Alright folks,
This week was crazy so I'm just going to get right into it. First of all, this week was a little traumatic. So this week for the most part was a week much like the others. We still don't have any amis and unfortunately last week quite a few of our lessons fell through with less actives or recent converts. Here are the stories for the week...
One day this week we were porting (tracting) in a neighbor hood when all of a sudden I heard a noise like a champagne bottle being popped open and then we see this bird drop out of the sky onto the road. At first I thought some kid had shot at it with a beebee gun but in fact my companion had been watching and saw it run into the lamp post. At first we were all sad because we thought it had killed itself but then as we approached it, it began blinking and then hopped up on its legs. It was still clearly not well though because it was wobbling back and forth and probably had a little birdie concussion. So Sr Hurst and I are standing there debating if we should do anything - specifically like move it over to the grass instead of in the middle of the road. But I was afraid we would scare it more into hurting itself if we tried to move it with paper and just observed that we were in a pretty tranquil neighborhood and maybe it would be fine after a couple of hours of recouperation. It was just as I finished that remark that a car rolled around the corner. Sr Hurst and I looked at each other panicked because we were in the middle of the street standing over the bird. But we had no choice but to step to the side of the road as the car approached - we couldn't make the car stop and then drive on the wrong side of the road because of a fallen bird. Especially since he would probably fly away as the car approached. I figured at worst the car would roll above the bird and then we could go move him over - after all the car was really large and the wheels only made up a small surface area. Imagine to my horror as the car began to approach and the bird didn't move, didn't lift up it's wings and fly away. And then worst of all that small surface area of tire rolled right over the same spot that the bird occupied. And I watched it all. And I screamed. But it was too late. The rest of the afternoon was a little more solemn after that.
Recently, Sr Hurst and I have been having difficulty with men hitting on us and just bothering us in general. We needed to find a computer to use for emailing during the middle of the week so she could write to a mission counselor. So we went to the same place that we go on Monday. It's a little sketchy. It's a little shop that sells cigarrettes, drinks, chips and conveniently offers computer access. A typical little cyber store. Unfortunately the clients are usually rough men who start drinking much to early in the day. On this particular day there were a couple of these men sitting at the table watching horse races when we took our positions at computers near the table. We then passed the next hour being whispered at and brokenly spoken to in English. At one point, one of the men tapped on the window nearest us to motion that he wanted us to come out and talk to him. No way in the world. It was crazy. There were like 4 men all trying to engage us in conversation by yelling "Miss! Miss! Mademoiselle! Ello! Bonjour!" It was not the friendliest environment in the world but we got what we needed to done and then booked it out of here.
The worst story... So this saturday there was another missionary activity at the church. We have one once a month and the members come out for part of their day to do missionary work with us whether that be porting or contacting in the streets. We went out for the morning session and came back to close the activity when tragedy struck. There were two youth brothers who were messing around playing in the bathrooms and all of a sudden we heard one of them screaming and I began to make out his words as "He cut his finger! He cut his finger!" All the ward members ran into the hall and we stayed in the room but could tell something super serious had happened. We could hear the boy crying and yelling and I imagined that somehow he must have cut himself to the bone. My companion and another woman in the ward didn't dare go out in the hall because they were squeamish and might faint but I realized that we had a very small very basic first aid kit in our car. I asked the woman of the branch if they already had supplies like that in the church and she told us she didn't think so. I decided I could at least go get it and then offer it to whoever to see if it could help. When I went out in the hall it was even worse than I had thought. The 16 year old boy was laying on the ground, his head cradled by another brother in the church, while the boy clutched at his hand. There was a pool of blood about 4 diameters in size on the ground and it was evident why. On the boy's right hand, the fingernail and first knuckle of his index finger had been severed completely. I ran to get the first aid kit - offered it blindly to someone and then tried to calm his younger 14 year old brother who was nearly in hysterics. The two had been playing in the doors and the older brother had gotten his finger caught in the door jamb and it had been instantly and violently severed. We waited nearly half an hour for the ambulance to arrive and for the brothren to clear up the mess before we left. I learned I wasn't squeamish from blood but the amount of suffering that I had seen had made my heart sick. The boy had been in such anguish and it was hard not to leave feeling chocked and a little traumatized.
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