From another perspective- Maria Forsythe

October 31^st 2014

There are very few times in life when one can step back and say that was a day, which none other can top, whether that be the happiest or the saddest.  Today was one of those days.  Today was the hardest day of my life.  We went into the city for street children outreach.  The center had planned a football match to bring together the kids who are currently in the drop in center and the other street kids.  What turned out was the eight kids which SOL has been helping through their program at the drop in center and a group of a dozen or so teen to early adult boys who currently still reside on the streets.  Upon walking up to the front gate of the drop in center I saw bodies lying all over the stoop.  The boys were dirty, clothes torn and lazy body language covered them all.  The first boy spoke to me and in an instant I saw not a person but a drugged being incapable of functioning.  His eyes glazed over, he stared off into space through me and to some other place and time, which any sober person could not comprehend.  I was taken back by his drugged stooper and quickly moved away frightened by the shock.  I could not move far enough away though.  One by one the young men who still live on the streets showed himself in his high state.  This wasn’t a normal high it was a kind of trance, which held on to each boys mind with a tighter grip than I have ever seen.  I walked with the younger boys feeling protected by their sobriety.  I again felt connected with them just as I had the first day I had met them in the drop in center.  All the judgment I had held against them a few days earlier dissipated in the moment I realized what they could have become.  We got to the gate of the park where the field was and while waiting for security to let us in I noticed many of the boys with a bump under their shirts.  The shape of a pop bottle would take form with the movements of their bodies.  I assumed it to be alcohol of some kind but after seeing one boy pull a green bottle from his sleeve with what looked like candle wax in the bottom I realized it wasn’t so.  A few minutes later clarity came as I saw one boy bow his head tucking his mouth and nose into the collar of his shirt.  I realized very quickly this must be glue.  We had talked about the addictive qualities of this mystery substance before in our conversations about street children but I had never quite understood.  Now it came at me like a swift slap in the face.  Some boys hid it in their sleeves or their shirts while others blatantly took huffs without even the slightest effort to conceal it.  The game never really even happened because of the state of the older boys.  They played for a few minutes running hard up and down the field before stopping to run to the sidelines to take another huff.  Some even played with their bottles up their sleeves.  I have never seen such lose of self-control.  It wasn’t even that they had lost their self-control.  It was all control.  They all floated there, their bodies swaying, slurred words and tapering laughs.  Their bodies seemed to wait for the relief of a collapse so that they could take a break from the fumes and breath in the air in place.  The younger boys hated them.  They moved farther and farther away until the two groups were completely segregated across the park.  They could see now what they could have turned out to be.  They did not want it.  They did not want to live a life controlled by a little plastic bottle their bodies and minds wasting away with every breath.  I never understood what this center was taking these kids away from.  I saw today what it was and I never want to have to see it again.

Maria