"They were born there, their parents too. His grandparents took refuge in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the arid zone of the Sahara hamada, now thirty-five years. His life, told in great features, not too different from that of our children go to school, play with their friends and brethren, I like candy ...
course, there are many differences. No discussions to stop watching TV and go to the bathroom, do not have any of those things. In summer move from 50 degrees in temperature and winter nights make many are devoured by pneumonia.
Like all places there are troubles and accidents, but the situation in which live amplified to levels that we are amazing.
Zahid has about nine years. Sometimes instead of going to school remains hidden behind the haima. Receives only a slight scolding because Small fell off a moving car, hit his head and since then fainted when they throw a fight or yell. Mahmuda
is older, fifteen. Four months ago, helping his mother in the kitchen, suffered very serious burns to his arm and back. This would have required hospitalization and multiple skin grafts, but there is trying to heal the roots of a plant.
Omar, seventeen stepped on a mine and is now playing off the prosthetic right leg to sit and offer us tea.
Sometimes you need to see in real life and what impressed you on TV to realize that it exists.
But what surprise us when we come to this barren land is to see the smile on these children. The happiness that radiate and spread, which is also the hope of their elders. No doubt they are happy and that's what we do not understand, because we are accustomed to associate happiness with the possession, gifts, toys expensive and can not understand how in the middle of absolute nothing a child enjoys while playing a stone or a piece of rope.
What is it about them that is sometimes lacking in our children? Why this perpetual smile captivates us? Perhaps because we realize that the world we're building for us is a lie. It is made of ads, colors bright and desires. In hopes that burn in minutes and expect a new one to fill the gap. Undoubtedly
eating habits and health are improved, but are the most important: love. Children of the desert have a hug from his father when they cry, a mother ubiquitous care provider, brothers who are your best toy. Grandparents, neighbors, uncles and cousins \u200b\u200bfill their days. Are not subject to a lot of silly rules, strict schedules, absences.
Of course none would change the place of our children and theirs but where is the balance? It's more is there? "
From this text written by Juan Antonio Casado (my husband, who had recently visited the Saharawi refugee camps and lived with them for a while), I would like to invite you to think about the concept of "resilience" and its great healing power to any human being wherever it comes.
Stated simply, resilience is the ability of a person to "withstand the vicissitudes of life." Resilient people is not that suffering, what happens to them is that the sufferings of life does not hinder their ability to overcome them and continue fighting for a happy life and good treatment and heap lavish.
One of the foremost experts in this field there is now Jorge is the Chilean psychiatrist Barudy, author of several interesting books on the subject (which I recommend) and whose work focuses on helping women, men and children who are in extreme situations (such as exile, gender violence or war).
Barudy argues that the star factor that contributes to the development of resilience in the human being are the good treatment received in childhood, and ensure the full development of personality, contribute to the emergence of an autonomous subject, capable of reproduce in their environment the situation "has lived bientratante` small and being able to resist with fortitude and resources more complicated situations.
Tales of the Sahara (the above and others I've been lucky enough to read) tell us of this ability bientratante of Saharawi families, dormant through generations and the years of exile, lies like a rug protecting themselves and their children, and marks a fundamental difference between their small and ours: the look happy, the constant smile, creativity, autonomy and, above all, the ability to transmit their strength and endurance to those who come this our "civilized world" with children and adults full of problems.
This difference, the gap between children of both continents, the great paradox that we are safe makes them feel uncomfortable ... should invite us to make a deep reflection, or at least drive them to recognize the most simple and obvious: the most important thing in life, ensuring the survival of mankind, happiness and inner light, it really makes a child smile ... is without doubt our goodness. Violeta
Alcocer.
Photo: Juan Antonio Casado.
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