By James deTraz

Hi,
My name is James and I am just a regular guy looking to be useful, somehow, somewhere in this crazy world. I have a fairy tale to tell you, or maybe should I say… a troll tale? However, it will begin like always and everywhere with "once upon a time"…

So, once upon a time, in a nice town of Peru, was a little orphanage. It was small but the heart of its father had made it welcoming. Its rallying flag was "specialissimus", which in Latin means "more than special", because that’s what the kids were for him. Its walls were falling in ruins but the roof was holding on to life and still able to provide a nice a warm shelter for its children. Even flowers seemed to have found a way to survive among the dry stones of oblivion. Despite the whims of adversity, it had remained an oasis of peace in the middle of a brutal world.

The only ones irrational enough to work here were free volunteers. They came from all around the world to spend the only spare time they had on this tiny raft. From Peru to Italy, passing through Australia and crossing America, they all ended in the same dormitory wandering what they were doing so far away from everything, right in the middle of nowhere. Young and older, blond and darker, tall and smaller, they however all had something in common: they were looking for truth. Not only truth in a world that tells you what lie to believe but also and specially truth about themselves. Truth about what they could do, truth about who they could be. They had landed in the right place. Truth was everywhere.

Truth was on the walls of a town without anything to advertise for. Truth was on the sidewalks of avenues were people had not enough to refuse to beggars. Truth was in people’s eyes where anonymous tears had been dried out by the dust of fatality. And the job these volunteers had was also very true! They were supposed to help kids finding a way to get a future from cells without any doors.

These kids were coming from places that don’t exist in tourist guides, sometimes not even on any maps. They were kids coming from streets going nowhere, full of nothing, where life is happening by mistake. They were kids coming from driveways getting cold and dark at night where they had only chance for a plate and luck for cover. They were kids trying to escape a future where in front of them was crime, on their left drugs, on their right prostitution and running after their back, hunger, thirst and illnesses. They were kids with no time to wander if they felt happy or if life was unfair to them; they had just time to find food and shelter. They were kids with no time to feel sorry for them selves; they had just time to reach out for the next day. They were kids with no time to commit suicide; they had just time to survive.

This is when and where this tale happened. On a beautiful Monday morning, when the sun was shinning and forecasting a nice spring week, the doors of the refectory opened to let the kids come in and have breakfast. A shy little girl moved in, silently, keeping close to the walls. She didn’t stop to get bread or anything and went directly to hide herself in the deepest and darkest place of the premises. She was not able to talk and looked terrified. After three days of warm soup, silence and patience, she finally talked to the social assistant. Her name was Marina and she had a true story. She didn’t know her birthday but she looked to be between twelve and fourteen. Her own father got her pregnant and her family was so ashamed of it that they put her out on the street. She had to prostitute herself for food and the pimp who found her and was providing clients had already put her on drugs to control her. He was planning to have her being given an abortion soon, in a remote hotel, by a brother who was supposed to be a "doctor". That is when she managed to run away and came to seek refuge in the orphanage. The local laws being against abortion, the orphanage finally managed to find a clinic that would accept her, and she finally died, giving birth to a stillborn child. That is how the tale ends; without her living happily ever after nor having more children.

Nowadays, everybody is talking about globalisation and the great world of tomorrow; but who is talking about the kids of today? They are so many, forgotten in a society that doesn’t care about anything that doesn’t show off on television. They are so many, who we never see and who live in the shadow of our dazzling existence. There are so many, who don’t even know who their parents are, who are not even aware of where or when they were born and nor even understand why they exist. They are so many without their name on a birth certificate, who are not part of the rest of the world. There are so many, who survive just because even death is not interested. Lonely and ignored, they are too many, they are everywhere. However, they are the kids of today and they will become the world of tomorrow. So what would be the world of tomorrow if we let the kids of today grow up without any hope?

Christmas is coming soon. All around the world, families are going to gather around nice tables lightened by warm candles. What about the other kids? Around what will they gather? The pertinent question we could ask ourselves would be: "yes, but what can we do"? And indeed, what is to be done to change a world that does not even see us? What is to be done against the ferocious cogs of an anonymous society? What is to be done today for tomorrow to change into a nice memory instead of the nightmare of yesterday? What is to be done with all those tears shed on the altar of indifference? What is to be done for that all the little Marina’s will not have died for nothing? The most accurate answer would be "what about beginning right here, just next to our door"? And if next door is out of reach, why not coming to Peru and check what being really needed feels like?

So these "gringos" looking for truth, have most certainly found it! But even if that true reality was full of harrowing sadness and heartbreaking sorrows, it gave them a tremendous and unexpected power. They had become useful. Not just useful as replaceable numbers for trivial activities but as unique individuals giving an exclusive gift to those kids: themselves. And the look they receive in return was worth crossing all the oceans of the universe. From now on, every day in the kitchen when they are preparing food with what providence has brought them, every day in the refectory when they are serving the hordes of kids coming from the streets, every day in classes when they were trying to teach these children a way to escape their sealed existence, every day, they are blessed by silent smiles and grateful eyes for having cross the bridge from paradise land to nowhere land. Now they know what they are doing so far from everything; they are meeting themselves. Those lost kids have introduced them with someone they barely knew: their own soul.

And what about the rest of us, will we find the time in our overbooked agendas to rescue our own souls?