Yellow and green balloons!

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I first heard about Madeleine McCann's disapperance here in Mylot and I remember commenting then how nice I thought Portugal was. At the time I did not know how old the girl was, nor did I have any details about her abduction. It was when I returned home from a concert that evening that I watched CNN, saw her picture and learned that she was taken from her bed in an Algarve hotel. I also saw her parents pleading to the abductors and heard some comments regarding the way police controlled highway traffic leaving the area at the time of her disappearance. As a mother I could feel for the little girl and her family, especially her parents, as I also had small children once and many times I was confronted with the dilemma of looking after them, or enjoying an evening together with my husband. As I come from Latin America, most times I was too paranoid to leave them alone, so we got a babysitter, but the few times we didn't I felt very uneasy. I followed the story of Maddie's disappearance closely, read her web page and saw her parents visiting the Pope. In addition, I eyed carefully any blond little girl I came across here. I felt kind of guilty about the positive comments I made about Portugal, so I stopped writing in Mylot altogether and have not written since. One thing that I didn't mention was that the last time we were in Portugal we were robbed. We had stopped shortly to have a look at the view and in the couple of minutes we were gone they broke into our rented car. We reported the theft to the police and our things were returned, except for some money and a cellular phone. But despite that robbery we have just returned from spending yet another holiday in the Azores, which belongs to Portugal, and I must admit that I still like the country and its people and I don't think one can blame them for what happened to Maddie. As I was taking the plane from Frankfurt to Graz I met a group of university students from Spain, who were coming to Austria for a short visit, made possible by one of the student exchange programs now available. So in a way, open borders has made student exchanges possible, but it has also made it possible for little girls to disappear without leaving a trace! Although still missing, I have decided to return to Mylot, while I keep on praying for Maddie and sending my own imaginary yellow and green balloons, hoping that CNN will bring me some good news about her soon!