Street Kids

Here's another post from Thomas' blog (http://boliviablog.wordpress.com/):

Today we had the privilege to teach street kids about sexual education and basic hygiene. We worked last night on our presentation and tried to make sure we included all of the facts about STDS and proper teeth brushing rituals. Our ride to Cochabamba was one filled with nervousness and final preparations. When we arrived in near downtown Cochabamba in a small park with many trees, we met up with Ami Johnson, a independent 29 year old missionary who focuses solely on street kids. She gave us some insight on what to expect and warned us to make sure we don’t leave things sitting around that could be stolen. After the short meeting she left to meet the kids on a street corner a few blocks away.

The kids work on various street corners either juggling fruit in front of cars in busy intersections or washing car windows. This particular group lives under a bridge in a small tunnel. Ami told us that most of the kids are between 9-18, all are sexually active, most to all have STDS, they have lice, are malnutricitioned, and 100% of the kids are addicted to sniffing shoe glue. These were very disturbing facts which were difficult to fathom.

About 15 minutes after she left, 2 taxis with about 20 kids crammed like sardines in the small subcompact arrived at the park. They started walking towards us, some with their window squeegees in hand all with dirty clothes. We brought a soccer ball so many of them started to play around with the ball in an open area of the park, others came and introduced themselves to us, whereas many just sat down on a ledge next to a flower garden and talked to each other. After a couple of minutes I went up to the ledge and started talking to them. As I was making small talk with a boy probably 15 with a large stained faded blue coat, I noticed he had a small plastic bottle hidden in the sleeve of his coat while he surreptitiously placed it under his nose and breathed in slowly. I in mid-sentence lost my train of thought and mumbled in my words for a few seconds until Ami came up and sternly told him to put it away until they leave the park. Needless to say, he was sniffing a shoe glue locally called Clefa which is very potent and very dangerous. After about 5 minutes I started noticing that everybody had one of those little plastic bottles and would constantly breathe in the fumes.

I’ve known for quite a while that street children in South America sniffed glue, I’ve read articles about it and have been told by many different people at home and here. However, when I saw the faces of young teenagers stumbling and slurring their speech, it occurred to me that knowing the facts doesn’t mean a thing until you see it right in front of you.

We were told that we had about 30 minutes before the kids would get bored and stop paying attention. When we started, we lost their attention in about 4 minutes. It took games, skits, interaction, prizes, and pictures of infected penises for them to stay engaged about half of the time. Some would just walk around, some would climb in the trees and all of them would sniff their glue. After our presentation was over, we passed out some toothbrushes and toothpaste, gave them some food and got to interact with some of the kids.

One boy, Mosais, was timid and friendly, he asked us about a couple of American movies and let us take pictures with him. He stood out to me from the crowd because he really appeared as if he hated the lifestyle he was living. He looked as if he had hope of getting out of the streets. Many of the kids have accepted and enjoy their life of sex and drugs and having nobody telling them what to do, most to all street kids do not live past their 30s. Mosais is the only one in the group I felt had a chance of truly overcoming this dangerous lifestyle.

As we said our goodbyes we starting walking towards the main road, Ami flagged a taxi and many of the kids crammed inside. 2 kids, Alexandra and Jose walked next to Ami and held her hand. They would touch her long blonde hair, sniff it, and smile. After a couple of blocks the rest of the kids disappeared from our sight. We walked down the long busy road, boarded a small bus, and left traveled home.