It was a rabbit warren of cement block walls, dirty dusty streets and block houses that were about 15x15 with metal roofs and fabric doors. When we showed up in the center of town, all the children ran up to see us and touch us. We sat in a large circle to watch the play and I must have had ten children hanging off of me! It was so much fun! They thought my skin and blue veins were funny and kept touching my hands.
At one point all the drunk teenage/20 year old boys who had been playing soccer came up behind us at the circle and started to get a little pushy and rowdy. It was a little nerve wracking, but the community elders were able to shut them up.
After the little play, the theater group kept calling us doctors, and had trouble explaining that we were speech therapists. When we asked people to come to our tent to be seen, we had quite a motley crew of speech disorders and cerebral palsy as well as a kid who got hit by a car, a lady with sciatica, and a kid with a really deep 3 inch wound on his leg.
Amazingly enough, one of the community's women invited us into her home. It was about 15x15 and had a TV and a small fridge. She was very proud of it!
It was quite an experience. One of younger therapists cried the whole time because of the poverty. As we left, kids ran next to the van, or hung onto the van in the back. We thought they were going to get hurt!
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