We
were just coming from a birthday feast at the only American
restaurant in Eldoret, Kenya, and as we were waiting for our matatu
to go home, Danielle and Katie found a barefoot black boy sitting
down on the sidewalk. He had a huge, bleeding and oozing sore on his
dust-covered foot.
“Do
either you have hand sanitizer?” asked Danielle, coming over to Liz
and I from where the boy was sitting. We didn’t. She went in to a
pharmacy nearby. I looked over to the boy, feeling a mixture of pity
and guilt, pity for his impossible, pain filled life, and guilt for
not doing anything to help him, guilt for not even wanting to do anything
to help.
“Let’s
go see what’s going on,” I said to Liz, trying to assuage the
guilt. We walked over to him. He was only 10 or 11. He had a
frightened, pained expression as the mzungus surrounded
him, some trying to help, some, like me, just there to watch.
Danielle
came back with a bottle of antiseptic and a bandage. She put her
nursing skills to work and started to clean up the wound on his foot.
The boy was visibly uncomfortable, trying not to make eye contact
with the hovering mzungus.
Danielle spoke reassuringly to him, and even though he didn’t
understand English, he must have been comforted by her.
We
mzungus tend to
attract attention wherever we go, and the temporary first aid clinic
we’d constructed was causing a scene. Soon we had a crowd of Street
Kids, 6 or 7 and growing. They came to us with their pitiful faces
and their chorus, “Give me 5 bop” (about 7 cents).
Lauren, Matt,
Danielle and Katie, all from Team Fanatic, were great, buying half a
dozen loaves of bread for all the kids and talking to them.
Finally,
after an hour of waiting, our matatu came
to take us back home to Patrick’s compound. I was tired, tired of
standing around waiting, tired of the constant flurry of people and
the mangy Street Kids surrounding us.
But I couldn’t
forget those kids, couldn’t dismiss, as much as I wanted to, the
guilt I felt for not doing more to help. I couldn’t forget my
introduction to the Street Kids of Eldoret, Kenya.
