SPECIAL CASES
RECONSTRUCTING LIVES
Objective
“It is said that a human being has many rights;
the most important is the right to life. In the world there many people who seize
life, day to day struggling to continue living and smiling even when it costs them.
There are human beings who did not have the opportunity to triumph and it is to
them that
PERU LIGHT OF HOPE has the obligation to help. Perhaps we are the hope
that they have always desired to have at some time. We are Reconstructing Lives.”
General Objective:
To improve and reconstruct the lives of people who are found
in the state of abandonment and the forgotten.
Specific Objective:
To help those
persons who need your help immediately.
MERARDO’S CASE
We have known Merardo for
over a month. He always comes to study with us. He wants to learn English, math
and other subjects because he wants to be a professional.
Merardo has a strange
illness. We see him every day in the mornings in our school in the town of Ahuac.
Merardo appears very thin and we know that his parents are quite poor. They work
for other people. They live in a home that is not theirs but is the house of other
people. It’s a very old house and is at the point of collapse. The whole family
sleeps together. There are eight people altogether and they all sleep on the floor
because they don’t have beds nor mattresses. Merardo has five siblings whose names
are: Miriam, Alejandra, Henry, Jaime and a small baby whose name I don’t remember.
Merardo is the eldest of all of them.
The father always comes home at 6:00 p.m.
Every day he is very tired. The mom works as a maid in a home and she also returns
very late. The children are alone most of the time, even so their mom always goes
home to visit them anytime during the day. She brings them something small to eat
or meals for her children.
Merardo is the only person ill in the family. His illness
is not contagious. He is a good student and a magnifint person. We admire Merardo
for his strength and his desire to continue living, even though his parents have
already lost hope. We want to give him a light of Hope.
By:
Perú Luz de Esperanza.
MERARDO’S TESTIMONY
Testimony:
MY STORY
My name is Merardo Pillpa Alvarado and I
was born on July 11, 1991. I am from San Juan de Jarpa – Chupaca, Perú. This town
is very small and very cold. I was born normal with fingernails and toenails. Within
one week I started to have little boils and my nails started to break little by
little. At one month old I had blisters all over my body and it has been like this
year after year. My body became covered with sores.
When I was seven years old my
parents took me to a homeopathic doctor who wanted 1,500 soles (nearly $500) for
him to cure me. At eight years of age, my father took me to the hospital but they
could not do anything for me. All of this is a nightmare for me because the open
blisters that I have get stuck to my clothes.
I remember that as a young child I
would scream and cry when my mom took off my clothes to bathe me and change me.
She did it quickly because she needed to go and take care of the animals. We were
sheep farmers in the arid area where I was born.
At the age of twelve my parents
moved here to Ahuac. I am in high school now. My friends were afraid of me because
they thought that my illness was contagious. But it’s not. It only happened to me.
At night I cannot sleep because my clothes stick to both the large and small sores
on my body. So I take off my clothes and I put pieces of notebook paper on the sores
that are full of pus so that they will stick to the paper. This is quite painful.
Now I am fifteen. The doctors I saw when I was thirteen gave me the diagnosis of:
recessive and matting congenital blistering dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa. In
February 2005 I went to Lima, thanks to the help of some people who gave a monetary
gift to my father because we don’t have any money. They (Lima doctors) gave me a
certain treatment and I returned with my father. The blisters still appear on my
skin, like on my arm, neck and the tough and thick skin. I get scabs, such that
I lose blood every day. I weigh 35 kilos [~78 lbs]. I get sores on my palms, feet
and knees, and also on my stomach, my hands are closed up because my fingers are
stuck to my hand [webbed]. When I was little I fell down a lot y every time I fell
to the floor I got blood blisters on my palms. This used to cause me a lot of pain
so I became accustomed to clenching my hands and in this way the sores healed. Now
I cannot open my hands and spread my fingers, because of this I can’t hold a cup
or a bottle. It’s difficult for me.
I would like to go to college, I like to learn
and study. I have a few diplomas and I am now in my fourth year [this corresponds
to a high school junior]. Perhaps I will study. I don’t know.
What will become of
my life? Will I have work?
Well, I wish to be a professional like Alan
I have been
praying for a year and only God knows what it is that I have!
Help me please
Thank
you.
If you want to make your donation to help to Merardo:
peru.luzdeesperanza@gmail.com
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