My neighbors playing in the street
I have often read that Africa is the forgotten continent, but I go to bed every night convinced that it’s anything but.
How else can you explain that a group of children no more than 4 years old, shoeless and barely clothed with “loincloths” play with fire, metal and garbage in the middle of the street, having a great time and needing nothing more to pass the time, and no one even winds up hurt?
Or that an old man who rides around on a dilapidated bike finds the energy from thin air to brake just on time in the last second before getting hit by a car when he crosses without looking a road packed with cars, motorcycles, bikes, donkey carts, and taxis driven by crazy drivers in rundown cars?
These are just a few everyday scenes on the streets of Ouaga that make me think that even though it’s true that we should all think more of this wonderful continent, God and his guardian angels are surely in every corner protecting us all here every day.
These are the guardian angels that protect the children in FAR’s “Formation and reinsertion of street kids” project. I’m certain of it.
One of the children’s project in the mechanic’s workshop
Take Aziz as an example.
Aziz is the eldest of 5 children. Their father abandoned them to farm in Ivory Coast, hoping to be able to return someday with money. His mother digs out sand that she sells to make adobe bricks, which doesn’t do much to sustain a large family. When his father disappeared, Aziz was 9 years old. He began roaming the streets looking for anything he could resell to help his mother. This included stealing on the days he couldn’t find anything in the garbage… Drissa, who runs the street kids program, moves around the empty lots where the women dig out sand because he knows that the women who do this terribly hard work for practically no remuneration are mothers of very needy families. Aziz was lucky that Drissa noticed his mother and he got into the FAR program in 2012. He spent one year in the foundation, and three more training as a mechanic in a workshop.
Part of 94 children of the project with the responsibles
The first two years were very hard. His behavior wasn’t good. He was absent a lot; he fought, insulted his boss and even stole from the workshop. Every time one of our boys has behavior problems, the boy is called in with his parents or guardians (it’s important always to work together with them, though this is often quite difficult) to Cristina’s office. She is in charge of the project along with Drissa and Jacques. They give him a warning and a small punishment, depending on the seriousness of the offense. As one would expect, there are kids who have been with us for years and never been in Cristina’s office, and others who are regulars. Aziz was a regular. Too regular. And when that is the case, there comes a time when the only option left open is a temporary expulsion. That moment came in December after another theft from the workshop. In Aziz’s case it would have been dangerous to cut him loose completely because of his history of roaming the streets. So we decided to expel him only from the workshop, while requiring him to come to the FAR every day during a period of reflection and learning. We made things difficult for him for two months, keeping him busy with chores: cleaning, watering trees, washing dishes and cleaning bathrooms, etc. We also had a daily chat with him, encouraging him to reflect and trying to get him to appreciate how lucky he was to be part of FAR, and to take advantage of it. I’m sure that in all these chats and all the chores that Aziz carried out grudgingly, there was a guardian angel urging him to keep going and not throw in the towel, because Aziz was in a delicate situation. Little by little, we began to notice how he had learned his lesson and wanted to get back to his training. It’s been three and a half months since then, and a record for Aziz insofar as there have been no incidents in the workshop, his behavior has been good and he’s had no unexcused absences. He’s even showing interest in his training.
Of the hundred some street kids we care for, we have 5 or 6 more cases like Aziz of regular visitors to the office for a “calling to accounts.” I’m sure they haven’t gone back to the streets because of the infinite patience and hard work that Cristina, Drissa and Jacques do with them, but also because of the protection of those guardian angels on every corner in Africa.