Lima: Looking for this child
The van for over a hill from which you can see a striking image. I ask that we stop one minutes. I go fast, running downhill in which only dust. As around, as several miles around, dry powder here hardly land rises. Nothing. In a plain there's a baby, is almost a baby, that sits on a row of bricks infinite devastating sunshine. Beside him are his father and mother working: make bricks. I approach, I greet you and ask if you care to take a picture the child. Access, surprised, and I make a single photo, they can see above. What is the name?, the digo. "John", answer. How old is? "Two years". What is surprising is that John, the child face something sad look aged and, is also working. In fact, John would be nearly impossible without making the thousand bricks a day that will give the family with six euros to eat. Eight years after that child look.
John would be nearly impossible without making the thousand bricks a day that will give the family with six euros to eat. Eight years after that child look
We are in Ladrilleras, humble a slum outside Lima, where poverty is fucking hard. The place name answers the only lifeline is in the desert, make bricks. I look around. The picture is repeated to infinity in a world without shadows. There are thousands of pieces of adobe soil lying lifeless on that. Other children wander by mounds of sand. The picture speaks for itself.
Fellow journalists arrive to the place where John rests. Parents choose to withdraw, probably overwhelmed by the arrival of foreigners. The Cesal NGO representative explained me what I look. "The child is the only one of its light weight can go stepping on bricks without breaking them and turn them over to dry. Help your parents ". I look up again and watch the esplanade full of mud. John walks on each of these parts and to flip them one to one. To a man, under that sun, would be hard work. For a baby ... No words. I head back to talk to the father, now working with another son making molds. Do they help their children to work?, asked. I look while still working her hands. “Claro, you have to eat ", responds with simplicity. In dare, I flushed the cierto, Asked by Juan, for the hours spent in the pit. I do not want to believe that you judge, I do. I will say more, to understand even sting.
Pachacutec
After we went to Pachacutec Ladrilleras, a town in which they live 32.000 people who came from the countryside, mostly fleeing terrorist group "Sendero Luminoso", and settled in the only place they made a hole to bury them alive. A vast desert mountainside, Also on the outskirts of Lima, from which you can see in the distance the Pacific. It is impossible to think that anyone could live there. No water, there is almost no light, no asphalt, there is almost no transport. "In winter not see beyond a few feet up the dust", I say its inhabitants.
The best thing is that we have ensured that children remain in school until six p.m.. That way we avoid many of these children receive beatings from his father
We visited a school. The director, with the help of the City of Madrid, explains some important achievements. "We have more school supplies and food and give them breakfast to children". A cooperating is more explicit: "The best thing is that we have ensured that children remain in school until six p.m.. That way we avoid many of these children receive beatings from his father ". There are many cases of domestic abuse, Alcohol and drugs, and even bands that try to control anything that dry.
The options are few. "Just what the low transport costs Lima is almost the wages we can win. We have no choice of work ", A woman tells me Pachacutec. That's why we attended the opening of a trade school that makes a requirement to give the title to "a micro believe in your own town". Attend the Bishop of Callao to the inauguration. It is the Church that serves this city??, because the State simply cede the land infertile and disowned his fate. Contemplate a final significant scene. Bishop dust through the streets while the crowd swoops down. I walk and watch as mothers try frantically to the bishop bless their children by putting her hand over their heads. Little more than a hand is what can grab hold those thousands of underprivileged.
Bishop dust through the streets while the crowd swoops down. I walk and watch as mothers try frantically to the bishop bless their children
That trip to Peru November 2004 I changed my perception of the world, of what's out there. The photo of John accompanied me hanging on the walls of my house since then. I've never taken a picture better than that. Today I want to Lima, return to find Juan and repeat the same photo to see if life eight years has carved a niche for those who constantly repeated us "do not forget us'. Valga him as an example, by the force of the image and history, so many underprivileged. I wish that we all find it ayudarais me.
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Wanted: John, the toddler who works making bricks
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