STORIES FROM VON'S JOURNAL: BOOK 3

DOCTOR VON: (10/93) By now it was late. Our generator was turned off. It was dark. Everything had quieted down. The kids were heading home. Our van's were gone. A few of the gang were huddled in groups in the dark around our Bola building. I was cleaning out my van for the return trip to San Diego. My small dome light was on as I tried to clean and rearrange the back area of my van. Two or three kids were standing by my open door watching me when Oskar was brought in. Oskar was a nice looking boy of about twelve. His right eye was bleeding ... it didn't look bad ... just bleeding. The kids said he ran into the barbed wire fence. He stood there looking at me trickling blood as I grabbed a Kleenex and some tap water and cleaned his eye off. The eyelid had a big rip in it. A lot worse than I had thought ... but it wasn't bleeding much. A little lower and he would have punctured his eye. It's times like these that you have to quickly assemble what you know about medicine, surgery and mix it with a liberal amount of common sense then take action. Trying to find a Doctor of any kind at this time of night would be near impossible. What he needed was a plastic surgeon. I figured a general Doctor would only make matters worse by trying to stitch the wound with a too large suture ... worse yet with a piece of thread. So we took Oskar to his house a short distance away, laid him down on his poor hard makeshift bed and placed somewhat of a pillow under his head ... I then pressed the soft torn flesh in place ... and watched it for a while. It stopped bleeding. Armed with a candle and kleenex, I instructed his mother to keep watch all night. I gave Oskar's mother $20.00 to take him the next day to get a tetanus shot and walked to my van tired ... more tired that usual. I climbed into the van and headed down the dusty dirt road toward the long trip home. Another day in Grupo. Last night, two weeks later, I saw Oskar ... his eye looked great. You could hardly tell that his eyelid was damaged. He hugged me. That night was a good night.

JOSE: 10/93 I saw him leaning against Mark's van. I couldn't see him well. It was dark and the bouncing glare from an oncoming car obscured my vision. From inside the van I heard Mark call out ... "do you recognize him?" I looked close and then I recognized him. It had been a long time. over twenty years since I had seen Jose. Rose Park Orphanage was where I first met he and his younger brother Jorge. Jose as an eleven year old boy was tall for his age and wore glasses. He was studious and quiet. A serious boy. Jose was interested in engineering. He studied hard left the orphanage and went on to college ... that's where I lost track of him. Jose is now thirty six years old and married for twelve years, with two children. He is now an engineer and a big contractor. In fact a very wealthy young man by Mexican standards. He had made something of his life ... I was proud of him. We reminisced a little ... he reminded me of a significant time in his young life when I took he and several other boys from Rose Park over to another orphanage, a rather poor one, and had them wash the feet of the younger kids. He also remembered putting medicine on the sores of several of the children. It's fascinating what people remember ... and more fascinating as to why they remember it. That day made a lasting impression on his life. As we talked he mentioned his concern for the many teens in Tijuana turning to crime. What could he do about it? How could he help? Here is a story of a boy who turned out right ... I only wish there were more stories like that.

BUY THE BABY: (10/92) The line wasn't long. The ladies stood on the dirt road with their children in line along the side of my V.W. Van to get medical help. For the most part the women were poor, tired and cold. This was their opportunity to see the "Doctora". Every three weeks we are in their area. My little van is the consulting room for our Mexican Doctor Maria Elina. A young mother with her sick infant boy climbed inside my van to see the "Doctora". Her baby, she said, had diarrhea and vomited constantly. He couldn't take any milk or even water. When the doctor inspected the infant, he was dehydrated and more dead than alive. This was an emergency. She knew she had to have a hospital and a specialist and fast! So she asked one of our Mexican teen age boys to help her ... they jumped into her car with the infant and mother ... then headed down the hill ... fast. As they neared the city she commandeered a police officer to give her escort to the hospital, and to the Hospital they went with a screaming siren and lights blazing. When they came into the emergency room there was no doctor around. They asked for a doctor and were told that there was none. Then the police officer intervened. He took out his pistol and pointed it at the roof and said, "get us a doctor and fast!" Would you believe ... they found a doctor, a room and placed the child in the emergency care! Last Thursday we saw the young mother again. She was happy ... yet sad. The good news! Her little boy was alive and getting better. The bad news! She didn't have the money to get the child out of the hospital and take him home. We scraped together the $150 bill and now he is home with his mother. (The baby's sickness: " Chigla" ...)