I turn to Rodrigo. “Should we play one of the songs?” I open up my backpack and pass out the lyrics to one of the songs. Rodrigo begins strumming. We sing. It is a duet; none of the kids join in. They hold the song sheet in one hand and their thinner in the other. Some of them hold the song sheet upside down. Every once in a while one of them looks up at Rodrigo or me, when we miss a note. We get to the end of the song, and I take back my song sheets. I open up my backpack again. I have printed up some verses from the Bible and cut them into individual strips. I hand each of the four children a strip of paper upon which is neatly typed a Bible verse.
“Okay.” I kneel down on the ground. “Can someone read this verse for me?”
Alejandro taps me on the shoulder. “I think they might have a problem reading.”
“What do you mean? Because they’re high?”
“No. A problem reading.”
“Can anyone read?”
A boy, high as a kite, says, “I-I-I can reeead.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Gawwwwwddd . . .” he says.
“Yes?” I say.
“Gawwwwwddd . . .” He nods off into his paint thinner.
This is not working. My heart sinks. Then a young boy walks up from behind. “Is that a Bible verse?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Ephesians 2:8.”
“Oh,” says the boy. “I know that one already.”
“You know that verse already?”
“Yeah,” says the boy. “I say it every day on the bus. Ephesians 2:8: ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.’ Then all the old ladies give me money. I could use some new verses. You got any?”
I’m walking around and treating a few minor ailments when a skinny boy of about thirteen years walks up to me with a bloody wound on his hand. I open my tackle box full of medicine, and the kids stare wide eyed into it. “Look at all the drugs he has,” the wounded boy says. “He’s pretty cool.” A dozen more kids gather around. “Look at all these drugs! Whoa!”
“Sit down,” I say. “These are antibiotics, not narcotics.”
“I don’t care,” says the wounded boy. “Can I have some?”
I look at the wounded boy. “No,” I say, and I treat his hand.
Later, a ten-year-old boy limps up to me. His foot has a big red gash across the top of it. I need to clean out the wound, debride it. It’s going to hurt intensely. He’s going to need lidocaine, so out of the fishing box comes the syringe.
“Serious drugs!” says a kid. “He’s got an IV!”
“I’m not shooting up,” I say.
“Hey, mister, did you know that’s bad for you?”
“No, it’s an anesthetic.”
“You mean you’re going to go to sleep?”
“I’m not injecting it in myself. I’m injecting it in his foot.” The kid with the foot wound looks at me with concern.
“You mean you’re going to put him to sleep? Wow! That’s even better!”
Later a teenage boy with a huge bloody gash in his right leg staggers up to me. Acne has taken over his face. He is five foot four and stocky. He looks mean as a rabid dog. He looks at me without saying anything. He just looks at me.
“What’d you do?” I say.
“I stabbed another kid.”
“What do you mean, you stabbed another kid?”
“I tried to kill him.”
I think about this for a moment. “Do you have a knife on you?”
“Of course I have a knife.”
The other kids chime in. “If you treat him, he won’t stab you.” All the children laugh.
I take out the syringe. “Is this going to hurt?” he asks.
I say to him, “You just stabbed someone. I bet that hurt!”
The other kids laugh hysterically. “I don’t want to do this,” says the boy.
I give him a serious look. “If that wound gets worse, it’ll get necrotic, and we’ll have to cut your leg off. You have two choices: Either we stick you with the needle or we cut your leg off.”
“Cut his leg off! Cut his leg off!” chant the kids. “Cut his leg off. What does he need it for?”
“Shut up!” says the boy. “You better shut up!”
“Close your eyes,” I tell the boy. “I need to inject you three times. Each time I inject you, I’ll count to three.”
“One, two, three. . . .” Down goes the lidocaine. “One, two, three. . . .” Down goes another dose. As I fill the syringe with lidocaine a third time, two men walk up and stand behind me. I only know they’re behind me by their shadows. I’ve heard bad stories about what happens on the streets, where bodies end up. I’m on my knees trying to aim the syringe into the right spot on the boy’s leg. By the looks of their shadows, the two men are tense, ready to strike. I can hear them mumbling to each other. Sweat pours out of my head. I can’t concentrate. “One . . .” I say. My patient looks worried for me. Then he looks at the syringe shaking in my hand and he starts worrying about himself. “Two . . .” I say. I’m just waiting for the blow to come down and crack open my head. I’m not going to turn around. I’m just going to wait. When I see movement, I’m going to dodge and run like a madman. “Three . . .”
The boy spits out, “Be careful with that, buddy.”
My hand is shaking so badly I don’t dare inject him. I’ll probably hit a bone or something. Finally, Alejandro whispers in my ear, “Calm down, Chi. They won’t bother you.” Alejandro tells the men behind me that I am a doctor here to treat the street children. That’s all I’m here for. I take a few deep breaths and inject my patient a third time. I clean out his wound, give him some antibiotics, and send him on his way. The men leave, the show having ended.
“Does anyone else need any help?” I ask.
“No,” says a boy walking by.
I take the soccer ball out of my backpack. “Does anyone want to play soccer?”
They inhale their thinner.
I sit around, twiddling my thumbs for a while. “Okay,” I say to no one in particular, maybe myself, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
As Rodrigo, Elizabeth, and I walk back to the orphanage with Alejandro, I say to him, “That was a total waste of time.”
Alejandro does not seem to miss a beat, as if he knew I would say that. “Chi,” he says, “you have to be patient with these kids. You have to be there for the kids, that’s all. They’ll come around. Many people want to change these kids too quickly. That includes the orphanage. They’re all wrong. These kids aren’t going to change overnight. You have to do it step by step. A little less thinner. A little less violence. A little at a time.”
We walk past a row of child prostitutes. “The kids won’t listen to you this month. They might listen to you in seven months. They don’t want your charity—actually, they don’t mind taking your money. But they want you to be part of their lives. They won’t listen to you until they know you care for them. They won’t assume that you’re there out of the goodness of your heart; they think you’re out to get something. Everything comes with a price. You have to prove it’s free, always free, that you will always be there for them, even if for no reason.”
6
Miguel and Pilar
October 1997, Plaza San Francisco
The mantra repeats itself in my head: “Get them off the streets. Get them off the streets.” The words never seem tiresome or repetitive.
I am drawn to abandoned street children. They are the poorest of poor children, the forgotten of the forgotten. Even the orphanage workers have abandoned them. Though La Paz is dotted with dozens of orphanages, the social workers don’t walk the streets. They are too busy in the orphanages, taking care of the children they already have, many of whom have never slept on the streets; these children are dropped off by poor parents who cannot afford to care for them. Where does that leave the street child living alone on the street? On the blind side of averted eyes.
I want to help them.
Most of the time, they don’t want my help. I stitch wounds. I treat diseases. Upon closing my medicine box, I ask my patient if she wants to live under a roof. A leery look washes across her face. Adults are enemies; men beat them, berate them, and sexually abuse them. Being alone with the wrong man will get you killed. “No.” The answer is always “no,” or rather, “next time,” since in Bolivia refusing an invitation is impolite.
“Stay however long you want,” I eventually learn to say. “A night, a day, an hour, a minute.” Just an hour under a roof will convince them, my theory goes, that life is better in a home—even an orphanage.
“No.” Still no. Always no.
But I don’t give up. I tap the testimonies of former Bururu kids, as the kids trust each other more than they trust me. “Is Bururu a good home?” I ask those who once slept on pavement. “Yes,” they say. “Are kids abused there?” The kids tell the truth: “No.”
And then I turn to the child. “Do you want to go to Bururu?”
The truth. Always the truth: “No.”
Tonight is breezy. I am leading some street children in a prayer song, but the song rings hollow. Singing of hope, joy, and God feels patronizing when there is little hope and joy here. When enough street children have gathered around our singing, I unlock my backpack and take out the soccer ball. I ask more than twenty children if they want to play soccer. They shout a resounding “Yes!” It’s a “yes” to a return visit to childhood, however brief. And they don’t even have to sleep in a scary orphanage employing unfamiliar adults. We walk down Calle America, passing unconscious drunks.
A gargantuan statue of a head casts an irregular shadow in the empty plaza. I don’t know if he has a name. He is the Statue of Heroes. People pay their respect to him by urinating on him every day. During the day, Plaza San Francisco bustles with food vendors, street evangelists, and shouting shamans selling crocodile oil; at night the plaza belongs to the street children. Two boys scurry about, pick up two rocks each, and place them on the cool concrete. Here are the boundaries for the goals. Two boys take turns pointing their fingers at the other children. Here are our teams. The ball is dropped, and here in the plaza a heated battle commences. These street kids, malnourished and mistreated, play fútbol as well as any kids in the world. The melee rages on.
Down the dozen stairs leading to the plaza steps a little girl. She sets both feet on each step before taking on the next one. She wears solid blue knitted pants and a red sweater. She sits down on a step and digs into her paper bag of potato chips. Her fingers and cheeks, covered in potato chip grease, glisten under the streetlights. She lets out a periodic giggle as she watches the soccer game.
She notices me and shouts, “Chino! Chino! Venga aqui!” She waves her greasy fingers and winks. I walk toward her and take a seat beside her on the cold stairs.
“Why are you here at 2 a.m.?” I ask her.
“I need to earn money.”
“How do you earn money?”
“I sell stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Just stuff. Chino. Give me five bolivianos.” She pleads with her brows.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you money.”
“Please. How about one dollar?” She scrunches up her eyes and sets her thumb and index finger a centimeter apart.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you money. . . . Where do you live?”
She stretches her left arm behind her back, “Far, far away. Do you see that boy with the soccer ball? He’s my brother.”
“Oh, really? What’s his name?”
“Miguel.”
“How old is he?”
“Eight.”
“What’s your name?”
“Pilar.”
“And how old are you?”
She shows me four of her fingers.
“So, Pilar, where are you going to sleep tonight?”
“Here.” She points down at the cement sidewalk.
The soccer players stop in their tracks. The ball rolls off the field.
“Give me my money!” a three-hundred-pound drunken man barks.
A fifteen-year-old street boy crouches against the wall, protecting his head with both arms.
“I don’t have your money!” shouts the boy.
“I told you I was going to come back tonight! Where is it?” The man slams a large stick against the boy’s back, and the boy’s scream echoes across the square. The boy jumps up and flees along the wall. The soccer players run to the side of the street boy, ready to take blows in his defense.
“I don’t owe you anything!” shouts the street boy.
As one, the human wall of boys and girls puffs up its collective chest and braces itself to be struck. The drunken man holds his stick high.
“He doesn’t have any money,” says one of the older children. The stick comes down, slowly. The drunken man walks down the street, and the tension subsides.
The boy runs down El Prado. The rest of the children resume their soccer game. Shouts and grunts pepper the air along with the periodic “Gooooallll!”
I stand and shout, “Last game!” They grumble. They plead. They play harder for the final defining point. And when it is scored, the mighty roar of “GOOOOOALLL!” can be heard by every street child and every police officer in town.
“We will return tomorrow night.” I pick up the ball.
“Promise, Dr. Chi.”
“Yes. Promise.”
As the children disperse, I seek out Miguel and introduce myself. He reciprocates politely. I ask him why he’s on the street.
“My mother dropped us off,” he says, “and she’s going to pick us up in the morning.”
“Do you want to come with me to the orphanage?”
“No, I’d rather stay on the street.”
“You would rather be on the street,” I say, “and you’re going to have your sister stay on the street with you.”
“Yeah.”
“Your sister is only four years old, and when you were playing soccer, she was left all alone. You’re the big brother. You need to take care of your sister. How can you allow your sister to sleep on the street? It’s one thing to have you sleep on the street because you’re a bigger boy, but it’s another thing to have your four-year-old sister sleep on the streets.” I say that he can stay at Bururu for however long he wants. I ask other street children if Bururu is a good place, and they say yes.
Miguel thinks about my words. He says, “No.”
Alejandro signals for me to give the child a little bit of breathing space. I walk across the empty plaza. I glance at my watch, and it says 2:34 a.m. A sudden feeling of exhaustion sweeps over my body as I realize that I will have to wake up in less than six hours for church. As I walk away, I realize that Alejandro and Luis (another boy from Bururu) are discussing matters with Pilar and Miguel. I grow impatient waiting for them and decide to expedite the situation. As I walk closer to the children, I notice that Miguel is nodding his head, but I can see in his eyes a glassy fear. He knows that some of the orphanages are notorious for violence and robbery. But Alejandro and Luis do not relent. At times, the silences persist, but after fifteen more minutes, Miguel says, “Bueno.”
We walk past fetid trash and fresh urine. Pilar walks alongside my left leg, attempting to match my long strides. Her dark black eyes peer up at me, and she reaches up her hand to hold mine. We walk a couple of strides together, and I realize that I am nearly dragging her along the sidewalk.
“What if I carry you?”
She giggles and holds her tiny, chubby arms out.
As we walk back to the Bururu house, Pilar and I see stumbling drunks and men in business suits looking for sex. Pilar mumbles something into my ear. It saddens my heart as I realize the harshness of the lives of these children. The desire to adopt every single child on the street grows with each step. As we turn the corner, we see a gang walking toward us. I tell everyone to cross the street and walk slowly without any appearance of fear. As we jaywalk aw
ay from the young gangsters, taxis honk and zip around us. The women street vendors are still grilling greasy beef at three in the morning. I walk past them to the front door of Bururu orphanage.
I dig deep into my pockets to retrieve my keys. I turn to let the orange streetlight illuminate the keyhole. I almost tip over as I turn the key four times counterclockwise while holding Pilar in my arms. As the misaligned door drags along the kitchen floor, the unoiled hinge creaks a high pitch. I flip on the lights. Miguel stands on the threshold staring at the big ovens, sink, and stove.
“We have a huge kitchen along with a bakery. Every day we make lots of rolls, hot and fresh. All the children eat three times a day. It’s all free. All you have to do is do your chores, follow the rules, and go to school.”
I crouch before the boy. “Miguel, listen to me. You have to look after your little sister. You may be tough and able survive the streets, but you have to think about your sister also.” Miguel nods in agreement; his sister has fallen asleep in my arms.
“Which place is warmer? Bururu or the streets?”
“Bururu.”
“Where can you eat three times a day? Bururu or the streets?”
“Bururu.”
“Where is it safe? Where are there no violent men, prostitutes, knives, and drugs?”
“Bururu.”
“You have to think about your sister.”
We walk down the hall and turn on the lights.
“This is the medical office. We have nearly every medicine you may need. I am here Monday through Friday.”
We walk up the stairs and flip on the hall lights. I open Room 1 and present to Miguel the dozen or so boys sleeping there on the floor, beneath their ahuayos. “This is Room 1, where the newest boys sleep. After you sleep here for a month or so, doing your chores every day, you can move up to Room 2, where the beds are better, and so are the boys. Room 4 is the best room.” Choco, the Bururu dog, wakes up and barks fervently at Miguel. Pilar stirs in my arms. One of the boys tells the dog to quiet down; he looks up at Miguel and says, “Grab a blanket. There’s plenty of room.”
When Invisible Children Sing Page 7