It's 11pm on a Thursday night. We're sitting in an uber, sharing the ride home, chatting casually about why we left so early while our friends still enjoy the night at a nearby bar. Our driver turns onto a wide road. There's no traffic, which is a miracle in this city.

Looking out the front I can see three people on the street, standing around something laying on the ground. Our driver sees it too and already steers to the side of the road to circumvent the obstacle. As we're approaching, the contours of that thing on the ground become clearer. It's a body. A man is laying there, face down.

Drunk guy, I think. Seen so many of those. Our driver stops and asks the guys standing on the road something in Swahili. I'm looking out the window, leaning over my friend sitting on that side of the car. At the same time as I see the blood on the street I hear our driver say "gunshot". "He must be dead then. Otherwise those people wouldn't just be standing there, watching the body", comes to my mind at first, "just try not to look at it and let it go". My eyes wander up from the blood on his ankle to the soaked pants of his left leg and then his upper body. Our driver is already about to drive on - the conversation with the guys is over.  Then I see the man on the ground breathing - he's still alive! He needs help. I look at him again, can see that it's only his left leg that's bloody. Gunshot in the leg, he could still be alive.

"Did they call an ambulance?", I ask our driver. No response. I'm torn. Part of me wants to get out of the car, my hand is already reaching left to the door. But then I realize my friend is with me, I don't know where I am in this city that is so foreign to me. I hesitate, unable to assess the situation and the risks involved if I go out there, for me, for her, for our driver. Who are the guys standing out there? Gunshot? Where's the shooter?...

I ask our driver again: "When will the ambulance be here? The guy needs help!"

Our driver puts the gear into drive and we start moving. Silence… Then he asks: "Is it ok if we report it at the police station just around the corner?" "Of course!", both of us reply almost simultaneously.

We turn right at the next roundabout and there it is, the police station. Only about 400 meters from the incident. Our driver gets out, talks to an officer behind the gate. Slowly things get moving it seems. When we leave the station, one of the patrol car's lights turn on… it's all I know.

I get home. Before I leave the car I ask my friend whether she's ok. She says yes, but I know both of us somehow aren't.

I'm trying to be my best self every day. I consider myself well trained in first response medical aid - well enough to understand how to assess and treat a gunshot victim until the ambulance arrives, even though I have never encountered a real one in my life. I helped people in distress before. I know that if I encountered that guy laying on the streets of Zurich or Chicago, I would have gotten out and dialled 911 - then stopped assessed his condition, stopped the bleeding, kept his circulation going.

I'm trying to be my best self every day, but today I feel I failed. People who lived here for a while and all the locals tell me we did the right thing - but did we? They tell me about the dangers of scams that happen this way - but I know this was real. They tell me that calling the police is always better - but then they tell me that the police never do anything. They tell me about all the things that I would have had to go through if I was found at scene, taking care of the guy. Going to the station, to court, paying for hospital bills, etc. - but is that "hassle" worth more than the guys live?

I know we did the thing that is considered "right" by most people's standards. But I try to be my best self every day, and today I could have been better.

It's the story of a naïve westerner in a world he doesn't fully understand. The story of someone who grew up in a cocoon, safe from the evil of the world. There is other people out there, who put themselves out and into such situations every day, helping people, saving lives. It is our police, our firefighters, our ambulance medics, and many others. To those people this story, as moving it was to me, must sound like a bad joke and I must look like a wimp.

I'm trying to be my best self ever day - and tomorrow I will be better!