on the streets.

A large part of my new work down here takes place on the city streets in some pretty unpleasant locations with the groups of kids and teenagers that I used to be fearful of and avoid at all costs. I've not been going out alone but have been tagging along with one of the other volunteers with NCV, who has been working with these kids and teens on the streets for over a year. I'm still just beginning to get to know them, and it will take some time to build friendships and trust.

Here's what I'm learning...

Glue sniffing is a large part of life on the streets, and all of the street kids that I've met are cleferos (glue-sniffers). They spend most of the day only semi-conscious with a bottle of glue held up to their noses.

It's their escape.

In order to survive, the guys wash car windows and juggle at traffic lights and pick-pocket. Many of the girls have prostituted themselves, aborting unwanted pregnancies in back alley clinics or by drinking "witch's brew." And many have had babies that the government has taken away and put in orphanages.

There are some horribly corrupt police officers who mistreat and beat the street kids (we heard of one little boy who was beaten to death by a cop less than 2 weeks ago) and who have been known to rape the girls.

If this is the life that they have escaped to, how bad must their "home" life have been?

In the afternoons, I've been going with my friend Barb up to a bridge on the north side of town where a group of teenagers live. The bridge is over a mostly dry canal, about 6' wide and 5' deep, that runs under a very busy road and is home to a group of a dozen or so teenagers. I went up there a couple of weeks ago for the first time, and I want to describe that experience.

As we were walking up the hill toward the bridge, we saw a few heads pop up from the concrete canal to see who was heading their direction. They recognized Barb right away and called us over. So we walked to the edge of the canal and saw that there were about 10 teenagers hanging out and washing their clothes in a dirty puddle surrounded by slimy, green moss. And we were really excited to see three girls (one of whom is pregnant) that Barb has known for a while but hadn't seen in weeks.

So we jumped down into the canal, and within just a few seconds, everybody had come over to talk with us. They all held plastic bottles of glue up to their noses, and in such a tight space with so many people, even Barb and I were breathing in heavy fumes. And so we hung out in the dirty and incredibly smelly canal, breathing secondhand glue fumes and straddling garbage and piles of feces (probably both animal and human but equally unpleasant).

I'm still an outsider, but the kids were really friendly and open to talking to me. Likewise, I'm not intimidated to talk to them or bothered by the fact that they're high.

This work is amazing and heartbreaking and fulfilling and overwhelming all at the same time, and I'm still so new to everything....