I go for my first visit since returning to Guate to live, to see Denilson, my ahijado (“god-son”) or sponsored child from the Camino Seguro project in Guatemala City. I chose Guatemala to live (over Jamaica) in part because of the idea that I would be closer to Denilson. Yet I have been here six months without spending time with him, though I bought a basket of food and some shoes for him at Christmas, as well as supporting him at $25/ every month. There are a few reasons for this: one is advised NOT to go to Guatemala City on the chicken bus. It is an hour ride in a densely-crowded bus. One tourist was killed on the bus for not giving up his money just after I arrived here. A bus driver and his assistant were shot and killed just the other day. And once you get to Guate City, you have to change to another bus, and then walk through a very poor area to reach the project. Camino Seguro strongly advises against it. So the other option (besides an expensive cab) is to go with the project tour. This leaves at noon and returns at 4:30. Since I have wanted to take him to the zoo, this gives us only 2 hours for that trip, which seems too short. So I kept putting it off, trying to come up with some other solution. And then I have been working a lot, though I have deliberately kept Thursdays off because that is the day for the tour. So this Thursday I go with the tour, and the trip there is uneventful except that even with our regular guide we somehow get on the wrong bus and have to walk further than usual through the streets, crowded with peddlers. I don’t recognize the road, despite 4-5 trips with the tour group. And then, as our group of 15 or so people is straggling along through the crowd to get to the “more dangerous” area, the girl behind me is “attacked”: a man pushes her in the chest to throw her off balance and grabs her expensive necklace and runs. She is shaking and crying, but unhurt. I never wear expensive jewelry here, but I commiserate with her shock.
Denilson is waiting at the project, and looks delighted to see me. We take a cab with the social worker to the zoo, where it turns out Denilson has been several times with his school or the project. But he loves to see the lions, we eat pizza and take a lot of photos, and he goes on a few rides. His shining face is a pleasure, but once again I am disappointed that he connects more with the social worker (a nice young man) than with me. It stands to reason, and I am glad that Denilson receives enough from his mother that he doesn’t hunger for the kind of attention that I give out….which so many children have gravitated to. But it is slightly disappointing. It is also VERY expensive to take a taxi (well 80Q) and to pay for food and fees for all three of us…..I spend about $50 on the trip. This definitely limits the number of times I’m going to be able to come, though I'll admit to paying more for my salsa classes. But really it's that he doesn't seem to need it; again, this is a good thing. I talk to the social worker about finding out what the family needs; maybe this is a better way to use my money for him.
With another psicologo (here, a college graduate in psychology) from Familias de Esperanza, I finally go to a pueblo to visit a family home. We go to San Juan, past the center of town and the school I visit with the Brain Gym folks, and down into the back alleys. I am stunned at how these people have to live. I have seen scattered houses along the highways with tin roofing for the outside walls, held together with baling wire, but never so omnipresent as it is here. Maybe I have forgotten so quickly, but this area, except for the flying trash, looks worse than the Basura (dump) area in Guatemala City where the Camino Seguro project is. The alleys are hilly, rocky, dirt - wide pathways, really – along which children play and ride a few bicycles downhill. Small children are filthy with uncombed hair; older children, returning home from school, are clean and neat in sharp contrast.
We enter the home we’ve come to visit through the makeshift gate. Wash is on a line, the yard is dirt, a dog barks from a corner where he’s on a short chain. There are piles of concrete, brick, and lumber here and there, covered with dust. The pila, full of dirty dishes, is outside the front door. We enter through a torn lace curtain. Inside one of the project houses, made of cement sheets and roughed-out timbers, with a tin roof and air space under the eaves, the family lives in a room 15 feet square. Two double beds are on two walls, a dresser is in the middle of the room with a table covered in linoleum cloth behind it. Remnants of a meal are on the table. I notice there is a project stove in the courtyard, tucked under some tin materials. The grandmother is trying to cook on it, unsuccessfully…..she can’t get the fire going hot enough. There are women who are able to keep an orderly house in this sort of environment – I have been one, myself, although even my log cabin was in better condition than this – but this woman is not. Evidently, we learn, she works all day, earning pennies selling things door to door. There is no electricity (or water) in this house she rents for 150Q a month (about $20 American) so at night there is no light for housework or her granddaughter’s homework. This is one of the problems she wants help in addressing. She talks rapidly with my co-worker in Spanish. I catch only about 40% of what they are saying, but enough to start thinking of solutions. I can observe the girl in the classroom when I go there with the Brain Gym folks next week. I can see if there are some sort of lanterns here… kerosene or oil…..which I could buy them to start with. But where would she get more kerosene? New things to learn. I can also ask her teacher if there is any sort of homework club after school to provide the girl with a place to do this; as California’s schools and projects have. Or, failing that, if there is a neighbor she can stay with for an hour while the grandmother continues to work alone. I can also help with the cookstove fire, which I do, showing the grandmother that she needs to keep the wood entrance open enough to allow a draft through, rather than jamming it full and trying to blow thru the top hole. In a few minutes the fire is going briskly, but I notice she doesn’t attend it during our conversation in the home, and doesn’t check her beans. Having cooked on a woodstove for years in California, I know what is necessary, and am a little confused at her response. But we will learn more when we visit next week.
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