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Never lose hope

Sometimes it's hard not to lose hope.
Last week I had to tell a 10 year old I would not give him his monthly food supply until he would go back to school and would show up every morning. He is an orphan, his mum abandoned him, his stepmother tried to still from him. Sister Aparecida is now the one who feeds him, dresses him and sends him to school. But temptation is too big and the week he gets the food he does not go to school and stays home eating. Since it was exams week, we had to delay the food...
Yesterday we went to look for the house of a 2nd grade kid who stopped showing up at school. Yesterday he came and said his dad did not let him come to school because he had to make some money everyday to take home. When we went to his house we knew why he came yesterday: his dad was away. Sister Isabel has promised to come back Sunday but today the kid was in the streets again. The dad was back.
Today, as I left the pre-school in the morning, a policemen asked me to give a ride to a lost kid. He said someone would get him on a car to a place more than an hour away. Fearful of taking a lost kid but unable to say no, I ended up taking him to the police station downtown. The kid was too scared and confused to speak. He spoke no portuguese and my scarce dialect was but enough to find out his name. The worse part is we noticed he was retarded. I made sure the police would indeed take him back and send him home but I guess I will wonder if he will ever get there.
It is hard not to loose hope in a place like this but it is hard not to hope that things can improve. I trust they will, I pray that they will, I hope someone will listen and join my efforts. As they say in Mozambique, "tamos juntos" (we are together), it is all we can try to do, put little gestures and hope great helps will come out.
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