to fight every individual battle is a way to sure destruction. The fact is you can’t give to every person who asks, but you can strategically plan so that each person has an opportunity to get what he or she needs in a way that helps more, with less.
And what I have done with Vincent goes against that model; it is going at one individual issue. That being said, we couldn’t stand by and not do something, it is that exception, that curveball that God throws at you and says “here you go, this is my job for you right now.”
I don’t know if anyone will read this, or if anyone even cares, but I had to put it out there. I am exhausted, and if you got this far I love you, and hope that you will pray for Vincent.
