Yesterday, we were due to go to a very poor part of the city, where there’s a large community of street people, all alcoholics, druggies, etc… I’ve been before, a lovely lady doctor, Ana Bustos, takes food to them every Friday. Sadly there was confusion over just where it was.. all the streets here are numbered, ‘streets’ (calles) go one way, and roads (carreras) the other. And many are very, very long…. so it’s pretty inportant not to get yer calles and carreras wrong! Yesterday, it happened: we SHOULD have been directed to Calle 44 with Carrera 2da. Instead, the guys got taken to Carrera 44 with Calle 2 – a totally different part of the city….

BUT… they went to ‘Reconocer’, the Christian Drug Rehab centre, run by my good friend Enrique Leal. I’d planned for just Caroline and the Irish guys to go, and they had a great time, praying for all of the ‘recoverees’, one who gave his life to Jesus. Reconocer is a wonderful place (formerly a house owned by the Rodriguez brothers, the second largest cartel in the world at the time, now ‘redeemed’ as a drug centre!). Enrique loves the residents with a passion, and the presence of God in that house is tangible. My little team of troupers loved it….

Then, home: it’s been blisteringly hot here this trip, and, though I drink litres of water a day here, last night was a bit odd…. I’ll let the guys write the next bit, as I really don’t recall much of it….

On our arrival home we were excited to tell Paul about our time at the rehab, although as he approached the sitting area we were unsure what was going on as he seemed to be staggering towards us rather than walking. His first sentence was more of a blubber, and sounded something along the lines of ‘asdfghj’ (if you try to pronounce it – it’s probably similar to what Paul said) in response we all erupted into laughter, after his second and third attempt to speak we laughed so much we were almost crying. However, soon after we began to wonder if something was wrong or if Paul was drunk, and the laughter faded. Grace and Pete were convinced Paul was having a stroke, and we all began to worry, but still giggling in between the laughter. I suggested Pete should get Paul a drink of water and when he went into give Paul the drink he appeared to be asleep on a little wooden chair, and again he said ‘tgjhv’ at which Pete laughed and handed him the water, the change was almost instant and it became clear that Paul was neither drunk or having a stroke, but was in fact just dehydrated, PHEW!

I drank water during the day… but never would I have believed that dehydration would hit so quickly or so bizarrely….. never been dehydrated before, hope never to be again!