Balm for the soul

These past few months I have been going out a lot to visit the children with disabilities in the Community Program. Before arriving at a house I always feel some concern. Are these children well? Have they improved a little? Have they been able to have breakfast this morning? These are some of the questions that cross my mind.

Most of the children we accompany live in situations of extreme poverty and in these months the lack of water, which is felt throughout the countryside of Cajamarca, worsens their uneasiness. I see the fires destroying the few remaining forests and I see the women carrying their cans and buckets of water from early in the morning and from far away. I see the farms producing less and less and I see the mining companies “eating” more and more fertile land in the jalca....

The concern is not vain, it is omnipresent.

However, when I arrive at the home of the families we visit and this child with projectable capacities runs to greet us with an immense and eternal hug, I feel that we are doing some good. I feel that our joint efforts serve to alleviate sorrows, to help these children walk - in the broad sense of the word - on the path that the universe has traced for each one of them. And, suddenly, I am the one who feels relief, hope, a light in these journeys. Because these children, these families and this community are balm for the soul. I cannot live without them.

Rita Mocker