"There was a morning when our son asked for a glass of milk and I knew I didn't have any to give him," says Erica Lacerda de Souza. "All we had left to eat in the house was rice and farinha [toasted manioc flour]. That's not enough for a child."
The 32-year-old Brazilian and her husband, Bruce Lee Sousa, 28, had already sold both of their cars and closed their bodega because of pandemic regulations when they sent their son Henrique, then 6 years old, to live with his maternal grandmother in the east end of São Paulo.
