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xp_logsScenes from a Red Cross camp
Alagiri Swaminathan adjusted his baseball cap. It was very important to him, as it was the cap of the Yokohama Bay Stars. Alagiri had never seen a game in his life, but Dr. Nishi's younger brother played for them, and he had sat listening to him recreate games in the dirt for him, reading from the box scores over the internet. Cricket and football were what his friends had played, but Alagiri had decided that they were children's games, because Ryouji Nishi was the person he most admired in the world, and the doctor only cared about baseball.
Setting the cap firmly in place, he squeezed around the various tents and knots of people, amazed at how full the camp was. His parents had been killed three years ago by a bomb, and Alagiri had come to live with his eldest sister, who had just been hired as a nurse by the Red Cross. She was young, worked long hours, and wasn't always around, but in such a place, the rotating aide workers and medical personnel had become his extended family. When Dr. Nishi had offered to show him how to throw a baseball properly - three-quarter arm slot and straight, not down like bowling - he had found a new hero and proudly pledged to his sister that he was going to be a doctor one day. Or a pitcher. He had time to decide.
The main secondary medical tent was equally full, and urgency and fear battled for control. All around, the Red Cross staff had been stretched to the limit to both provide aid and keep order in the camp, and the sightings of soldiers in the trees and the occasional sounds of gun shots and explosions keep the camp tense and on edge. He squeezed between a bed and a workstation to find Dr. Nishi.
"Doctor, you said I could help." He said slowly. Nishi spoke some Tamil, and had gotten much better in his time at the camp, but still needed to be spoken slowly.
Ryouji Nishi looked down at the boy for a second and wiped his face. He was coming to the end of his shift, and the grinding pressure was getting to him. The young Japanese doctor managed a smile for the boy, and bent down stiffly.
"Go see Paula. She needs people to help run water to the work crews." He said in oddly accented Tamil, and Alagiri nodded. He disappeared out of the tent, and ended up in front of the trio of wells the camp used for water, and the new water purification system the strange people had brought. His sister had tried to explain mutants to him, but finally settled on calling them 'Americans', which was bizarre enough for the boy. There, he found several other kids his own age waiting, and the camp's main engineer passing out portable carryalls filled with fresh water and a drinking cup.
"Get each work group, make sure they have a cup each, and come back for more. Alagiri, I need to you take water to the Red-X group. The Americans who brought the system. Can you find them all?" Alagiri nodded solemnly, and was weighted down with a carryall. "Good. Come back when you need more water."
He settled the carryall more comfortably on his shoulder and considered before dashing off. He knew who to serve first.
***
Thick loamy earth crumbled beneath her hands as she dug, her hardened skin twice as effective as the shovels the other workers were using. The trenches for the latrines needed to be several feet deep in order to prevent contamination and disease and with the camp filling up rapidly, they were having to dig new pits almost every dap to keep up with the demand. Yvette worked furiously, trying not to think of the decreasing space around her, the growing crowds of people, the increasing desperation...
"Hoy, little girl!" called one of the other workers in his thickly accented English, and she paused, covered in dirt and panting slightly in the heat, to see what he wanted. The man gestured to a young boy standing at the edge of the trench, water carryall on his shoulder. He seemed a little uncertain, casting surreptitious glances at her hair and hands and she smiled as best she could with her face stiffening with her powers. The boy gave her a small, cautious smile in return, and held out a drinking cup of water.
"Thank you," Yvette said, not sure if the boy spoke English. She approached the edge of the hole and began to reach for the cup, before realising her hands would destroy the thin plastic. Flustered, she pulled back and looked up at the boy with a certain amount of helplessness.
He looked down at her hands, and then nodded, his smile growing. Crouching at the edge of the trench, he held the cup to her lips, nodding for her to drink. Her skin roughed up the edge of the cup as she drank, but it stayed intact, and the boy was careful not to tilt it too far. When she was done, he was beaming at her encouragingly, and said something in Tamil.
"I am sorry, I do not understand," she said regretfully. "But thank you for helping me."
The boy grinned again and took off, water bag bouncing on his hip. The worker who spoke a small amount of English called to her: "He say, 'he glad to be help'," he explained.
Yvette looked after the boy, eyes glowing softly. "So am I," she murmured, and set about digging again.
***
The boy approached the shining woman a bit slowly. She opened crates with her oddly shaped hands, one after another. She seemed to be working alone. Alagiri waited until her hands reformed into something more like hands before he called out.
The woman stopped and turned to face him, head tilted as if in curiosity. Alagiri held up the cup and water container with a grin. She gave him an answering smile and stopped her work.
She held her fingers apart an inch and said something. Alagiri obliged and poured a small amount of water into a cup. He held it up with a sound of inquiry.
Her smile widened and she took the cup. It sounded like she gave a thanks, but the boy was already on his way.
***
Things were chaotic around the main medical tent, and Alagiri was careful to stay out from under the feet of the people seemingly everywhere. It was as he was avoiding a particularly large group that he saw her, the Red-X volunteer he'd been looking for. She appeared to be taking a break, her arms loose at her sides as her eyes moved restlessly. Sun seemed to glint in her long blonde hair and Alagiri wondered if she brushed it as much as his mother had. It was a thing girls with long hair did, was it not? He wondered what she saw when she looked at this place, and whether she might like baseball. Maybe she would speak his language, and he could ask her all these things.
He walked quickly towards her, not wanting her to go back inside the tent before he could give her water. He was to deliver water to all the Red-X volunteers this day and having to wait till she wasn't busy could take forever.
"Miss?" he asked in Tamil, slowing his speech as he would for Dr. Nishi, just in case.
She started slightly, as if coming out of a trance and frowned at him in a somewhat alarming way. Had he done something wrong? This American was strange surely, if a polite question could make her frown in such a way.
She spoke, and her accent was thick, and her words confusing. Obviously, she did not speak Tamil, or she would not be attempting to speak to him in what must be English. Alagiri frowned back at her, wondering how best to get her to understand what he wanted. He was nothing if not resourceful however and he smiled as an idea came to him.
Holding up the portable carryall, he mimed pouring water into one of the cups, and then gestured at her with it as if to hand it over. He could see from the dawning look of understanding on her face that he'd been successful. She smiled at him and he grinned back at her, unable to help himself. He wasn't sure what it was about her, but just being here, near by her, felt peaceful, as if the chaos around them was but a small thing, quickly dispersed.
Now was not a time for wondering about such things however, as he had a job to do. He handed her the cup, and carefully poured out a measure of the water, not a single drop missing its intended destination. She spoke to him again, and he smiled at her, wondering what she'd said, but he supposed it might be thanks or something along those lines.
She finished drinking and handed him back the cup, her head turning to look back inside the medical tent, before she turned back to him and gave him a nod of what must be thanks.
"You are welcome." he said in Tamil, before turning and walking quickly away. He had other Red-X volunteers to see and there would be time later perhaps to ask the Red-X volunteers questions. Maybe Dr. Nishi could translate for him, if he was persuasive, he had so many things he wanted to ask, especially about baseball.
***
Normally, flying cheered Angel up but the view from the skies that day...she shook her head as she angled herself down towards the ground. She'd been asked to get an eye view of the camp so they could relay it to the workers. It was a shame she didn't have a camera that could survive both the flight and the heat but she'd made some mental notes of where the people were gathered the most and the activity outside of the gates. The information was proving to be very useful in coordinating efforts in the overly crowded camp.
She came down in a lazy circle until she neared the dusty ground. Then it was just a matter of swinging her legs down to prevent a nasty landing…
One of the aid workers was standing nearby - she'd been the one to send Angel up that day, with strict instructions to only go so high and only straight up. Not out towards the perimeter of the camp and she hadn't been willing to stray from the instructions at all. Angel had expected her to be there when she got back to take the information but there was someone else as well.
Despite her exhaustion and the situation, she couldn't help but break out into a broad smile at the look on the boys face when she touched down. She remembered to extinguish the fire before she approached.
"For me?" she asked, pointing at the water enthusiastically. She might not be affected by the heat but she had to remember to keep the water coming.
"This is Alagiri," the older woman said, turning towards the boy. She spoke to him in Tamil and Angel caught her name.
Alagiri handed over the water and she happily drained the entire cup. He paused, eyeing her, and then gave her another one. Angel drank that one a little slower, feeling better when she had finished. Now, if only he'd had a sandwich on him somewhere…
"Thanks," she said and then winked, hiding her hand from the aid worker as she summoned a little ball of flame as she handed the cup back. To Alagiri's delight, she made it dance a little before the other woman's sharp look made her extinguish it. Angel shot her the best innocent look she could conjure.
Between the water and the grins of delight she was sharing with Alagiri, Angel suddenly felt a little better. She waved as he ran off and then turned back.
"Come, Angel, I need to hear what you saw."
Her shoulders slumped a little. So much for that.
***
Callisto knelt by the water pump, slipping her loose, dark shirt from her right shoulder and pressing her freshly soaked compress to the wound, dabbing at it firmly. The wound had healed for the most part but with her continued physical labour she was constantly reopening the knitting flesh. The big danger, always, was getting dirt caught. The infection she could fight off but it was touch and go with her whether foreign objects would work their way out, or just sit and fester and irritate - her mutation was nothing if not a little unreliable at times. She had a feeling it had something to do with stress, or general health, or...
Her real worry was the other inhabitants of the camp. There was a lot of infection here, a lot of injury and ill health, and she felt quite sure that with an open wound herself she would not be allowed near some, mutant or not - the Red Cross had, she was sure 'policies' on such things, especially in a country where information just wasn't yet known about the obviously growing prevalence of AIDS and HIV. They'd all been given protocol documentation before arriving at the camp, but Callisto had barely scanned hers. So until it was gone, it had to remain hidden so that her movements remained unhindered.
There was a voice next to her, and she glance up quickly, shoulder automatically hunching to attempt to hide her wound. A boy stood there with what appeared to be a water-jug, obviously empty. He observed her with wide, slightly fearful eyes, his gaze darting between her and the pump. Callisto stood and moved back a little to let the kid in to refill his pitcher at the recently mended device, the echoing drum of the water filter bubbling happily as it decanted. Very aware that he was currently being watched by the woman who had installed the purification system, Alagiri carefully refilled the top chamber of the filter from the pump before standing back.
Following this the boy's instinct was to run away, until he remembered himself. This skinny woman with the scarred face was one of the volunteers, and he had not yet offered her something to drink.
Callisto's face twisted in a slight smile as the kid proffered the pitcher, and she shook her head, gesturing to the filter. Of course - she was right here, why would she need to deplete Alagiri's own supply? Blushing, Alagiri stepped back and shot Callisto a sheepish grin. The tall woman tipped her head to one side curiously, but made no comment, not even in her own unintelligible language. After a pause, the boy nodded politely, turned, and had disappeared off once more between rows of tents.
She brushed off her pants, then her hands. This dust got everywhere.
Alagiri Swaminathan adjusted his baseball cap. It was very important to him, as it was the cap of the Yokohama Bay Stars. Alagiri had never seen a game in his life, but Dr. Nishi's younger brother played for them, and he had sat listening to him recreate games in the dirt for him, reading from the box scores over the internet. Cricket and football were what his friends had played, but Alagiri had decided that they were children's games, because Ryouji Nishi was the person he most admired in the world, and the doctor only cared about baseball.
Setting the cap firmly in place, he squeezed around the various tents and knots of people, amazed at how full the camp was. His parents had been killed three years ago by a bomb, and Alagiri had come to live with his eldest sister, who had just been hired as a nurse by the Red Cross. She was young, worked long hours, and wasn't always around, but in such a place, the rotating aide workers and medical personnel had become his extended family. When Dr. Nishi had offered to show him how to throw a baseball properly - three-quarter arm slot and straight, not down like bowling - he had found a new hero and proudly pledged to his sister that he was going to be a doctor one day. Or a pitcher. He had time to decide.
The main secondary medical tent was equally full, and urgency and fear battled for control. All around, the Red Cross staff had been stretched to the limit to both provide aid and keep order in the camp, and the sightings of soldiers in the trees and the occasional sounds of gun shots and explosions keep the camp tense and on edge. He squeezed between a bed and a workstation to find Dr. Nishi.
"Doctor, you said I could help." He said slowly. Nishi spoke some Tamil, and had gotten much better in his time at the camp, but still needed to be spoken slowly.
Ryouji Nishi looked down at the boy for a second and wiped his face. He was coming to the end of his shift, and the grinding pressure was getting to him. The young Japanese doctor managed a smile for the boy, and bent down stiffly.
"Go see Paula. She needs people to help run water to the work crews." He said in oddly accented Tamil, and Alagiri nodded. He disappeared out of the tent, and ended up in front of the trio of wells the camp used for water, and the new water purification system the strange people had brought. His sister had tried to explain mutants to him, but finally settled on calling them 'Americans', which was bizarre enough for the boy. There, he found several other kids his own age waiting, and the camp's main engineer passing out portable carryalls filled with fresh water and a drinking cup.
"Get each work group, make sure they have a cup each, and come back for more. Alagiri, I need to you take water to the Red-X group. The Americans who brought the system. Can you find them all?" Alagiri nodded solemnly, and was weighted down with a carryall. "Good. Come back when you need more water."
He settled the carryall more comfortably on his shoulder and considered before dashing off. He knew who to serve first.
***
Thick loamy earth crumbled beneath her hands as she dug, her hardened skin twice as effective as the shovels the other workers were using. The trenches for the latrines needed to be several feet deep in order to prevent contamination and disease and with the camp filling up rapidly, they were having to dig new pits almost every dap to keep up with the demand. Yvette worked furiously, trying not to think of the decreasing space around her, the growing crowds of people, the increasing desperation...
"Hoy, little girl!" called one of the other workers in his thickly accented English, and she paused, covered in dirt and panting slightly in the heat, to see what he wanted. The man gestured to a young boy standing at the edge of the trench, water carryall on his shoulder. He seemed a little uncertain, casting surreptitious glances at her hair and hands and she smiled as best she could with her face stiffening with her powers. The boy gave her a small, cautious smile in return, and held out a drinking cup of water.
"Thank you," Yvette said, not sure if the boy spoke English. She approached the edge of the hole and began to reach for the cup, before realising her hands would destroy the thin plastic. Flustered, she pulled back and looked up at the boy with a certain amount of helplessness.
He looked down at her hands, and then nodded, his smile growing. Crouching at the edge of the trench, he held the cup to her lips, nodding for her to drink. Her skin roughed up the edge of the cup as she drank, but it stayed intact, and the boy was careful not to tilt it too far. When she was done, he was beaming at her encouragingly, and said something in Tamil.
"I am sorry, I do not understand," she said regretfully. "But thank you for helping me."
The boy grinned again and took off, water bag bouncing on his hip. The worker who spoke a small amount of English called to her: "He say, 'he glad to be help'," he explained.
Yvette looked after the boy, eyes glowing softly. "So am I," she murmured, and set about digging again.
***
The boy approached the shining woman a bit slowly. She opened crates with her oddly shaped hands, one after another. She seemed to be working alone. Alagiri waited until her hands reformed into something more like hands before he called out.
The woman stopped and turned to face him, head tilted as if in curiosity. Alagiri held up the cup and water container with a grin. She gave him an answering smile and stopped her work.
She held her fingers apart an inch and said something. Alagiri obliged and poured a small amount of water into a cup. He held it up with a sound of inquiry.
Her smile widened and she took the cup. It sounded like she gave a thanks, but the boy was already on his way.
***
Things were chaotic around the main medical tent, and Alagiri was careful to stay out from under the feet of the people seemingly everywhere. It was as he was avoiding a particularly large group that he saw her, the Red-X volunteer he'd been looking for. She appeared to be taking a break, her arms loose at her sides as her eyes moved restlessly. Sun seemed to glint in her long blonde hair and Alagiri wondered if she brushed it as much as his mother had. It was a thing girls with long hair did, was it not? He wondered what she saw when she looked at this place, and whether she might like baseball. Maybe she would speak his language, and he could ask her all these things.
He walked quickly towards her, not wanting her to go back inside the tent before he could give her water. He was to deliver water to all the Red-X volunteers this day and having to wait till she wasn't busy could take forever.
"Miss?" he asked in Tamil, slowing his speech as he would for Dr. Nishi, just in case.
She started slightly, as if coming out of a trance and frowned at him in a somewhat alarming way. Had he done something wrong? This American was strange surely, if a polite question could make her frown in such a way.
She spoke, and her accent was thick, and her words confusing. Obviously, she did not speak Tamil, or she would not be attempting to speak to him in what must be English. Alagiri frowned back at her, wondering how best to get her to understand what he wanted. He was nothing if not resourceful however and he smiled as an idea came to him.
Holding up the portable carryall, he mimed pouring water into one of the cups, and then gestured at her with it as if to hand it over. He could see from the dawning look of understanding on her face that he'd been successful. She smiled at him and he grinned back at her, unable to help himself. He wasn't sure what it was about her, but just being here, near by her, felt peaceful, as if the chaos around them was but a small thing, quickly dispersed.
Now was not a time for wondering about such things however, as he had a job to do. He handed her the cup, and carefully poured out a measure of the water, not a single drop missing its intended destination. She spoke to him again, and he smiled at her, wondering what she'd said, but he supposed it might be thanks or something along those lines.
She finished drinking and handed him back the cup, her head turning to look back inside the medical tent, before she turned back to him and gave him a nod of what must be thanks.
"You are welcome." he said in Tamil, before turning and walking quickly away. He had other Red-X volunteers to see and there would be time later perhaps to ask the Red-X volunteers questions. Maybe Dr. Nishi could translate for him, if he was persuasive, he had so many things he wanted to ask, especially about baseball.
***
Normally, flying cheered Angel up but the view from the skies that day...she shook her head as she angled herself down towards the ground. She'd been asked to get an eye view of the camp so they could relay it to the workers. It was a shame she didn't have a camera that could survive both the flight and the heat but she'd made some mental notes of where the people were gathered the most and the activity outside of the gates. The information was proving to be very useful in coordinating efforts in the overly crowded camp.
She came down in a lazy circle until she neared the dusty ground. Then it was just a matter of swinging her legs down to prevent a nasty landing…
One of the aid workers was standing nearby - she'd been the one to send Angel up that day, with strict instructions to only go so high and only straight up. Not out towards the perimeter of the camp and she hadn't been willing to stray from the instructions at all. Angel had expected her to be there when she got back to take the information but there was someone else as well.
Despite her exhaustion and the situation, she couldn't help but break out into a broad smile at the look on the boys face when she touched down. She remembered to extinguish the fire before she approached.
"For me?" she asked, pointing at the water enthusiastically. She might not be affected by the heat but she had to remember to keep the water coming.
"This is Alagiri," the older woman said, turning towards the boy. She spoke to him in Tamil and Angel caught her name.
Alagiri handed over the water and she happily drained the entire cup. He paused, eyeing her, and then gave her another one. Angel drank that one a little slower, feeling better when she had finished. Now, if only he'd had a sandwich on him somewhere…
"Thanks," she said and then winked, hiding her hand from the aid worker as she summoned a little ball of flame as she handed the cup back. To Alagiri's delight, she made it dance a little before the other woman's sharp look made her extinguish it. Angel shot her the best innocent look she could conjure.
Between the water and the grins of delight she was sharing with Alagiri, Angel suddenly felt a little better. She waved as he ran off and then turned back.
"Come, Angel, I need to hear what you saw."
Her shoulders slumped a little. So much for that.
***
Callisto knelt by the water pump, slipping her loose, dark shirt from her right shoulder and pressing her freshly soaked compress to the wound, dabbing at it firmly. The wound had healed for the most part but with her continued physical labour she was constantly reopening the knitting flesh. The big danger, always, was getting dirt caught. The infection she could fight off but it was touch and go with her whether foreign objects would work their way out, or just sit and fester and irritate - her mutation was nothing if not a little unreliable at times. She had a feeling it had something to do with stress, or general health, or...
Her real worry was the other inhabitants of the camp. There was a lot of infection here, a lot of injury and ill health, and she felt quite sure that with an open wound herself she would not be allowed near some, mutant or not - the Red Cross had, she was sure 'policies' on such things, especially in a country where information just wasn't yet known about the obviously growing prevalence of AIDS and HIV. They'd all been given protocol documentation before arriving at the camp, but Callisto had barely scanned hers. So until it was gone, it had to remain hidden so that her movements remained unhindered.
There was a voice next to her, and she glance up quickly, shoulder automatically hunching to attempt to hide her wound. A boy stood there with what appeared to be a water-jug, obviously empty. He observed her with wide, slightly fearful eyes, his gaze darting between her and the pump. Callisto stood and moved back a little to let the kid in to refill his pitcher at the recently mended device, the echoing drum of the water filter bubbling happily as it decanted. Very aware that he was currently being watched by the woman who had installed the purification system, Alagiri carefully refilled the top chamber of the filter from the pump before standing back.
Following this the boy's instinct was to run away, until he remembered himself. This skinny woman with the scarred face was one of the volunteers, and he had not yet offered her something to drink.
Callisto's face twisted in a slight smile as the kid proffered the pitcher, and she shook her head, gesturing to the filter. Of course - she was right here, why would she need to deplete Alagiri's own supply? Blushing, Alagiri stepped back and shot Callisto a sheepish grin. The tall woman tipped her head to one side curiously, but made no comment, not even in her own unintelligible language. After a pause, the boy nodded politely, turned, and had disappeared off once more between rows of tents.
She brushed off her pants, then her hands. This dust got everywhere.
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