The Hardest Day in Nine Years of Travel

Yesterday I traveled through Africa, from Lusaka to Livingstone.

This month marks nine years since I started traveling the world. In all that time I have experienced many things, but yesterday was the first truly bad day on this journey.

Before you continue reading, I want to give a small warning. What happened yesterday was not pleasant, and the story may create disturbing images in your mind. If you are sensitive to that, you may want to stop reading here.

It is not a nice story, but I feel I have to share it.

A Symbol of the Day

I created the image for this post with AI because I do not have a photograph that could express this day. I cannot capture the sadness and emptiness I felt in any other way.

The image stands as a symbol of the emotions that went through me after everything that happened.

The travel story of the day itself will come in a separate blog post.

The Accident

I was sleeping on the bus when it suddenly slammed on the brakes and woke me up.

Something had fallen onto the road in front of us. At first I thought it was just a jacket. But when the bus slowed down and passed it, I realized it was a child.

I wanted to jump out immediately, but the bus slowly drove around the child and stopped about 100 meters further down the road.

I jumped out and ran back.

When I arrived, many people were standing around the child. But nobody was doing anything. For a moment I thought the child was already dead.

I knelt down beside him.

It was a little boy, maybe two or three years old. He looked at me with terrified eyes and then blinked.

In that moment I felt a small wave of relief. He was alive.

He was lying on his belly, his head twisted to the side. I gently placed my hand on his back and spoke to him in a calm voice, telling him that everything would be okay, even though I knew it might not be.

Then he started breathing and coughing blood.

There was blood everywhere around his head.

His jacket had been pushed up around his head while his back was only covered by a T-shirt. I carefully moved the jacket aside so he could breathe better.

That was when I saw how badly he was injured.

His head had deep cuts. I could see the white of his skull. It was not just one wound but several deep cuts where the skin had opened.

In that moment I thought there was nothing I could do. The injuries were so severe that I feared he might die.

The little boy looked at me with pure fear in his eyes.

And I kept asking myself:
Where is his mother?
Where is the police?
Where is an ambulance?

Finding His Mother

I decided to look for his mother because in that moment he needed her more than anything else.

She was the person who brought him into this world, and she was the one who could give him comfort.

I asked the people standing around where his mother was. A woman pointed into the bushes and said:

"There, the one screaming."

I walked over there. I did not want to be the person who had to talk to a mother who believed her child had just died.

Another woman was trying to calm her down. I spoke to her and said:

"Where is the mother? Bring her. The boy is alive and breathing."

She looked at me in disbelief and asked:

"He is alive?"

I told her yes, he was alive and breathing, and she had to bring the mother.

Back at the Road

When I returned to the boy, someone had covered him with a sheet.

I pulled the sheet away from his head so he could breathe.

His frightened eyes looked at me again.

Then I saw the other side of his head and face, and the injuries there were even worse. There were deeper cuts, and pieces of skin were hanging loose.

A woman told me she was a nurse. When I heard that, I stepped back.

I walked over to a police officer who was standing nearby in shock, just staring.

I told him he had to call a doctor immediately. The boy needed help fast.

The officer took out his phone and began to dial.

Leaving

As I walked back toward my bus, it had already started to move.

I ran and jumped back inside.

There was nothing more I could do.

A Hope

I truly hope that the little boy reached the hospital quickly and that the doctors were able to save him.

I hope that despite everything that happened yesterday, he was lucky.

And that somewhere right now, as I write these words, he is recovering.