amy in bolivia: this week.

This week started off on Sunday afternoon with a phone call from one of the boys telling me that another boy had been stabbed. I spent Monday morning searching for him at the hospital. When I couldn't locate him through the information desk or via the emergency room records or with the police connected to the emergency room, I did what seemed like the obvious thing to do based on the past few months: I went to the morgue. Thankfully, he hadn't been through there and is actually in recovery under a different name. So that was good news...

I wish I lived in a world that didn't include morgue visits. I could probably stomach the morgue in the US, but the one here is just unbearable. It's not temperature-controlled, and the bodies aren't kept refrigerated. When I was in there helping sort out the situation with the baby girl in June, I remember looking around and seeing bodies laying around on gurneys and tables, wrapped in the bedding that their families had brought them in. One guy was laying there uncovered and bloody, and it was obvious that he had been stabbed in the stomach. It's a very unpleasant place, and I'll never be able to forget the smell.

With all that in mind, I was so thankful that one of my girlfriends offered to go running around with me that afternoon so I wouldn't have to go alone.

That same day, I rescued a little Boxer puppy that showed up right outside my door...literally. She was nothing but bones, just 3 or 4 months old, and really, really sick. We took her to my vet's office where they did some tests and found out that she had Distemper (terribly contagious and deadly) and that it was already in her brain and nervous system. It was really sad and obviously really painful, so we ended up just being merciful and putting her to sleep.

The rest of the week was less eventful, thankfully. I did the regular visits to the bridge and to the night shelter, chatted with the boys washing windows on the street a few times, and hung out with the girls. I also hunted around the market for a daycare for the woman I wrote about last week. That was a huge, useless waste of time, although, thanks to Kimber, I have a good lead to follow up with next week.

One of the girls, who's boyfriend has been working at Nate's shop, is pregnant and about to burst. On Thursday, we went into a hospital to get her all set up for the baby's birth but were told we need to go to the local health center closer to where she's going to be living. The shop is in the process of moving to a new location up the hill a ways, and this couple is looking for a room in the same area. Hopefully, we'll get the hospital and the room all sorted out on Monday.

Since the hospital trip on Thursday was a bust, the girl and her little boy spent most of the day at my house...