redlight district

Went with David to meet Father Heinz last night at the university. We walked from there to the redlight district (only a few blocks away). Father Heinz carried the huge bag of medicine, David was responsible for the biscuits (cookies), and Lo and I were handling the condom distribution. this particular "redlight district" is basically a shanty town... a community of huts built with scrap wood and whatever other materials the people could scrounge up. they are all connected with little tunnels to navigate between doorways. it is such a maze!! and the living conditions make the street we're living on in Basak look like upper class housing - i don't even know how to describe the smell of the stuffy quarters we were wandering through... the smell of extreme poverty?

It is also challenging to navigate due to the rubbish and puddles and people everywhere... you're looking down trying to avoid stepping on huge cockroaches or in puddles of who-knows-what disgusting liquid, and at the same time you have to watch your head because you're so much taller than most of the locals and their rusted tin roofs jut out with sharp corners at eye level (we survived unscathed but that's not to say there weren't close calls). you're forced to be totally alert the entire time and you feel a little paranoid constantly wondering, "what just brushed against my arm?" and "am i going to get a disease from that?". the place is soooo filthy!! (sorry mom :) I'm guessing you don't like to hear these details! - i took a loooong shower after if that helps)

Immediately upon entering the "town square", for lack of a better term, everyone greets Father Heinz "hi fadder" and the women and children take his hand and press it to their foreheads. a lot of the children do the same with us, they believe we are blessing them. we are soon surrounded by a swarm of kids, all ages, taking our hands and tugging our arms - it is a bit overwhelming but you cant resist because they are all so sweet and happy and they just want attention, which we give them :) the crowd around Father Heinz has an agenda, and each child points our (or fabricates) a scrape or bruise that requires medicine. He takes note of each complaint and distributes a drop of ointment on the fingers of the children for them to apply to said "wound" :) fortunately we didn't really see any children with serious injuries, most were just seeking attention.

The two things you hear the most from the locals along the street (remember how everyone stares, that hasn't stopped), are "hi"/"hello" and "you are beautiful", usually in that order. men and women and children alike announce this to lo and me, and we generally laugh because we are shiny with sweat, our hair is frizzy from the humidity, and we haven't put on an ounce of makeup since arriving. but they see the color of our skin and they think it is beautiful, and they tell you that (though we are even more envious of their beautiful bronzed skin :)

We toured around the huts, stopping periodically to listen to complaints and treat with the medicine we had available. the women who come up to us with hands out receive a pack of cookies and a condom of their choice (the choice being red or blue aka strawberry or plain), and believe me, the majority of them have a preference. Father Heinz instructed us that special women get the frenzy condoms - better than the others for reasons unclear to us - we weren't sure how we would distinguish the "special girls" from the swarms with outstretched hands, but they made themselves known by demanding those condoms by name. we saw illegal gambling, many women and men high, and one woman with track marks soooo severe her scarring was noticeable even in the dim lighting of the alleys.

we were introduced to many of the girls, most sit in small plastic chairs along the streets hanging out with friends and texting... lots of texting. when a car or taxi pulls up with a client inside the pimps and drug dealers make their way to the cracked windows of the car and begin negotiating while the girls race to stand in the headlights of the car waiting to be picked - it's awful to watch. but these girls don't seem unhappy or ashamed, i suppose because it is all that they know. many are born into it (if you ask the young girls living there - like the little elementary school aged girls - they will tell you they want to grow up to be a prostitute. if you ask the little boys - pimps). other girls are recruited from nearby cities and often deceived into thinking they'll be a waitress or work at a bar. some of the women, believe it or not, choose this lifestyle because it is a way to make money. the pimps usually get the girls addicted to drugs so that they accumulate debt and are forced to work as prostitutes to pay it off. unfortunately they are given such a small cut of the money that they rarely find their way out of debt. though we find it shocking, given the opportunity, many of the girls will not leave... as i mentioned, it is all that they know, their family and friends are there, and it is often their only skill... they simply cannot see a life outside of the one they have.

Father Heinz offers a safe house near the redlight district and rehab centers far away that the girls can be relocated to for safety should they choose to leave. most of the girls know about this (though he does not talk about it openly), and the pimps are informed as well but they turn a blind eye because the benefit of having Father Heinz visit is so great, even to them. It took him years to infiltrate the community. during his first visits the pimps would hide the girls and he could not do his work effectively. one night one of the pimps was hit by a car and Father Heinz was there to take him to the hospital... Father Heinz paid the medical bills for his surgery and word quickly spread to the community. from that moment Father Heinz was accepted and he has been building relationships there for years now (the only reason it is safe for us to go there).

we witnessed the routine several times of girls and pimps swarming the cars, and the clients from within picking and one or two or even three girls. we sat and talked with some of the girls (so young, many of them truly beautiful and innocent looking in their youth), they all smile at you. the little girls come up and already know that you have condoms in the bag and understand more about what goes on there than many educated adults. multiple clients a night and we only hand out one condom (we simply cannot give more, we don't have the resources). Father Heinz hands me his favorite little girl. she cant be more than two and she looks so sad. her mother left, he tells me, and now the community is raising her (to take her mother's place and pay off the debt that was left behind). she sits quietly in my arms and i cant even get her to smile... it is like she is a broken child and it breaks my heart. you want to just turn around and walk away with her, and keep walking until you find somewhere safe far from that life... you want to save her but you cant do anything. i can tell father Heinz wants to save her too, the way he holds on to her, hugs her, doesn't want to put her down, he gave her to me because he couldn't bear to give her back to them. i had to give her back to them... leave her there knowing exactly what her future holds for her: addiction, debt, disease, emotional trauma, physical trauma... and she is just one.