There are a number of young students from the Dreamer Center who drop by the downstairs office and hang out between classes and after school. As I've been spending my non-Casa Jackson time in this office writing things up, I have made a whole lot of new friends this week. They're cute, they're friendly, and some of them are downright hustlers. Considering the places that many of them are from, it's understandable. One little girl, Feliciana, has tried a new tactic on me every day. One day, she didn't have money for the bus, and wouldn't be able to go home (doubtful that an organization that puts such effort into caring for their students would forget to get them home safely). The next day she insisted she wouldn't be able to eat lunch since she didn't have any money (breakfast, lunch, and snacks are provided). The day after that, she just straight up told me she didn't have any dinero.
The plus-side to these raggedy (and sometimes smelly) little visitors is that I get to practice a whole lot of my Spanish, and ask a lot of personal questions to Guatemalans who are happy to answer them. From what I've gathered, most of them have at least 3 brothers or sisters (the most I've heard so far has been 8), live at least a half hour's bus ride outside of Antigua (the longer the ride, the more destitute the area, generally speaking), and don't really do much of anything worth mentioning after school. I've tried open-ended questions and I've tried specific ones, but the consensus seems to be that there isn't anything interesting going on beyond hanging with siblings. Which can certainly be fun in and of itself. But it's a far cry from conversations with kids at home, where their answers can include but are not limited to, "baseball/softball/karate/ballet/tap/jazz/soccer/art/music lessons..."
They are also a very touchy crowd. Girls and boys alike want to touch your hair, hold your hand, sidle up thisclose to you and basically just be almost on top of you for the duration of your conversation. Kids in general aren't known for their sense of personal space and boundaries, so I think this is a combination of age and culture. Also, I'm pretty sure they're just plain fond of us gringos.
One little girl that I met today, Mercedes, is 11 years old. I had heard her story in January at a talk that Luke (Ray's roommate and the educational director of Nuestros Ahijados) gave, but hadn't yet met her. Her story, like that of SO many kids here, was touching and sad.
Mercedes and her two sisters were living near one of the many dumps that is home to thousands throughout Guatemala. Entire families eke out a living picking through the dumps, finding scrap metal and items that can be redeemed for money, and anything else potentially useful to whoever is paying them to scrounge around in it. Many children are "hired out" by their parents to do this job; someone pays the child's parents and then the child works in the dump all day looking for whatever sorts of things they've been tasked to find. Doing this in any dump would be a nightmare, but in Guatemala, where there are no safety regulations or recommendations regarding what can be thrown away where, the children are coming into contact with toxic substances, inhaling toxic fumes, and touching the rotting garbage of thousands of people.
Mercedes and her sisters were brought to Nuestros Ahijados, after the staff convinced their parents that school was a better place for them. The girls were given clothes, school supplies, and everything else they needed to begin attending. They attended for a brief time, then abruptly stopped coming. Someone from the project was tasked to find them. They didn't have to look very hard. The girls were back picking through the dump. The oldest sister had left the dump and was working as a prostitute. After much coaxing and cajoling, they were able to learn the reason the girls had stopped coming.
Another child had teased one of the sisters about her shoes being old.
At home, we always lament the negative impact that being teased can have on a child. The pain, the low self-esteem, the long-lasting insecurities that many people carry with them into adulthood. But for this girl, being teased very nearly set the course of her life. If Nuestros Ahijados had not tracked them down and convinced them to very reluctantly return, she would have no chance at life beyond picking through the dump or walking the streets and selling her body.
Knowing her story makes it far easier to understand and accept that she's a notorious pickpocket. For a child who has known only filth and poverty, to come to a place like this where there are offices full of things and people with money, cameras, phones and whatnot in their pockets and purses, it's frustrating but understandable that one would try and scoff some things. It isn't right, it isn't acceptable, and it isn't ignored. Despite the fact that the kids are given so much here, they are returning to homes and communities which are a far cry from the clean, safe, lush grounds here.
While we can think all we want, "But we've given then so much! Don't they appreciate that?", for a child who has known only the instability of poverty, there remains an incredible instinct to take what you can, when you can, because... you never know when you'll have nothing again.
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