Yesterday evening, I walked out of the internet café, frustrated as usual by the slow connection and exhausted from a long day at the office. As I walked down the street, I glanced at a young boy sitting by the road cradling an injured arm. He had a long cut down his right arm with small regular abscesses--it looked like he had been cut by barbed wire. He was sitting by himself, peering down at his injuries and picking at the cuts, like a puppy licking its wounds.
I looked away and kept walking. Yet another poor injured kid in this war torn shell of a city. I walked about halfway down the block but could not get this boy out of my head. Those abscesses were oozing with pus and no one seemed to be taking any care of him. I cannot be this callous. I cannot be this blasé. I stopped walking and turned around. And this is how Jessi came into my life.
I approached the boy and starting talking to him. He was shy and introverted. He couldn’t or wouldn't answer my questions. A Liberian couple stopped as they saw me struggling to help this boy. He clearly needed medical attention, not just a trip to the pharmacy, and they offered to walk him there with me. He trailed behind me, his emaciated frame limping severely... Clearly these injuries were more extensive than I thought.
The clinic was dank and dim. People were sitting around the waiting room watching a fuzzy TV screen, broadcasting the Euro 2008 football match. Nothing could seem more distant or frivolous than a bunch of boys kicking a ball around a field for a trophy and some cash. Thanks to my vociferous persistence (which has paid off this week), we got in quickly to see the doctor. This was clearly an emergency: a purulent infection, a broken arm, a malnourished boy.
After insisting I pay the admittance fee first, they put him on intravenous antibiotics and injected some painkillers too. He cried out when they stuck him with the needle. I grabbed his leg and told him to look away, to be strong… As if this kid needed me to tell him to be strong. Finally, after cleaning and dressing the messy wounds on his arm, they prepared his bed and he lay down to rest. I said goodnight, carefully explaining that I would be back first thing in the morning. He looked away and whispered ‘thank you’ in a little voice that broke my heart. I didn’t need the thanks, just like I didn’t need my friends to congratulate me for doing the right thing… But the feeling of that moment, the feeling that I was reaching out and directly helping someone, that was an indescribable feeling.
I could not stop crying when I left the clinic for the night. I cannot help but think of what this kid has suffered for the past few months, alone on the streets with this badly injured arm. What if I hadn't stopped to help him? Would anyone else have been able to help? Would anyone else have cared? Those questions still torture me...
I know I cannot save everyone. I know. But I can help this boy--this one, right here. I can help heal his wounds. I can feed him. I can hold his hand.
As we walked home, my friend Oliver turned to me and said, “this is why you came to Africa.” Actually, it’s not. I didn’t come to Africa to give hand outs to needy children. I would lose myself that way. My soul would be crushed if my mission were to go from village to village scooping up and rescuing sick kids. My heart would surely break a thousand times over with the knowledge that there were always more who I could never help. Helping just one is bittersweet. I feel good about doing it, but angry that I had to. Angry no, furious, at the structural inequalities in the world that made it so 14-year old Jessi was sick and hungry and alone, while 10 years ago, 14-year old Eve was healthy, happy and blissfully ignorant of true pain and suffering. I feel frustrated and guilty that I can't do more, but I feel resolved to continue working and fighting for Jessi and for what I believe in…
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