 |
|||||||
 |
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
Mi-Jung Lee, Anchor, CTV News at 11:30 It’s one thing to know in your head that poverty abounds. It’s another when it smacks your senses as you step out of your air conditioned car. That’s what happened when we visited Vania’s tiny home in one of Fortaleza’s most desperate favelas or slums. The World Vision worker warned us. 
Her house was the poorest one on a poor street. There was a rancid smell that hit me as I walked down her dusty, unpaved street. Chicken manure mixed with festering garbage? And worse. The poor in Fortaleza don’t have proper sewage or garbage pickup. Goats scavenge through bags of garbage. Chicken and mules roam the streets.
In Vania’s house, like most in the city’s needy neighbourhoods, we found a tangle of children in an impossibly cramped space. You stand in the room and see where all the living is done. A single mother of seven, Vania, was holding her youngest baby in her arms. There was something wrong with Vania’s left eye — the pupil was stuck in the outer corner of her eye. She looked too old to be the mother of a baby. She welcomed us with a haggard smile that was missing several teeth. Then she showed us what was right next to the back wall of her house: a hole in the ground about three feet by three feet.— their crude version of a toilet. The top layer was a thick, black oil. The family said the oil was to keep the smell down. It certainly did nothing to keep mosquitoes away. They hovered above the pit in the humid air. I didn’t want them to sample my weakling foreign blood. I tried not to show revulsion but I retreated from the oily pit as quickly yet diplomatically as I could, remembering I had forgotten to wear mosquito repellant that day. The travel clinic had mentioned Dengue Fever. Turns out Vania had already had several bouts of the disease. More reason to back away from the swarm of insects. I felt guilty knowing I could leave. For Vania and her family there was nowhere else to go. We dropped off a huge bag of groceries from World Vision. She said they came at a very good time. I imagine she could say that everyday. I took one last look at her children. Their faces were coated in grimy sweat, their hair matted. They looked like stray puppies. I couldn’t erase the image of that primitive outhouse as we drove to meet our next family. We walked up the street to Luciana’s house because the car wouldn’t have made it up the narrow, rubble-filled street. It also allowed us to get a good look at the stream of black sludge flowing down the middle of the alley. The children hopped back and forth over the raw sewage, excited about these foreigners paying their humble street a visit. Without a proper sewage system, all the waste from the homes seeps into this tributary. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, wondering how contaminated their water table must be. Despite the danger flowing in front of their home, Luciana tries to keep her four children close to home, worried about the other threat in her neighbourhood — crime and the influence of gangs. 
Inside Luciana’s wood/brick house there was a beat up clock on the wall. She found it while scavenging for recyclables that she can turn into a few dollars. She thought it was beautiful. She didn’t say if it worked.
Time hasn’t changed anything on her street, as long as she’s lived there. She was born 24 years ago on that street, became a mother at the age of 13, then had three more children. Her kids are now the third generation of poverty living in the house. There were a couple of naked broken light bulbs in the home. Two of the children sleep in beds that were donated to the family. The other two sleep in hammocks above their siblings. The cracks in the walls are covered with garbage bags or fabric. When the rainy season comes, there is little they can do to stop the eaking and flooding. No washroom. At the back of the home, they use a hole in the ground covered with a makeshift toilet lid. Living in these appalling conditions, Luciana’s incredibly cute children appear healthy and full of energy, especially 7-year-old Francisco who always flashed a dimply smile whenever we made eye contact. Their little school T-shirts were drying on a clothesline in front of their house. That is the symbol of hope for Luciana’s family. Like nearly half the people living in her district, Luciana is illiterate. Her children all say they love school. If they stick with school, they’ll have a chance at a better life than their parents. Hopefully, their children won’t have to spend their spare time helping look for bottles to make extra cash — something that is a daily reality for many families in the favelas. Keeping children in school and later helping then find jobs is one of the goals for World Vision. The name of their project in this neighbourhood is Sonho de Crianca which means in Portugese, the Dreams of Children. Davi expresses his dreams on canvass. He’s one of the children I met in Brazil who will stay with me for a long time. He’s a talented 13-year-old artist and his teacher couldn’t stop raving about him. He’s also one of nine children living in a two room house. But at the community centre funded by World Vision, his only worry is what colour paint he’s going to use for his flower popping out from the white background. Art classes are just one of the many ways World Vision is enriching the lives of children who rarely leave their impoverished neighbourhood. Davi’s parents are just happy he’s not hanging out on the streets after school, getting ensnared with gangs like an increasing number of boys his age are doing. 
I could see an artist’s focus and desire in Davi’s almond shaped eyes. After I admired his work, his hands, splattered with paint, quietly presented his painting to me. I was touched by his confidence and his joy in sharing his creativity.
Back at the hotel, I carefully packed his painting in my carry-on so it wouldn’t get lost in some distant airport. When I got home, I found a spot for it where I could see it everyday. I thought of what he said to me when we said good-bye. “When I become a great artist, I’ll come to visit you in Canada.” When not if. I believed him completely as I gave him a final hug. I look forward to the day when Davi can make his journey. |
Video Diary
|
||||||
 |
|||||||
