We dash over while a student translates into French for me. The child had been playing while his mother washed clothes. The rocks were slippery, the current was swift. It had taken just a few seconds. Not breathing, the child appears lifeless.
Some people start leaving.
I hear murmuring about not wanting to be witnesses for a police investigation. Somewhere in my mind I store the observation that fear of bureaucratic hassles is not just an American condition. Stay cool, I tell myself, and keep your sense of timing. Still blue, but breathing. OK, that's all I know.