Meeting Mildre
Extract from the Diary
by Elisabeth Ullmann
We arrive in Tarija at around 9 p.m. Mildre and her children, the village director, the director of the social centre and our translator are all waiting for us with red roses at what may be the world's most chaotic airport. We begin the next day with a walk through the SOS Children's Village. We visit the kindergarten amongst other things and this is particularly good fun. We chat to one of the kindergarten teachers, who proudly shows us the various Montessori materials and tells us about her training. The children scurry around and are deeply involved in various games and Montessori stations.
We go shopping to the local market with Mildre and some of her children. The colourful activities, the baskets full to the brim with fruit, vegetables and spices are a feast for our eyes. The most amusing situation of all is the photo session with the butcher. We spend the afternoon chatting and in the evening we all go to the gym. There is naturally a fair amount of excitement caused by our visit and the photographs we are taking. At the end, of course, we have to take a photograph of the director and his group.
We visit Mildre's family: Her mother stands out, as she is so astute. She also used to work with children, until she had to give up because of bad health. Her father tells us that, to begin with, he was totally against Mildre's choice, but said that it was her decision to make. Now he seems to be proud that she has been chosen for this interview. Her brother works in the social work field too and her sister is still at school. I can sense that her parents really do see themselves as the children's grandparents. And I think to myself that this can’t all be true; it is just like one of the most sentimental scenes from a "Hermann Gmeiner picture book"!
I look out of the window the next morning and see a wild boar running along the outside of the fence. This is one of the typical scenes that Fred and I have witnessed since the start of our trip ten days ago. There's one new experience after another, and each is more touching, more peculiar and more unbelievable than the next. It is astonishing how much you can see in such a short space of time.
Mildre'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.