It
doesn't happen too often, but once in a while, amidst the bulk of
rubbish TV programmes, vulgar 'entertainment' and cheap thrills, there
are still some true professionals who defend their profession as honest
servers to the public, despite the existential economic chaos they
wallow in. I just saw a report in Spanish TVE-1, in the programme
'Informe semanal' (Information Weekly) by the prestigious reporter
Vicente Romero, in Kenya, in the suburbs of Nairobi. He found and
reported a great story, wonderful and heart warming.
He
came across an African lady, known by all as 'Mama Tunza', with her
child 'Little Monkey'. She is poor, illiterate, has nothing to call her
own except her many children, abandoned or orphans whom she had
discovered reaching deep into rubbish bins searching for scrapes of
food, or wandering in streets hungry and lost.Over some years, she had
collected a number of them, giving them shelter, food, care and love,
thanks to some modest donation by kind hearted people, touched by her
extraordinary humanity. Vicente Romero stopped by to interview her.
She
told the story about one of her children whom everyone lovingly calls
'Little Monkey'. That one day she was passing through the woods and
noticed a big baboon, carrying a strange bulk hanging on her back. She
soon realized the baby was not a primate but a human infant.
To
rescue the little creature she would need to employ a strategy: she
went off quickly to buy a couple of large bunches of bananas, then she
lay them down at the foot of a tree and hid herself nearby. The female
baboon came close to inspect, took no time at all to drop the baby and
went off with the lot of them.
Today
Little Monkey is learning to read and write, and lives as a normal
human child. This is not one of the tales of Tarzan, but a true life
story, and at the present time, that reaches us and touches our hearts,
thanks to a conscientious reporter with keen sight and through a
public TV channel.
I
remember vaguely having heard about that African lady before on another
TV programme, La 2 sometime before, alerted of her existence by
'Miguel Romero, in fact son of Vicente, but with no personal detail and
not yet with the addition of Little Monkey at the time. Now the
father's report has reshaped the story in all it's extraordinary
dimension and intensity.
