My Father's Archives #16

Yesterday ceridwen sent me an article on a photographer (Mark Neville) who did a series on children playing in the most inhospitable places (worth a read!).
As I went through my father's slides for today's blip, I came upon this shot. It was taken in the late 1970's in the Amazon. It shows a boy playing with a pretty good selfmade replica of the boats that travel the rivers of that region (the boat's name is Cidade de Deus, "City of God", a name that nowadays stands for one of the most violent slums of Rio de Janeiro, but back then, in the North of Brazil, represented the faith and hope of the people). 
This boy comes from a very poor, but otherwise sound and solid family, and it shows in his face, in his eyes. But what captured my attention was his left hand dipped into the water. He is completely at ease in his environment. The contrast between this picture and the shots I have been publishing this week couldn't be bigger. 
Poverty and misery aren't synonyms. Misery is a product of abandonment. A child can live in poverty and live a happy life and become a great adult. But a child can't live without love. I have seen rich children living in great misery. That is why I believe that Breno and his many young volunteers are developing a program of close tutorship for those kids we visited this week. 
Or, as Mark Neville puts it: "It's a fucking disaster, isn't it, the world at the moment? None uf us can afford to sit back and let it happen."