I don't know how to describe what I saw tonight.

We walked around the city at night to meet some street kids. These little children come in from the villages around Kathmandu and live on the street. They collect rags for money and beg as well. 1 in 10 of them has AIDS. They form gangs to survive, and are often beaten or raped by the older members. All of these kids are addicted to sniffing glue.

We were walking along the street when we ran into Nikel. Voni, our madrich, knew him from before. He was a street kid who had cleaned himself up, gone home, only to return to Kathmandu again. We found him rummaging through the trash, looking for wood to stoke the fire he and some of his friends has built. We walked over to the find and found a group of 10 young boys- they were roasting leftover chicken they had found on the street. They were all filthy and thin. I took out a first aid kit and I started bandaging some minor scrapes. Many of them had razor cuts on their arms and legs, signs of their beatings. Several of them had open wounds. One boy, showed me a cut. "What's your name," I asked him. "Timis," he said with a smile. "How old are you?" "Thirteen," he said. He looked like he was seven. We sang songs together and when I finished cleaning up his major cut he pointed at a little scab. "Here also!' he said. I put a band aid on that one too. He found another tiny scar "And here! Here!" This went on for a while- he was so pitifully desperate for human contact, desperate to be touched. I looked back over at him a few minutes later while I was bandaging another child. He had his face stuck in a bag. At first I thought he was hyperventilating. Then I realized- he was sniffing glue. He saw me looking at him and quickly stuffed the bag in his shirt. He was embarrassed.

I noticed then, how could I not see it before, all these kids were clutching plastic bags. Some had them stuck into their ragged shirts, others held bags in their dirty hands. From time to time they would put their little faces in them and draw deep breaths.

To see a child getting high. There are no words.

Voni told us before how the glue messes with their brains. In particular it affects motor coordination. I tried playing a hand game with one child. Clap right, clap left. Two hands together. The kid couldn't get it. His hands wouldn't move. He kept on stumbling.

We walked to a street children drop in center. Ten little faces peeked out from under covers, looking at us. Here was a place where street kids came to get fed and find a place to sleep ( on the floor actually). The worker there told us stories of children coming in so high they didn't know who they were or where they were. Many of them came from homes where they were beaten. Some had no parents. They looked so innocent. Ten little faces- peeking out. But all of them were stoned.

We continued walking and met a kid sitting on a street corner. He called out to me, high out of his mind. He could barely speak.His name was Sunjar. His friend came to join us. He tried to tell me his girlfriend's name was Malaa too( that's my Nepali name) but his words were so slurred I had trouble understanding him. "Why are you doing glue," Voni asked Sunjar. "It's going to mess with your brain." "It was already messed up from before," Sunjar answered, laughing. He tried to shake me hand goodbye but he couldn't quite get it.

I tried to describe what I saw tonight, but I don't think this did it justice. There aren't any great solutions, these children chose to be on the street, life in the villages doesn't seem better to them. TBT used to work with them and chose to focus its energies on the root of the problem- making the villages better places so kids don't run to Kathmandu and become addicts. I know all this.

But still.

They were so little.