A few more hours...

I felt pretty powerless today for about an hour that didn't seem like much of a story when I talked about it. The hospital again. I was returning from checking one of the floors with the Michelle's and Chelsea and a girl flagged me down and pulled me into a room with a baby and a mother with her child. One of the girls from our started asking me about how we know whether or not they are really children without moms and I started thinking about how to tell her how you don't really know, but you start to figure things out after awhile. Then there was confusion about where they should all go. And I said sure I can handle one child. I'll change her and feed her and be on my way. Then it was chaos. I put down the front of the crib to check if the baby was poopy and she wasn't, so I sat down and held her. One of the nurses came in and told me not to, because when I left she would cry like crazy. I put her down. She started crying. A nurse came in with a bottle. It was sucked down immediately. The bottles here have huge holes for fast delivery. If anybody doesn't know, this makes for some serious gas. So when she was done, I picked her up to burp her. When the nurse came in the next time, I asked her for a rag just in case the baby vomited. No dice. I was like that's BS I know you have a million rags but I just said yes boss. She also told me to put the baby down. The baby started crying. I tried the usual things you do to calm a baby down without picking them up to no avail. During this time a young mother kept talking to her child and then would randomly (to me anyway, because I didn't understand much of what she was saying) burst into tears. It had something to do with the milk. At the time I was slightly sympathetic, but couldn't do much about the situation. Then there was a fight that broke out in the room next to us, which lasted what seemed like a really long time. So I'm standing in this room trying to calm down this crying baby, in a room with a crying mom, who uses the gypsy street rhythm cry if you know what that is, while just outside the door there are nurses and people who can't understand the hospital rules screaming at each other. And I can't really explain the feeling. It's like being thrown under a shore break and just tumbling or trying not to fall asleep when you have to drive through the night, or trying to finish a paper the night before it's due.

And then I thought to myself, "I get to go home after this." Whatever this mother is going through is going to keep going. Whatever care those people in the hospital were going to have is not going to be possible, and this baby will probably keep crying after I absolutely need to leave. And she will learn things about life that may affect her for her entire life. It is a very different place that these people will go home to. I couldn't grasp the reality completely. I catastrophize and romanticize a lot of situations in the hospital. I choose not to see certain things that may be uncomfortable and I can assume a worse situation than is actually happening.

Every once in awhile I look at my shoes and realize my money didn't buy them. Some people get a sense of accomplishment from the opposite idea. I feel a somber gratitude sometimes with a tint of shame. Especially when I hear stories about people losing their jobs out here.

On the brighter side, I'm working on some more stuff with Alex. It's become my major focus besides helping the group out with things and wasting time on the internet and obsessively writing and checking e-mail. I'd like to get the kinks out before I get too in detail about things, but we're using computers and a web cam to help him communicate. It's really exciting. It's stuff that could not have been possible three years ago, the way things were. It makes a lot of my regrets lose their sting and I get to see Alex get excited about learning things. He's in school every day so I can only see him for a half hour at the end of the day, but I can work on things with Teo and there is a lot to do. I still get to go see the kids and watch how everyone is doing in the orphanage and apartments, but it's different now that I've found a bit of a Niche in this project. Every day there is something to look forward to. The sustainability is something I'm wondering about, but if I get to adopt him some day then that won't be a problem. Did I just say that out loud?

Anyway, my blood is 80% visine (pronounced vee she nay) cherry flavoring and I'm loving every minute of it. I love the youth programs here and we're making some friends at the hospital even and on the streets every now and then. It's way past my bed time. I've been obsessively looking for a way to get this software cheaper. Love you guys agape style for reading my gunoi.