Meeting Felicia
Extract from the Diary
by Elisabeth Ullmann
Josef and Anna Aldrian, the regional director and educational advisor, collect us from the airport and take us straight to the SOS Mother Training Centre in Asunción. Wilma, the head of the training centre, is waiting for us along with six SOS mothers, who happen to be there for in-service training. You can see she has made her tasteful mark on everything. Everywhere there are pictures, plants, little crocheted mats and pretty serviette rings. After lunch we take part in one of the sessions. Martín is a psychiatrist and plays the guitar. Everybody sings along. The songs are freedom songs from the days of the dictatorship. After every song, a discussion is held on the meaning of the words. We leave for Hohenau. We do the 400 km journey in the car. It is a journey through beautiful countryside, which becomes increasingly fertile the further south we drive. Hohenau is the most fertile area in Paraguay. The whole country, more or less, lives on the produce from this province. It has become home to many immigrants. There are Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, Austrians and, funnily enough, Japanese too.
Hektor Schulz is the village director. He is the son of German immigrants and the best storyteller I have met in a long time. He tells daring hunting stories of his 1700 km trip to the steppes in the north with "his" youths. The talk is of hunting wild boar, of piranhas, water snakes and bird spiders.
The site of the SOS Children's Village is expansive. Lots of trees and plants grow there as they please. They are not, as is so often the case, cut back and pruned. There is a big vegetable garden, a vineyard and a massive grill that is big enough to take a whole cow! We all go to mass together on Sunday. The service is being broadcast live on local radio. How do they do that? A telephone receiver has been attached to the loudspeaker. We visit Felicia's family. They have a smallholding of a few hectares. Her parents are happy to see us. When Felicia sits next to her family, Fred and I have the feeling that we are in another world. Her father sits two cats on his lap for the family photograph. Finally, the whole family prays together in front of the small house-altar. We are moved and thankful that we have been allowed to share this moment with them.
Felicia's Story will be published here soon
All these mother's stories come from SOS Children's Village Hermann Gmeiner Academy. Copyright is reserved and no unauthorized use permitted. Use for non-commercial purposes may be requested. The interviews telling about the lives of some SOS Mothers form part of an interesting study on being a replacement Mother to children in need in SOS Children's communities worldwide.