Softly Ravel’s notes seep into my ears and gradually the insane underworld of the street child mingles with the neat existence of the European bourgeoisie. For a moment I don’t know where I am.
A week later I land in Honduras, where I will be volunteering with the children of Proniño for the fourth year. Nicky, Lucas, Tielke and I have just visited the Colombian project that Proniño was based upon.
By now, the Colombians have 37 years of experience and have learnt how to care for street children by trial and error. How do you get a child to realize that a true bed is actually nicer and safer than some cardboard boxes in a porch, when he hasn’t known anything else for years? How do you care for a twelve year old who has been sniffing glue for the past six years – and secretly some crack for a year or two – if he is overwhelmed by sweaty attacks of panic at the mere thought of a day without drugs, let alone a whole lifetime?
Lucas is director of the temporary home in Honduras, while Nicky manages the permanent home. For them, Colombia is an inexhaustible source of knowledge and experience from which they can freely draw and which they can share with their co-workers as soon as they get back to Proniño.
Tielke, secretary of Homeless Child, and myself, came along to deepen our own understanding of ways to offer street children a future. To avoid a clash of interests and because we choose to use all donations for the direct benefit of the children, we have paid for the trip with our own money, and Lucas’ and Nicky’s trips were sponsored by ourselves and some benevolent Americans.
Back in Honduras, what I find gives me pause for thought. I consider the vocational training, the staff’s own education, and the financial continuity and suddenly, Proniño looks bleak next to the glory of the Colombian successes we admired only days before.
Is this it? Proniño has no rehabilitation center that is surrounded by 400 km2 of tropical rainforest on one side and a shark-infested ocean on the other. Proniño’s center is built on a donated piece of banana plantation just out of town. The fence isn’t that high and as there’s a lack of money, there are some small openings in it here or there. Yes indeed, that is tempting to a boy from time to time.
There is no psychologist, no teacher for auto mechanics and some of the staff have had limited education. How can you offer drug-addicted children a future under those circumstances?
For a moment, despair threatens to take over, and at times I am almost tempted to give up. But then what? Sunbathing on a Caribbean beach? Hiking in the jungle?
But then Ravel’s uplifting melody waltzes around me again and for the second time I am carried away by the magic. Grown up street children who’ve made it in life joyfully dance before my dreamy eyes. But how does Ravel relate to Colombia or Honduras? Doesn’t such an old composer belong more to a well-fed westerner than to a nameless street child? Where am I, in fact?
In the following months, I am so consumed by that question and by the ever-growing mountain of work in Honduras, that I do not even get a chance to tell my stories. Very soon you can read the outcome of Ravel’s riddle!
Give a child a chance, and offer the world some balance!
