what's wrong with your face?

I let the street kids use my cell phone anytime they want to call their families.  Some of the kids want to call more often than others.  And since January, one of the boys has asked to call his mom in La Paz every time I've seen him.  Initially, he would call and ask her to come pick him up, but when it became clear that she wasn't going to do that, he started talking about going up there.  I kind of blew it off because so many of the kids make passing remarks about going back to live with their families.  But at the night shelter this past Friday, he pulled out a plastic envelope that was full of coins he had saved from washing car windows over the past 2 months. He counted 160 Bs. and said that he was going to buy new clothes this weekend and bus fare to La Paz, and he asked if I'd go with him to buy his ticket on Monday.  That night, he was so excited that he was almost giddy.  

He's been on the streets for 4 years.  He left his home when he was only 13 because his mom beat him.  The rough life he's lived on the streets can be seen in the scars on his face.

He called me at 7am on Sunday morning to ask if I'd meet him to go to the bus terminal, but by the time I got to the corner where the kids hang out he had already left.  He called me later that day around 3pm from La Paz to let me know he had made it there and was going to see his mom.  I told him that I was so proud of him and so happy for him.  I can't think of a much better ending than kids being reunited with their families.  

When I went up to the bridge yesterday morning and climbed into the tunnel, I was shocked to find that this boy had already come back from La Paz and was under the bridge with a glue bottle held to his nose.  We walked out into the sunshine to talk, and I could see a look of total hopelessness, pain, and rejection in his eyes.  He was very somber when he explained to me how his mother had rejected him when he showed up in La Paz.  After 4 years of not seeing her son, she had looked at him and said, "What's wrong with your face?"   

So on Monday he took a bus back to Cochabamba because there's no other place for him go.