The Pendulum Swings

I do not expect every day here to be a good one, but I was unprepared for yesterday.

Yesterday, at 2:00 PM, nine of us got into a van and headed off to St. Jude's orphanage. Twenty-five bumpy minutes later we arrived. The metal gate was opened by two boys, only five or six, who stopped playing soccer to let us in. As we piled out, the children gathered round, the boys shook hands and gave their names to all; the girls, demure, extended their hands, eyes bowed as they curtsied. The crowd dispersed, and the women in our group reached for the little runny-nosed infants who clung, smiling upward, to our legs. The older boys went back to their soccer game; the older girls returned to caring for the infants. Big John, all 6'11" of him, was the main attraction for the smallest. They gathered round to be raised up overhead, sitting in his oversized palm. One child who came to him clutching a ball was raised overhead to repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, try to put it through a netball hoop. Other childern played on slides and swings. It was nice.

In the midst of this I saw two boys run hurriedly around the back of one of the dormitories. They re-emerged at a run carrying a metal ladder. I am unsure if I felt the nervousness I remember now, or if it is a construct of the subsequent events, but a few minutes later there was a scream. One of the women came around the corner screaming, a baby had fallen into the open sewer. I ran around the corner and saw an opening, about 12" x 12". I looked in, and saw dark liquid about two and a half feet down, a few boards floating on it: no bubbles, no baby, just the screaming of all the children. One of the men was trying to manuever the too large ladder into the hole, in a panic turning it this way and that, repeating the process as if it would somehow fit, with each failure the chldren screamed louder. I looked for a pole to insert, as if the baby might somehow be able to extricate himself. Finally, Big John picked the man up and moved him aside. He dropped to the ground and stuck his head in the opening. Then he reached his arm in. His shoulder stretched and strained, and suddenly he struggled up. In his hand, by the ankle, was the motionless little boy, covered in cruel foulness, stomache distended; the children, the poor children, seeing this fell to the ground and pounded their fists.

Now the baby lay on the ground and two of our group--Min and Colleen--young girls who have trouble even eating the food here, dropped to the groud to clear the babies throat and administer CPR and mouth-to-mouth. I stood by, unable to do anything but pick up some of the young ones and try to comfort them. Collleen and Min's efforts were not being met with success. The TV show ending, two coughs and everything's better, did not come. They grabbed the infant and drove to the hospital, working on him the whole way, where he was pronounced dead.

We who stayed behind, tried to console the inconsolable. Some of the girls led in prayer. The woman who runs the orphanage said it would be better if we came back another time. The women in my group caught bodas back to the compound. I walked. I did not know the way, but knew the people who lived along the road could guide me. Right then, I needed guidance.

You see I began yesterday with a secure belief in who I was. I had held my mother's hand when she passed, helped a woman out of a burning car. I believed in a time of crisis I could be counted on. I would be there: Always. Yesterday, I was not. For that, I am ashamed.

Later, Big John tried to console me, he said that life is a movie, not a photograph, that we must look at the sum of our lives and not individual events. I know the wisdom of this, but I also know I felt the pride that accompanied those good works, and just as I earned that pride, yesterday's shame was well-earned.

On my walk, I thought of my mother, how she was always there to volunteer her help. I also thought of my father. In particular, I remember his insistance in the power--the requirement even--of forgiveness. He often spoke of the need to forgive onself, without which we become paralyzed, unable to move forward. We must forgive oursleves our transgressions so that we can do better the next time.

Today there is a funeral for Samuel, the little boy. There are children to be cared for at the orphanage. Today, I am faced with being the man I want to be.
I am resolute.