If you read this blog regularly, I talk a lot about what it's like to be out in the streets of the West End at night. Here's a quick video, of someone taking a stroll up the West End on a summer night. (Warning: There are a few brief shots of scantily clad women...but that's the West End!)
I wanted to share in detail about one of my favorite nights in the West End of Ibiza. It was crazy, wild and totally unpredictable! I remember after this particular night when I got home, I wrote about it in detail in my journal, so that I wouldn't forget anything!
It was a Thursday night...at around 4:30am. We were actually done for the evening, and getting ready to head home. There was a 2 week mission team working with us, and we'd just sent them back to their hotel for the evening. After they left, we got a call on the batphone. During the summer, we give out cards with our number to workers from the local bars and clubs, and to people we meet on the streets. Usually if we get a call on that specific phone, it's someone calling for help. It was a simple call, so 2 of the team headed off to solve the issue, while the rest of us waited. Once they returned, we locked up, and prepared to head home.
On our way to the van, we were stopped by a group of prostitutes. They'd found a woman passed out in an alley, and pointed her out to us. We were able to wake her, and determine where her hotel was. It was in walking distance so we helped her up, and proceeded to walk her back to her hotel.
On the way, we bumped into a young lady named Jenny. I'd never met her before, but she worked in one of the bars in the west end. She pulled me to the side, and just wanted to say thank you. She'd seen the work that 24/7 Ibiza had been doing, and she wanted me to know that she thought it was great. As we were chatting two of her friends joined us. A girl and a guy. That's when the conversation got really interesting. The guy really wanted to know why I was there doing what I was doing. And he wasn't just asking in a flippant way. He really wanted to understand what my motivation was. So not only did I get to tell him why I'd come all the way from America to work with 24/7 Ibiza, I also got to share my testimony with him and the two girls. We spent about 15 minutes talking about God, Christianity, and the Church.
During our conversation, a few of my team members managed to get the girl we'd found in the alley back to her hotel. And now they'd returned. My conversation with Jenny and her friends was winding down, when suddenly chaos broke out.
Several things happened at once.
A group of 5 ladies ran buy us in a hurry (we think running from the police). There was lots of screaming and yelling, and as we glanced down the alley to see what all the commotion was about, we see two people take a pretty hard fall into the street. They'd been accidentally shoved by one of the girls who was running. We rush down to see if they're okay, and there we meet a couple that's on vacation. They've both taken drugs and are pretty out of it. Eventually we'll determine that they've taken ketamine, which is a pretty popular drug on the island. It's not a pretty sight. We find out where they're staying and ask if they want help getting back to their hotel, which isn't far. The boyfriend tells us they're fine, and that they can make it on their own. But it's very obvious to us, that they are not okay...
We hang back a bit watching from a distance. The girlfriend is in a really bad way, not able to stand, and her boyfriend is really in no condition to help her. At one point he is walking away (towards their hotel) and she is left sitting on the curb. We try again to help, but they decline, so we have to leave them. I really hate this, but we can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped...
Little do we know that we'll run into them again very soon...
Since there's nothing else we can do, we decide to head home. On our way back to the van, we run into two workers that I've gotten to know pretty well over the summer...
To be continued...
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