Today I traveled through Africa — from Lusaka to Livingstone.
It was a difficult day, the first truly bad day since I started traveling. This month marks nine years on the road for me, and today I experienced something I feel I have to share.
But before you continue reading, I want to give a small warning. What happened today was not pleasant, and the story may create disturbing images in your mind. If you are sensitive to that, you might want to stop reading here.
It is not an easy story to tell, but I feel it is important to share it.
Thank you for understanding.
I was sleeping when the bus suddenly slammed on the brakes and woke me up. Something had dropped onto the road in front of us, and at first I thought it was just a jacket. When the bus stopped, I looked again and realized it was a child.
I wanted to jump out immediately, but the driver slowly steered the bus around the child and then stopped about 100 meters further down the road. I jumped out and ran back.
When I reached the spot, a lot of 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 he blinked. That moment brought a wave of relief — he was alive.
He was lying on his stomach, 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 covered only by a T-shirt. I carefully moved the jacket aside so he could breathe more easily. When I did, I saw how badly his head was injured. His head was covered in deep cuts. I could see the white of his skull. It wasn’t just one wound — there were many deep cuts where the skin had been torn open.
At that moment I thought there was nothing I could do. He was so badly hurt that I feared he might die from his injuries. He stared at me with pure fear in his eyes. I kept wondering: where was his mother? Where was the police? Where was an ambulance?
I decided to look for his mother, because in that moment he needed her more than anything. She was the one 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. I didn’t want to be the person who had to speak to a mother who believed her child had just died. I saw another woman trying to calm her down, so I said to that woman, “Where is the mother? Bring her. The boy is alive and breathing.”
She looked at me in disbelief and asked, “He’s alive?”
“Yes,” I said. “He’s alive and breathing. Bring his mother.”
Then I walked back 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. When I saw the other side of his head and face, I realized the injuries were even worse than I first thought. There were more cuts, deeper ones, and pieces of skin were hanging loose.
A woman told me she was a nurse. Hearing that, I stepped back and walked away.
I stopped in front of a police officer who was standing there in shock, just staring. I told him to call a doctor — the boy needed a doctor immediately. The officer took out his phone and began to dial.
As I walked back to my bus, it started to move. I ran and jumped back inside.
I really hope that little boy reached the hospital quickly and that the doctors were able to save him. There was nothing more I could do. I just hope that somehow, despite everything, he had a lucky day and is now recovering somewhere as I write this.
I created this image with AI because I don’t have a real photo that could express this day. I cannot capture the sadness and emptiness I feel in any other way.
The image stands as a symbol of the emotions that went through me after everything that happened.
I will share the story of the day and the journey itself in a separate blog post.