“We left the Center to reach a village where there was an emergency one night of torrential rain. Along the way people stopped us because a little further on, in the forest, they found a child who was ill and they did not know his problem. We left the car on the side of the road and we walked into the forest, while we made our way with the machete. We walked for a good half an hour. We finally arrived at a hut where there was a child 3-4 years old. He was all curled up and he did not even look like a child, he was so swollen. He was alone.
During the walk I had asked about this little boy, but they did not know anything; they had found the child by chance and, hearing the noise of the car arriving, they thought it was us from the Health Center and they thought to warn us. We took the child to the car and we entrusted him to a pygmy dad who always accompanies us on these trips also because he helps us with the translation. With the help of this man, I started talking to the child to get news: who were his parents? Where were they? How did he feed himself? Was he afraid of being alone? The boy told us he was completely alone, he ate some little animals he found around, he tried not to think about the fear closing his eyes when it got dark and resuming the hunt for food as soon as day came and the light entered the small hut.
That little boy is 14 now, we kept him at the mission and we entrusted him to another pygmy dad in order to take care of him like he was his son. The boy is finishing elementary school now, but he does not like studying so much, he prefers to work on the plantations. We have so many similar situations: many children lost in the forest who have no one”.
-Sister Rita