Melissa, the former street child among the most vulnerable minors in Malawi
The true story of an Italian girl with a terrifying past who knew how to get out of hell and who today is a volunteer in Africa among street children. "In their eyes I see the same nightmares I experienced when I was little"
by Marco Trovat
"Street children have invisible scars, their gaze is a mask that hides terrible suffering ... I know that pain all too well." Melissa has caramel skin, a cascade of black hair on her shoulders, a sparkling smile, two eyes as deep as the abyss they have seen.
Born in Colombia 25 years ago, she grew up on the streets of Girardot and Bogotá. "My father, disabled from a stroke, died too soon," she confides. "My mother used to drink and prostitute herself."
Talk like you're telling a movie plot. Instead it is her life and that of her four brothers. “We were left alone, the street was the place of freedom. We had no rules or schedules. Social services opened the doors of the orphanage for us. Then we ended up in a foster family that took care of us with insults and belts ».
The nightmare ended with the adoption by an Italian couple. "I was nine when I left for Milan with two brothers," she recalls. "I was dazed, frightened, I didn't understand what was happening."
It took a long time to shake off the horror and find the desire to start a new life in Italy. "Adoption is a gamble ," Melissa muses aloud. “Almost a gamble when one is uprooted from one's world and ends up in other continents. In my case, the bet was won. We were welcomed into a family that allowed us to have access to new opportunities for growth ... I regained my smile and faith in the future ... Now I want to help those who have not had the same luck as mine: for this reason I studied to become a social worker and I left for Africa ».
Melissa is spending a year of volunteering in Malawi, as part of the Universal Civil Service . In Balaka , a rural town in the south of the country, she takes care of dozens of street children housed in the Tigawane family home (in the local language it means “we share”) managed by Orizzonte Malawi Onlus . The young guests are mostly orphans or children abandoned by their parents. Sometimes they run away from devastated and violent families.
"In their eyes I see the same torments I experienced when I was a street child: the abuses, the humiliations, the pangs of hunger, the fear of the dark." Melissa remembers everything about her childhood denied: the days spent on the sidewalks in tattered clothes looking for something to eat, the smell of alcohol in the bars her mother frequented, the customers she stayed with in filthy rooms, the scum met in the alleys where glue sniffed, the police roundups, the endless nights full of traps.
"Ghosts of the past come back every now and then to show up ," says the girl in a faint voice that cracks and then breaks. A veil of her seems to have turned off the light in her eyes. "The worst things you think you have removed from your memory, but they are impossible to erase," she resumes speaking. “If I survived it is only thanks to my older brother who has always protected me from those who tried to harm me. I remember the time we were caught trying to steal scrap metal from a shed and the owner didn't hesitate to shoot us with his gun. We were eleven in two. Luckily we were faster than bullets ».
Even today in Bogotá there are thousands of gamines, minors who have the street as their home. They live by tricks, begging, petty theft, prostitution. "Sooner or later I'll go back to Colombia to help them." For the moment there is Africa, where the scourge of street children is exploding with the social unease of its cities. "I want to live this experience of volunteering in Malawi as an opportunity for redemption and training," she says. "The boys and girls we collect on the street have terrible stories, hidden by smiles full of melancholy."
The days in the foster home are marked by lunches, games, drawings, books, films: miraculous things for a street child. "Some little guests understand that they can trust me and they confide in each other," says Melissa. “It is heartbreaking to hear their stories. Sometimes I struggle to find the words and I embrace them ». To instill warmth, understanding, strength… and hope to be able to get out of hell. "I am living proof that it can be done."