Cindy and Cecilia

Cindy Julissa has a round figure, cropped hair and bushy eyebrows. Her only child, Cecilia, is five years old and incredibly affectionate. Cecilia constantly seeks attention and affirmation from her mother, her teachers and me. Our Program Director Carlos says that she is always looking for love because her father abuses her, like so many others here.

Cindy’s husband works very much--“to help people,” she says. Cindy does beadwork herself, but only sells her jewelry at parties.They often do not have enough to eat. They usually spend the money he makes by the 15^th of the month. Right now, they have only beans and powdered milk for the Cecilia. No one will lend her food, but sometimes she can share with her mother.

Before they had this house they rented another one, farther away. When Cecilia began to study at the Center they moved here. The house is very small and cluttered. The edges are crowded with mounds of clothing and plastic bundles. The small television is showing static to a tattered chair and couch when I arrive. There is a two burner stove in the corner and a shelf covered in dishes. Laundry hangs in the half open adjoining room: men’s jeans and little girl’s panties. Piles of garbage. Piles of wood. Piles of wet and dirty clothes. A pit latrine in the back. Cindy is embarrassed. She would have tidied up if she’d known earlier that I was coming.

They have no water. It costs $150 to buy the rights to use the nearest tank, then $3 for use each month. They sell water at a nearby school for 10 cents per container—clean water. Cindy shows me a large blue vessel she carries the water in. Several blocks. About ten times per day. The family has had several problems from drinking contaminated water: bronchial infections and problems with parasites. Cecilia was premature, born at 7 months, so she has a compromised immune system and gets sick often.

She has two books, about women’s rights and domestic abuse from a workshop she attended. One has been partially eaten by a rat. “There are rats,” Cecilia interjects. A moment later she points to cartoon rats running across the television screen. They’ve put on Lady and the Tramp. It was my favorite movie when I was her age.

Cindy says the biggest problem in her life right now is making sure Cecilia’s education is taking care of. She does not want her daughter to end up like her. Also, sometimes her husband works and sometimes he does not. If she could do some work from home, it would be much better for them. It’s very hard for Cindy to find work because she doesn’t trust anyone to watch her child.

When Cecilia was only three years old, she got lost for a long time. Cindy had left her with her father. He brought the girl to his mother’s house. But the woman didn’t watch her closely and the girl ran away. Cindy was very frightened. She called the police. Eventually they found her—a woman was watching her—but it took a long time. Cindy trusts no one with Cecilia now. Not her husband. Not her stepmother. She leaves her alone only at the Center.

Cecilia wants to be a teacher. I ask why. Because you like people, right? says her mother. No. Because she likes to drink milk. But she doesn’t like school because she has to get up early and can’t sleep in. She shows me her toys: a box with soiled plastic tea cups, an off-white bunny, and a baby doll with one foot. She is very proud of these things, which are hers alone. She holds my hand and asks me to stay. She sits on my lap, and we watch the movie together.

Isabel Bilma

Outside the house of Isabel Bilma her twin boys play in the trash covered street. They hang close to the door and run inside when they see us coming up the steep hill, leaving it ajar. A small but vicious dog takes their place, snarling and showing sharp teeth and narrowed eyes. Isabel appears and smacks him with her knuckles. He recoils a bit and lets us enter but remains on guard. One of the boys approaches and hits him in the same way, a swift rap with the back of his hand. The dog retreats. Put your shirt on, Isabel tells her son.

She has three children total, the two five-year-old boys who both attend the Center because they’re twins and an eight-year-old girl. Her husband works. She takes care of the children. This is all the work she can do. She says her greatest challenge is that she cannot have a job because she must care for the children.

They own the house, which is larger than the others I’ve visited with three small rooms: one for sleeping, one for cooking, and one half open and hung with laundry. The bedroom has three mattresses with sheets and a dresser. In the kitchen, the pots are hung above the stove and the dishes face down on plastic shelves. The place is clean and orderly. The backyard is large, swept, and lined with banana trees and red flowers. There is a covered area for firewood, a rope bridge that doesn’t seem to lead to or from anywhere and a well. It doesn’t seem quite so bad here.

Isabel has problems buying enough food, especially now that prices are so high. They get their water from the tap and help to fix it when it breaks. But the public tap rarely works. They use the well when the tap is off, but the water in the well is very dirty, and sometimes when they bring up the bucket there is trash in it. They don’t drink the water from the well, so they must buy clean drinking water. It’s expensive.The two boys have both been sick from parasites recently. They went to the clinic for treatment and are better now. Still, they have to be careful, she says.

The family has no books nor toys. There is a single stuffed animal we gave them yesterday hanging from one of the wires in the yard. It looks trapped, or lost. Sometimes, the children get toys for Christmas, but not often, and they usually break or lose them quickly.

When ask what would improve her life most, Isabel does not know. However, when I specifically ask if it would help her if the Center was open longer hours, she responds that yes, it would, because then she could work more. When we leave the home, there are three heavily armed policemen stepping carefully through the street rubbish, heading up the hill and into the brush beyond.

Maria Cortez

Maria Cortez is overweight, as is the infant she holds in her hands for the entire duration of our times together. When she nurses, which she seems to do more often than most, she barely lifts the bottom of her blouse to reveal a low, dark breast and let her baby drink. She has long black hair and a thin, kind smile that brings dimples to her freckled cheeks. Maria was born in El Zaite and has lived here her entire life.

At four months, the infant is the youngest of seven children. Her siblings are 16, 13, 12, 9, 7, and 4. As the children get older, they get thinner as well. The two eldest girls are like string beans with wiry hair. When Debbie visited last, Maria was pregnant. With twins. Possibly there was a partial miscarriage. Also, only four of the children had lived at home. Now all but one share the single room shack.

Her husband works most of the day. He earns about 80 dollars each month. She used to work regularly as well, selling things in the market, but has been unable to since the birth of her youngest child.

Her three daughters (aged 16, 13 and 4) help supplement the family’s income by stitching together shoes. Two pairs of shoes sell for $1.50. The girls try to sell 2 lots daily. There are 24 shoes in a lot (12 pairs). The girls work throughout the day and barely seem to notice my presence in their home.

The house consists of one large room made of concrete covered by planks of sheet metal. The family has no books and no toys apart from the ones children receive at school. There is an upside down disheveled teddy bear in one corner and a thick paperback bible on the bench. A folding table stands in the center of the room holding a large bowl of corn and a box of miscellaneous utensils. There is one bare mattress.

Outside there is a concrete sink and covered well and a brick oven with wood piled beside it. In the empty lot out back, zigzagging laundry lines are covered with pastel-printed cloth scraps. Diapers, I suppose.

Martita, the four-year old girl, has a loose tooth. Apparently, it should be removed by a dentist so the other one doesn’t grow into it. They don’t know when they will go to the clinic. If they will go to the clinic. But the girl seems happy. She slouches low and plays with the tooth and smiles often.

When asked what would improve her life most, Maria responds that there has never been a program or anything to help her improve her life so she doesn’t know what would make it better. When the question is explained differently and I ask what she would like most in life, she responds, “What I would like most is to work, so I could take care of my children.”

They own their home and share the plot with one other family, headed by an elderly woman who brings me a nice plastic chair. Both families get their water from a well on the property. Maria does nothing to treat the water. Every member of the family has been sick from amoebas except the 4-month old. Thank god, she says. The amoebas started with the girl who is 13. She was sick for a month and could not attend school. Then they spread to the other older child and the younger girl. Finally, to the boy and the mother. The children were all taken to the clinic, tested and received treatment. They are well now. The mother was never tested herself.