How strong is her need for human dignity

Author: Verka Dudi K’oto
Location: Ostrava
This story was told to me by Eva, a twenty-five year-old nursery school teacher.
"Our school primarily focuses on working with Romany kids.
There is a saying that every person is about his or her own story. In our school, this is really true. Each and every kid is a story of his or her own – often hopeless and cruel, or tragicomic. Here you find the cocktail of feelings and experiences that only life can mix.
Helenka is nine. She is a beautiful deep-eyed girl, a little being with a fragile soul and a lot of bravery. She lives in an old house with her mom and four siblings: no electricity or hot water and a dirt floor. But even though her living conditions are so bad, she always does her homework. She tries hard to learn, and asks a lot of questions.
One day she came to school limping. Shecomplained about pain in her foot, and didn’t play with the other kids. That didn’t seem right to me, so I looked at her wound – though at first didn’t want me to.
What I saw was too much even for the doctor to whom I took her right away. It was a month-old untended inflammation: a septic wound. If we hadn’t we discovered it …
How could she have endured so much pain? Such a fragile kid. I really don’t understand. I’m very sorry for her and I can feel how much strength she had to find, how hard she has been fighting her bad fate, how angry she has been with her mother, how much shame and humiliation she must have felt. And how strong is her need for human dignity.”

Leave a Reply