Skip to main content

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.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Time is what makes us different

I heard what is likely to become one of my top 3 favourite quotes on a podcast on Friday. "Time is the only real democratic asset. We are all awarded the same time, it is what we do with it that distinguishes us".  Now, I recognise that most of us need to work with survive and that is not democratic throughout. But on an equal opportunity basis, this is an interesting way of putting it. For many years I did not understand why MS thought my resume was so interesting. In fact, they chased me during the entire recruitment process, even though I had no idea of moving to London or Finance. I wanted to be a consultant and stay in Lisbon forever. But traditional consultants in Portugal saw nothing in me, and MS did not let me go. When I started screening resumes and hiring people a couple of years later is when I understood why I was different. TIME.  I was truly different about what I did with my time. Not necessarily the basics - choice of degree or anything. But really ...
1 comment
Read more

We are not afraid.. are we not?

I see signs saying we are not afraid. Londoners are tough and endured the bombings of WWII. But those Londoners are hardly the same as the ones here today. Yes people in general are resilient, more than we think we can be when looking outside out. That is anywhere in the world, not just in London. And truth be said there is merit in not letting fear control our lives and terrorism win.  Well I just walked into the district line, 5 stations away from Parsons Green and I am afraid. I am not shaking, crying or running away. But I am afraid mostly because it is all so natural. Life must go on I said, as I decided I was not going to cancel my lunch and avoid the tube. But that is what makes it scary. Life goes on and in an effort to not be afraid we recklessly do not change our habits and rely on the stats that more people die on the road then on terrorist attacks. Reality is, the law of probability does not matter because terrorist events are binary.  So I think about my frie...
1 comment
Read more

De-cluttering for opportunity

As I binged listened to the Bixchix podcast today ( Episode #31 Married with Luggage ), I got to meet this entrepreneur who left her life with her husband to go travel the world. No, I am not here to talk about quitting my job and travelling the world near and far (I have 2 children remember?). What called my attention was that as part of this process, she had to de-clutter, sell her stuff, carry a suitcase to another country and at the end leave no house behind. I have recently had a good de-cluttering spree so I relate to it, as I am not quite done yet. There are still bags to be taken to charity downstairs (hidden from the children as they have not seen those with toys) and I know there is more in the house that we can certainly leave without. But this is the extent of my de-cluttering drive right now, stuff. What I thought this episode brought new perspective was about de-cluttering is about so much more than stuff . Betsy Talbot argues it is actually about de-cluttering fro...
Post a Comment
Read more