Damned if you do, damned if you...

The day after the in some ways farcical though deeply offensive situation and comments that arose from the night mentioned in a recent post, when one of the kids we're working with came to our residence at 10:00pm after spending a few days back on the street, wanting some food and perhaps an opportunity to go back to our Interim Care Centre (ICC) but in the end deciding to stay on the street for that night, I was a feeling quite despondent that I had not been able to convince him to go back. The boy in question - Stephen Maina - is an extremely bright, intelligent and very funny 15-year old with - on the surface - everything in the world going for him. He is somebody you can look at and imagine him becoming whatever he wants to become.

But then three days after taking him and some others to the cinema in Nairobi after a day of car washing to raise funds for a treat, a treat which none of them has ever done before (they had never seen a movie on anything but a TV previously, it was great to watch their faces), I first of all see him back on the street begging for money during the day, and then later that night at our gate, high on glue, and asking for food. Damn.

And then he came back the next night... The gate bell was answered by one of my housemates/colleagues, who then told me that Stephen was asking for me. I went out to the gate and was quite devastated by his appearance. He looked far worse than the night before, fairly obviously had not eaten much if anything over the past three or four days, and had the look of someone who hadn't washed at all over that time too. He first of all asked for some water - so he hadn't drunk much water either - and then said he wanted to go back to the ICC. As you might imagine I was quite relieved to hear this.

But first, never wanting to overstep my mark or go against the will of those who are actually employed by the organisation I'm a volunteer with, I attempted to call Josephine, the ICC manager, to inform her of the situation. Unfortunately, the call went unanswered. So, what to do?

Since I had had a similar situation the evening before, and on that occasion after a discussion she had agreed to try my idea (ie. taking Stephen back that night on the understanding that first thing in the morning he had to do something that had been asked of him), I figured there was nothing wrong with me taking him to the ICC and talking with Josephine whenever she called me back. Worse case scenario is we speak in the morning, she tells me that she has changed her mind and didn't want him back until he does what has been asked of him, but overall no real harm done. My other alternative was to send him back on the street for the night, which when you have someone in his condition asking to come back to our care, well... it's not a decision I could make with all good conscience. If I did, and anything at all happened to him, I could never forgive myself.

So we headed off to the ICC in our trusty old Subaru (well, old anyway...), my glances across to the forlorn figure next to me conveying my relief at developments. Then my mobile rang. It was Josephine returning my call, and this time, though I again strongly conveyed my feelings on the matter and that 11:00pm at night was not, I believed, the time to be drawing a line in the sand when it concerned a child's life, she put her foot down that she did not want Stephen returning to the ICC until he had done what she had asked.

So what had she asked of him, four days previously? The one major issue that Stephen has is that he can be rude and bully the younger boys at times. It obviously comes from his need to look out for himself while living on the streets, but obviously is not acceptable within day-to-day normal life and as such is obviously something that needs to be dealt with during his rehabilitation at the ICC. On this occasion, he had been involved with a fight with another boy, and Josephine had asked him to go home and bring his mother to discuss the situation. Stephen had returned to the streets rather than face his mother.

My view was that at 11:00pm at night, with him being hungry, dirty and obviously very depressed, that it would be no harm at all to allow him to wash and sleep at the ICC that night but then demand he does what was required of him first thing in the morning. As I said previously, asking him to return to the street that night with the chance that something could happen to him was not something I was comfortable with at all.

Josephine's position on the other hand was that she couldn't let the boys constantly take advantage of the different staff, and come and go from the centre whenever it pleased them, and that Stephen had to do as he was asked before he could return. While in some way I can understand her view, especially when we have a responsibility to more kids than just Stephen, I still do not agree with turning a child away late at night, that there is no hard and fast time to draw that line in the sand when you're talking about a child's life.

However, I was not going to go against a manager's final decision, so less than 100 metres from the ICC I stopped the car and told Stephen what had been decided. The look on his face wasn't so much sad as simply resigned to the turn of events. I seemed to be the one most distressed by the situation, Stephen perhaps used to a life full of these kinds of situations. I asked him if he would come back to the house in the morning, and I would go together with him to talk with his mother and bring her to the ICC. He said he would.

We drove slowly back to my place, where I got him a large plastic bottle and filled it with water. I then dove him into town to the area he would be sleeping. We pulled over. I looked across at Stephen's downcast face, and asked him again if he would come to the house the next morning. Again he said he would, but while a part of me was obviously glad to hear this commitment from him, another part of me was fearful of what might happen to him overnight. It's not as if he didn't have plenty of experience at sleeping on the streets, but still, what chance it would be that night - the night we turned him away when he was so desperate - what chance that night was when something serious happened to him? I watched him walk away from the car with hope, fear, sadness…

You can perhaps have some understanding of my relief the next morning when he arrived at our gate. He is now back at the ICC, and from all reports has improved in his behaviour to others. Time will tell if this event is the one that makes the difference, but I'm still of the belief that turning him - or any other child - away late at night like that was the wrong thing to do.