Scary night...

Being involved with the street children has had a lot of impact on my personal life.
We take everything for granted...
From breakfast to lunch to diner, ...
Sleeping in a bed, protected from the elements, ...
Opening the fridge and needing time to make a choice, ...

It taught me how little it takes to make somebody happy...
A $1 meal, some flip-flops or a T-shirt...

There have been some scary moments in the past:
When a 19 year old boy tried to commit suicide after his baby was taken away by Child Care. Him and his girl friend tried to raise a baby, living in the streets.

One night some kids came knocking on our door yelling that a boy was having serious trouble breathing. When I arrived with the truck, I couldn't see him breathe (although he did, but faintly). It's scary to be in situations like this. Finding somebody on the pavement seemingly dead.

Yesterday I got a phone call letting me know that a boy was having severe convulsions.
I hurried over in a taxi and found this 15 year old boy on the floor shaking like crazy. He was in terrible pains... terrible.
Foam was coming out of his mouth.
We had the biggest trouble getting him in the taxi that I'd kept waiting outside.
Every movement was so painful for him.
The taxi ride to the hospital couldn't have taken longer than 10 minutes, but it seemed longer.
The whole time the boy was shaking and having horrible convulsions.
The potholes made the pains even worse.
He held both my hands and squeezed them tight until it hurt.
But not as much as the pains that he was suffering...
When I got out of the taxi at E.R., there was nobody to receive us.
Get a doctor, I shouted.
People were staring at me like:
This gringo doesn't have any idea that you have to do everything yourself around here.
Luckily the Taxi driver, an older man, knew where to get a "wheel chair"
A plastic garden chair that got some wheels fixed under it.
I suppose we're spoiled in this area as well.
The E.R. had this naked 70 something year old woman on a stretcher right next to our wheel chair.
They were poking her skin and the dents didn't go away.
Other people, some bleeding, some in pain or just asleep were all around us.
They gave the guy an IV and injected him with two different shots.
The convulsions stopped...
A couple of minutes later he fell asleep.
Then, I was told to leave.
They were keeping him for the night.
Maybe today I will find out what the trouble was.
The boy thought it might have been a bad hamburger...
A friend told me, because he had severe pains in his lower right abdomen, that it could have been appendicitis.
I'll have to wait and see...
Maybe I'll never know...