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Cheap Plastic Balls
A true story about how creative instincts can help solve conflicts
After a glamorous career in the banking sector, he decided to quit his job and retreat into full anonymity. He felt a hunger — a sense of indebtedness to himself that he couldn’t explain. As a former banker, he was acutely aware of the irony.
For months, he travelled across the country. He went to the farthest regions — the poorest and most neglected — where poverty had reigned for centuries and children were slowly absorbed into chaos and violence. And so he resolved to dedicate his remaining days to a cause and built a foundation for education.
In mid-August, he was travelling with a team of social workers and several investors, en route to a community gathering. They were in a black car that, to an untrained eye, might have looked like a limousine. They were crossing an ancient bridge when a stone struck the front window.
A seven-year-old blond boy stood about fifteen meters away, smiling bitterly, another stone poised in his left hand. Their eyes met for a brief moment. Like a movie trailer, it revealed everything there was to know — though in a strange, jumbled order. In that moment, something shifted inside him.
There were other kids too — many others — emerging from the bushes and behind the barracks, rushing alongside the moving car…
