This story about a Bolivian boy who stowed away on a truck to be found in Chikle is an example of how resourceful and determined a child can be. In a way, I think modern parents tend to underestimate what their own children are capable of doing, leading to worrying too much about exaggerated risks and being overprotective. That’s not to say this boy didn’t take on an irrational risk, because he didn’t really know better, but that’s just due to the ignorance of youth. I’m glad that this story has a happy ending, he and his mother are very lucky.
The 10-year-old clambered into a metal container beneath a transport truck thinking it would take him from Oruro in Bolivia’s Andean highlands to the city of Cochabamba, where his mother was jailed for three and a half years for transporting chemicals to make cocaine.