Wednesday, Jan 20

Our construction of the 3 small homes continues this week. The 'neighborhood' children are funny little beggars. When we bring in chocolate there is a feeding frenzy - even some of the adults get involved and demand a piece, not caring if the kids get one or not. Each day a treat cart selling ice cream or sno-cones rolls down the dirt road and the kids turn their most pitiful begging faces to Brenda.

We do have a few favorites of all the kids in the area. Our first favorite has earned the nickname 'Benjamin Button' for the most unfortunate reason. She looks like an old man; she is really the oddest looking child. Her hair is patchy and wiry, sticking out in random patches and she's bald in others. She stares at everyone with incredible intensity, unless she is offered chocolate, and then the whole world fades away and nothing exists but her, her candy and the copious amounts of drool gushing out of either sides of her mouth. She sort of appears phantom-like once in a while and we all stop and stare, waiting for her to do or say something that might explain her oddness.

We aren't sure what the name is of the other girl who has caused so much uproar among our team. The first day we were working there we saw this 4 year-old leaning nonchalantly on a house - cool as James Dean - picking her teeth with a dirty safety pin. When we panicked and led her to her mother, the woman simply snatched the safety pin from little Disaster Waiting and set about picking her own teeth with it. Yesterday the child was observing our work from a precarious position on top of the large pile of gravel and using an old rusty nail to clean our her ears. Once again, she was placed in the care of her mother who took the nail away and waited until we were out of sight to presumably start cleaning her own ears out with it.

Today, Disaster Waiting was in fine form with that same nail. Brandon watched as she squeezed out a fat white slab of toothpaste onto the nail and vigorously began brushing her teeth with it. He couldn't help himself and yelled out, "NO!! Dangerous!!" and she jumped, startled, and flung the tube of toothpaste away from her in alarm - but kept on "brushing" with the nail.

These kids bring humor to a spot that wild be pretty bleak in their absence. These people are one step up from being on the street. Most of them make their money by begging. We don't dare bring clothes to them because we have seen them be brutal and selfish when we did venture to bring stuff as small as candy. We have to eat in the bus or there will be a stampede (they do have food though - they aren't starving) but some of them still linger around and ask for stuff. The first day we saw so many injuries that we have been bringing a first aid kit with us everyday and bandaging anyone the best we can. Open wounds are absolutely common. One woman had awful sores all over her chest. Today a boy had a gash in his foot and acted like our desire to clean and dress it was as frivolous as putting a sweater on a dog (no disrespect intended to the cozy and stylish puppies of the world). One man showed us a foot condition that was so serious that no one could stomach trying to bandage it. It wouldn't have done any good anyway - it would have been like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. When one of the guys helping us out fell off of the ladder, he cut his hand and then shrugged off our concerns. When we motioned that he should get a band aid, he shook his head, grabbed a fistful of dirt, ground it into the open cut, and continued working.

This method of dealing with injury is horribly inadequate. So many of the people that we talk to and pray for tell us about their various health problems, a brother with constant stomach pains, a son with headaches that won't go away. Taking care of one's body and having good health don't seem connected in their minds. Its tragic and hard to watch.

Without the moments when we can laugh at Benjamin Button's intense drooling and shake our heads at the enormous naked woman lathering up and bathing in front of our work site - without these moments off odd humor it would be too much. To see the injuries that need real medical attention, to spend hours carrying rocks, the blisters, the sunburns, the tar-covered feet would wear us out. If we didn't have the hilarity of situations like Brandon constantly being chased by women who want an American husband or son-in-law, the hopelessness might catch up with us and make us forget about the One who cares about these people more than we ever could. Thankfully, just when it seems like it might be too much to take, and someone on the team has stepped in a pile of poop, not for the first time, Mrs. Exhibitionist Bather motions to sit down and begins to clean the filth off our feet, and we can keep going for a while longer.