New shoes for Saul

This is something that nearly broke my heart before leaving Trujillo, along with all the other many things involved with the children! A man and his wife had been volunteering for Bruce Peru previously, and had returned with a a huge bag of shoes ofall sizes to give to the children. In each school, the kids with the worst shoes would have priority for a new pair. This involved the teachers of each school deciding who this would be - those who had sandals or flip-flops would be consider 'high priority'.

This meant that Saul was even higher priority. His entire flip-flop had come undone on the way to collect breakfast a few days beforehand, so there was nothing to keep the shoe on his foot anymore, and he had to hobble back to the classroom! The next day, Saul's brother and sister, Kevin and Yanela arrived at school at the usual time, but without Saul. I was actually surprised by how disappointed I was not to see him. When I asked where he was, they simply replied "no viene" (he´s not coming) and when I asked why: "No se". So, when about fourty minutes later, when Saul banged on the metal door I felt very excited to see him!

It came out a few days later that he had come late to school because of his shoes. As the broken flip flops are the only shoes he owns, he couldnt come to school until they had been fixed (buying new shoes is obviously not an option). His mum managed to fasten the part of the flip-flop that goes between your toes back to the sole of the shoe using a thick piece of wire, red with rust. It was all knotted together, so that when he walked he could feel the wire digging in through his shoes.

All of this meant that new shoes for Saul would be a huge improvement! The same was true for lots of the kids, though some were worse than others. Even just having a pair of sandals through winter can´t be good for the children.

The teacher, Ysela, put the chosen kids feet on a piece of paper , and drew around their foot with a pencil. Brian then took these pages  - with a foot and a name - to the office of Bruce, so that shoes could be assigned. Saul is so naughty, that when the teacher called him up to 'measure' his foot he thought he was in trouble. He turned to me, grabbed my arm and just looked at me with fear! It took a lot of persuading to get him up there...

So the next day, Bruce himself, and Señora Charo arrived with cameras and a bag of shoes! Each child was called up who was getting a pair of shoes, and tried them on. Unfortuantely, drawing a line round a foot on a piece of paper is not the most accurate form of measurement, and all the shoes were too big for Saul. He was so disapointed... And so was I, I wanted to cry!

So, when I left Trujillo just over a week ago, my last image of Saul was him hobbling home through the sand and dirt, with his broken flip-flops. I think I will have to send some more shoes, one pair with his name on...