In June 2010 I travelled to the Bolivian Amazon to live for four weeks in Casa Segura – an independently run orphanage set up by Australian Mik Henzell. Here is the article I wrote when I returned.
THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH
Johann and Johani are brother and sister. They both have beautiful wide eyes, brown circles swimming in pools of white. Their mother is a drug addict, a former ´street kid´ of Brazil who at some point in the last eight to ten years crossed into Bolivia illegally. No one knows who or where their father is. No one, including themselves, knows their last name, nor how old they are. They do not even know how their first names are correctly spelt. Johann, at some age between eight and ten and the eldest of the two, weighs 25 kilograms, just two times the weight of the average American two year old.
Luis is seven years old. Six months ago, he was a runaway street kid causing trouble in Guyara, a small town split in half by the Amazon, one side in Brazil and one side in Bolivia. Each time the Bolivian authorities put him into a home, he ran away. Each time they put him in a school, he ran away. Although he had relatives in Guyara, they did not look after him well. He doesn´t know where his parents are.
Nathaniel, aged 13, and his sisters Llueda, 11, and Rosita, 6, come from a large family in a town in the mountains close to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. A year and a half ago their mother died giving birth to their youngest sister. Their father, a farmer aged 70, could not look after them so sent them to live with their aunt in the south of the country. Before this, Nathaniel, Llueda, and Rosita were all sexually abused by the workers on the farm.
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