After a run of illness, culminating with Kenneth being very ill with pneumonia over Christmas, a broken laptop and an annoyingly erratic Internet Service Provider we are finally back. As soon as I get my act together I'll post photos of our Christmas parties.
Life at the Secret Garden continues to keep us all busy and never bored. Yesterday the first half of the day was quiet with only a few children and two women from the homeless shelter coming, but at 1500 with the arrival of the street folks the relative peace quickly disappeared. We did a random control for solvent which resulted in 5 being sent away (we have a strict rule that no alcohol or solvent) enters the premises ... three went quietly, as they say but the less said about the other two the better!
One of our boys (I'll call him Marcus) arrived clutching his neck and covered in blood, having cut his own throat. After an initial few moments of panic a closer look showed me that the wound wasn't as deep as it first appeared. Marcus refused to go to hospital and in the absence of a medical person at the centre at the time, I had to clean him up and pull the wound together with adhesive strips and then put a sterile dressing on. Marcus has been having a rough time the last few days and he was so sad that I found myself crying with him as I cleaned him up. What kind of a life is it for these young people?
