Six-year-old Oto looks at his holey shoes with annoyance. “Do you want to go to school, dear?" - I try to insinuatingly find out what upsets him so much. "Sure! Everyone goes to school, and I want too! What do you think will my feet get wet?" Dressed literally in rags, the little boy met us by a strange building, which only remotely looked like a house.

Maka, a little beauty asks me naively, and goes on chatting without waiting for my response. “Mommy hugs me at night and wraps me up with the blanket, as I wrap my doll. I feel so good and warm, but mommy is freezing and something hurts her! Can you imagine that, ma’am? When she wakes up in the morning she barely gets up and that’s why she cries a lot. She says it’s impossible to live like that and kisses me many times! And I feel good...”

“Our closest neighbors are the dead people,” says Rusudan Pridonashvili - the Dampalo cemetery has become a shelter and home for her and her three young daughters.

“You know, I almost died, that’s what my mother says! - ten-year-old Mateo complains. - Mommy bought some expensive syrup for me. It was delicious! But the bad thing is that because of me we ate only bread for three days. Maybe she should not have spent so much money on me? What do you think?”

“The thieving magpie cooked the porridge, fed it to the little children. She gave to this one with a spoon, she gave to this one with saucer, she gave to this one with plate, but she gave nothing to Nutsa and Achi,” - this is the nursery rhyme we will repeat today... Nutsa and Achi are not birds, but when they eat bread, they put their little palms so as not to let out crumbs. They need normal food. At least once a week!

Nine-year-old Mariam does her best to comfort her 4-month-old brother Gabriel when he is hungry and bitterly cries... How to explain to a baby that there is no food and there is no money to buy it? At this time, the unhappy mother rushes around like crazy trying to get some money - find, borrow, beg – to buy another pack of formula, which will be enough for only three days ... “I believe that God will not let my children starve to death! - loving mother Sofio could hardly hold back her tears.” - Mariam is already an adult, she is conscientious and doesn’t ask for anything. But the babies... Saba is only two years old - he cannot understand why I can’t buy him sweets and toys and he cries bitterly. Gabriel is just four months old. I can’t breastfeed him and baby formula keeps getting more and more expensive... God help us!”

What emotions do you experience when you see this baby with a piece of meat in his hands - the most luxury thing his family has? Sadness? A pity? Pain? Fear? It's weird, isn’t it? When we asked him "What are you dreaming about?" 5-year-old Lazare took us to the refrigerator and answered: ‘Look! I want us to often have delicious meat!"

The loud cry of a 2-year-old baby saved the family from a painful death in the fire! “Thank you, God, that you touched my Mariam with your hand and woke her up!” - the mother of a large family says, - “this is a real miracle ... We were a couple of minutes away from a terrible death - to burn alive - and then ... This loud cry of my baby was like the sound of a fire siren!!! We were already poor then, and now ... Now our whole life has turned into a heap of ash and ruins! "

- 5-year-old Anano asks her mother plaintively and pulls her by the hem. “I am hungry too! Mommy, do we have any bread?" - echoes her younger brother Shotiko (3-year-old). "Wait a little, honey, maybe the neighbor will bring us something," - mother Gvantsa (29 years old) replies affectionately and strokes her kids’ hair. “The fridge is empty, I can’t calm them. I’ll have to ask the neighbors again,” the young woman explains us sadly, as if justifying herself. I turned away to hide my tears and confusion. “Lord, I will endure any torment, just not to see my children starving!” - the poor young woman cries bitterly. “We used somehow to make ends meet, but now we cannot find any work, and the transport does not work ... Sometimes the day goes by so that the children have only tea without sugar and bread!”