After I have in my last two reports, not written at length about my sparkling private life, I will now report again a few impressions from my work in the street children's project "La Paloma". Almost all the children of La Paloma come from nearby Villas (slums) of Buenos Aires to live in various stages of poverty and often experience violence at home. The following stories are stories that have occurred in recent months within the families of La Paloma and I went to some very close. (Note: I've changed all names of the persons concerned)
Layla is 12 years old and, for this age to be very grown-up girl that comes at an early age to La Paloma. She has three younger brothers who are between 5 and 10 years and lives with them to their mother. The father died a few years ago when he was shot in the Barrio in front of his children. Layla is more closed, often moody and there is little about themselves. Some time ago it was the afternoon to take care of her little brother. When there was the little problems, they beat him. When the mother later found out, she gave her daughter a punishment several slaps, so that Layla could chew the following day only on one side ... Since I often wonder how to get the girl, then, that one can not be beat when it is punished with the same methods for this?
Another story: Four children of La Paloma went Friday evening when the clock against 20 bus home. Plötzlcih at a bus stop two armed men got in who wanted to hijack the bus. They grabbed the 6-year-old Yazmin held hostage, she bought a gun head and urged all passengers to submit their valuables. After all people had handed over their belongings, they left together Yazmin the bus and left them only on the road and was run after the bus drove off again. Luckily nothing happened to the little ones, but it still has its noted all the following week, how deep it was the shock in the bones ...
A family has been sending its six years, four children of La Paloma. The siblings are 6,8,12 and 14 years old, the other two are older and no longer live at home. The family is very poor and lives in a relatively ugly Barrio, the often striking Raiding is concerned. Early December, the father of the family fell ill with cancer, and his previously already bad health situation deteriorated rapidly and he had to be hospitalized. Unfortunately, the father can not be helped so that he died on New Year's Eve. Because the hospital stay was very expensive and the family, now is the father dead and no income, has had to move last week, the mother with her four youngest children. They live in a villa, an even poorer neighborhood than before, moreover, the extremely far away from La Paloma. This means that children now have to take three buses daily to get to the project, which invariably results in that they are much more irregular than before. Previously, the four came almost every day, now they were the first time since a week back ...
I tell this story not to press on the tear gland, or to achieve a shock effect. This is really the last thing I want to achieve. But I would like to tell of my work in the project and the project are now even the children. And these stories are among the children as well as all the wonderful, joyous moments we experience with each other. Fortunately, these good days an integral part of everyday life in La Paloma ... But there are times bad days, always when has relived one of the children this or a similar situation.
And the more I hear these stories, the more grateful I am for my own childhood ...
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