Bruno Paiva walked into class as he did any other day, without imagining what was waiting for him.
He is an arts teacher in Brejo Santo, in the state of Ceará, Brazil. He had been working for about two and a half months without receiving even his first paycheck. He is not from the city, was sleeping in a place someone had lent him, and his family was in the middle of moving. As he recounted on Facebook, everything looked bleak, he sank into depression, and he did not know how he would pay the bills.
His first-year Building Construction students noticed. And without saying a word to him, they bought a basket of chocolates, organized a raffle, and ran around the whole school like crazy to sell everything. They raised 400 reais, about 100 dollars.
When the teacher walked into the classroom, he found the money on his desk. A student was recording on a cellphone. Bruno broke down in tears, and the students ran to hug him. The video received more than 93 thousand reactions on Facebook.
The Ceará Department of Education said there had been no delays and that he would be paid in the coming days. But for Bruno, what he received that day was something else: proof that he can still believe in his students.
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