back in bremen, bad news

we got back late in the night between sunday and monday. on monday night i went to cafe chance for the volunteers meeting... thats where i heard that:

hille and joerg both died, and kahle is in the hospital.

hille and kahle belong to the "old mens table" that was a set group when i first go to bremen. i have a really long relationship with these guys. hille was the crazy brazilian, and we'd been watching him slip and worried for a year now. you could always hear when he was comming, because he had loads of little bells sewed to his clothes. he looked rather hippie- long hair and a strip of dyed leather around his forehead, jeans jacket vest over brightly colored shirts- open to the navel, tight pants with flair.. he never took off (or turned off) his walkman (i never saw it, but he isnt the kind of guy you would suspect of an mp3 player..) his moods were hard to predict, he could be your best friend one minute and mad and swearing at you the next. but then he never got loud, he just swore repeatedly, sayin g over and over again how he thought you had wronged him- and he was usually mistaken. the main thing that would upset him about me was always that i could never relate, as a german, as to how hard it is to be a foreigner here. no amount of talk convinced him otherwise. he died of an overdose in his apartment in the ghetto.

kahle is the guy who pretend to be my dad- and even fooled his ex! he's the one who first took me to cafe chance, because our counselling wasn't finished but he wanted to be there on time to get a seat. i always sat with that same table the first months, and went with them afterwards. we saw each other three more times a week while i was passing out soup (hille, too), and kahle started comming to street group often, and occasionally the jesus freaks. he gave me the cross/pocketknife that has started so many conversations. this isn't an obit yet, though, so i guess i should stick to the current situation.. he is on the intensive station after being operated on his lungs. this is the second trip to the er this year that has resulted in a long stay. pray that he make it through!

joerg kaiser i only knew threw the cafe, and not quite as long. for brevities sake, i won't say much more. he was kind, and could take a joke. we'd call him the "kaiser"- that means emporer. he wasn't as bad off as many, despite being ill... he died of cancer.