When Zdzislav was young, there was a hunting in the forest. Nobody ate meat at that time anymore but some stupid people decided to hunt animals for fun. Those bad people wanted to kill Zdzislav’s mum.
He was a sickly child. When his mother was running away from the hunters he couldn’t make it and got lost. When the mum noticed, that Zdzislav was gone, it was too late. She had to carry on running to save the rest of children
When the hunters had finally left, she returned to the place of hunting, but Zdzislav was not there. She looked for him in the whole forest, asked all the animals, but no one knew what had happened to the small wild boar.
She had kept comming to the place of his dissappearance every day, all year round and finally had to accept the fact, that her son was lost. Deep inside she believed he had gotto a good place and one day they would meet.
Unfortunately little Zdzislav didn’t get to a good place. Terrified he ran out of the forest and got lost in tall grass somewhere on a meadow. Thanks to that he escaped the hunters. Some people found him and took to a refuge for orphant animals.
He had dramatic experiences there. He didn’t remember how he had got there. He missed his mum and siblings very much. There were different birds with colourful feathers, small foxes with beautiful tails and smal roes with great black eyes in the refuge. All the animals told him he had to look good to be liked by people and to get food. They frightened him he couldn’t get dirty because he would be washed and he didn’t know what it meant. He was afraid of it a lot.
He didn’t behave like a real wild boar. He didn’t nuzzle, look for acorns or grunt. He sat alone in a corner and was scared of everything, especialy people who came to watch him.
One day a tutor from a school common room came and adopted him.
Since that time Zdzislav lived amongpeople.
At the beginning he was terrified and thought he was not a real wild boar because they were brave. He didn’t know who he was. He didn’t make contacts easily. The children brought the animals with whom they lived so that he could meet new friends. Gradually he became more and more confident.
He loved eating apples and grew fast as he was fed by children with fruit and vegetables. He had one weak point – he loved chewing paper and secretly bit the corners of chldren’s books and notebooks.
On his third birthday, which meant he was adult, he decided to look for his family. He wanted to learn whom he really was, to feel being a real wild boar and to… like acorns.
He came back to the refuge with the children and learnt where he was found.
He started the preparations for the most important journey in his life so far. He was going to visit the forest of his childhood to find his roots…
To be continued…
This story is the introduction to a project carried out together with the children from here