The History of Madame Georgine

When Cinzia accompanies her children to school in the morning, she often meets a child who is begging or asking for food. He is a lovely child with large dark eyes and an impertinent air who doesn’t seem to come from a “difficult” family.

Cinzia wanted to know more about his history and asked Fidele to go find someone from the boy’s family to invite them to the office of the Fihavanana Association. A few days later, two women, accompanied by five children of different ages, presented themselves at our office. The matron of the family is Madame Georgine, 74 years old, who was married to a man from La Reunion and who, during her work as a governess in a French family, had the opportunity to go live in France and Spain. She is widowed and strong, with great dignity and integrity. From her marriage was one son, who has unfortunately passed away.Sophie, her niece, accompanied her with the five children. As is often the case in this country, the five children are from five different fathers. It happens frequently that the creators of these children flee their responsibilities for they are already involved in another family.

In view of her great age, Madame Georgine does not have enough strength to work. Her niece, Sophie, is unemployed and the two have need for economic support. It is the Fihavanana Association that now takes control of paying their rent and sending their children to school. The eldest is Dilane, whom the entire world calls Bolo (candy in Malagasy),… possibly because of his gentle and docile character. He is 14 years old and, with his agreement, we decided on entering him in the Pensionnat de Pères Salésiens de Don Bosco where he will be able to finish his necessary education. Once he passes his exams, he has the possibility to attend three years at a professional school offering various fields of training: agriculture, woodworking, metallurgy, automobile mechanics, etc. The latter is the specialty that “Bolo”, will make as his choice because he has a great passion for motors….however, we will work together to see what will be best for him after this first school year.

After him is Celia, whom the whole word calls “Fanja”. She is 12 years old and willingly accepts to go to the boarding school Pensionnat des Sœur Ursuline de Verona which is not far from Tana, close to the village of Sabotsy Namehana. She regularly attends her required schooling until preparation for high school, when we will see what best suits her.

Now we get to Moïse, the handsome child that Cinzia had met on her route. He is 10 years old. Originally, he willingly accepted to go to the boarding school, Pensionnat des Pères Salésiens with his brother Bolo. However, he is a rebellious child and has spent too much time on the street where he learned to survive and cope, in order to get a little money, which allowed him to buy the candies he is crazy about. Living on the street he had the possibility to spend the day outside of the house enjoying his own freedom, a characteristic of those who haven’t had their freedom, and don’t want to have the family ties and the rules to be respected.

In effect, after four days of boarding school where he had to respect strict rules, hours, and to be earnest in his studies, he ran away because the life of the boarding school was not all the life which was convenient for his character and his aspirations. He escaped to his grandmother’s house and he told her lies, inventing that the Priests gave him the possibility to go home and spend a few days with her. Unfortunately for him, the director of the boarding school went to Madame Georgine’s house and after negotiations, they arrived to the conclusion that Moise needed to remain at his grandmother’s house, and was expelled from the boarding school. The Fihavanana Association greatly regrets this decision. However, we couldn’t compel Moise to have a life that he doesn’t desire, even if his mother and grandmother don’t fully understand.

We have trouble accepting this choice, but unfortunately it may happen from time to time that we are faced with this type of situation were we are not able to act as we would like. And now we come to David. He turned 8 years old last April. He is a very calm and sweet child. In spite of the bad example set by his brother Moise, he regrets enormously that he isn’t able to go to the boarding school Pensionnat des Salésiens because he is too young. He would love to go to school, to learn to read and write, and to learn a trade that would give him means of subsistence. At the Fihavanana Association, we are ready to support and with the help of his grandmother, we will enroll him in a school next to his house for him to acquire a base for his studies. If everything goes well, in a few years we will ask for availability at the Pensionnat de Salésiens and for him to be accepted. This outlook is acceptable for everyone but certainly for David who gave us a big smile…

Which is his way of telling us “thank you”.