Today was a particularly hard day. On Sundays we feed
homeless children living in a slum next to the railroad tracks. These children
typically dig through the trash to for their meals. It’s a tragic picture.
Beautiful, bright-eyed little boys and girls ages 3 months to 13 years old,
covered in dirt, playing amongst the ruins. They are uninhibited by the broken
glass, dead rats and barbed wire as they chase each other around the tracks.
Street kids have a distinct look. The difference is in
their eyes. They possess an untamed beauty, as if they hold a raw truth the
rest of us can’t see. The reality is their lives ARE untamed and raw. They live
a reality I can't even pretend to know.
The children start to swarm as we pull pots of rice and dhal
from the backseat of our car. They fight to help carry the makeshift water jug
made from a plastic garbage pail. We remove our shoes and climb the ledge to
the small little Hindu temple where we set-up an assembly line of rice, dhal,
salt, chillies and bananas. The children are told they wash their hands with soap
and water (from our little bucket)before they can eat. You have to regulate the
water station because they try to drink the water, which although might be
cleaner than the water they typically drink is not potable.
With clean hands they crowd around the feeding line.
Children of 4 years old carry babies of 12 months. They look at you with their
dirty little faces and runny noses smiling as you dish them a warm home-made
meal.
Some of the older boys show up high. The depravity and
hopelessness of their existence drives many kids in the slums to huff white-out
in a desperate attempt to escape their reality. You see them walking around
with rags up to their faces, inhaling chemical hope. Some look as young as 9 or
10.
Today, a woman frantically told our translator her husband
had been burned and wanted to know if we could come see him. I followed her
around a broken barbed fence over sharp stones and human feces near the train
tracks. Pigs and naked barefoot children walked around me until we reached a pile
of stone pylons covered with a ripped tarp and about 10 people gathered around
a man in his mid 20’s. His face, arms and torso were covered in 3rd degree burns. His skin was sloughed off leaving him to shiver under the hot sun. He was emaciated and
dehydrated, his eyes sealed shut by melted eyelids.
My stomach made the all too familiar ascent into my chest as
I took it all in. His clothes caught fire after from a cooking fire about 11
days ago. Apparently he was treated at a hospital for 2 days after which time
they sent the family “home” because they could not afford to pay for a longer
stay.
His wife poured the contents of a plastic bag at my feet. It
included a liter bag of IV saline, IV antibiotics and IV pain medicine. He had
a few oral antibiotics and vitamin C. This is what he was given for his
recovery. Whom the doctors expected to give him IV medications was unclear. He
lay there shaking and moaning, surrounded by flies with nothing
but a dirty sari covering his body.
His wife asked me if I could help. Could I get him admitted to a hospital? Could
I give them more medicine or creams? I instantly knew his outlook was grim to
say the least. I felt so incredibly small, so helpless, so powerless in an area
I’m supposed to be good at. He was beyond hope, even if I could get this man to
a hospital, he would most likely lay on a dirty mattress on the ward floor
waiting to die from infection and dehydration. His fluid loss was extensive, he
looked cachectic and likely septic.
In my head I churned over the logistics of getting him to a hospital.
Could I get him off the tracks and into a car without causing more suffering? How does the
system work here? Will they even admit him? Surely he must have been worse when
they sent him out in the first place.
At a loss, I told them to keep him hydrated, give him fluids
every hour, and keep him covered. Make sure he continues his oral antibiotics
and try to get him to eat. I admitted I
wasn’t sure I could do much, but that I’d try.
I left feeling defeated, totally inadequate and sick over
the gravity of suffering in this world. They say one person can make a difference;
you change the world one small action at a time. But sometimes your small
actions don’t feel big enough.
How do you know you when you are doing everything you can
do? You could spend 24 hours a day trying to alleviate suffering and still find
yourself surrounded by it. Yet if you stop, can’t you argue you could’ve
continued longer? How do you know when you need to keep pushing and when you just need to light a candle and say a prayer?
I don’t have the answers. I feel small and my soul feels
heavy. Helen Keller said, “I am
only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something;
and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I
can do.”
I called my good friend Kristin. She's been living here for 4 years, she serves these families in the slum. She helped formulate a plan for tomorrow. For tonight, I lit a candle and said a prayer. For now...it's all I can do.
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| These beauties give me so much joy |
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| Thankful mom brings her baby for needed food |
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| This little 3 year old toddles in with her 6 year old sister |
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| One of our regular little girls, she likes to help carry the water |
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| 6 month old baby born in the slums to a 13 year old mom |
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| The slum where these kids live |
