After the wonderful wake up this morning I headed out early to Nuestros Ahijados to go out in the field with some of the social workers. We went to visit the houses of the kids in our care, either at the Dreamer Center of with scholarships to other local schools. There are 5 social workers (“guias”), and each one has 100 families to check up on, both at the school (making sure the kid gets health care if needed, isn’t being abused at home, is doing ok in school, etc) and at home with the family. They visit each family about 10 times a year in their houses. We had to walk from the project to the village (about 30 mins) because its really hard to get cars around there, and then spent the entire morning walking around within the village to different houses.
The houses varied in size and state of disrepair, but a general trend was that some rooms had concrete floors, others only dirt floors, usually sheets or towels hung in doorways to block of rooms instead of doors. They smelled slightly like urine, and one house did not have a bathroom, the family used the grove of trees behind the house. Some had enough beds for everyone in the family, some only had 2 or 3 beds for a family of 5 or 6 people. All were dingy, dusty, and poorly lit. None of the ANA kids were home since it was during a school day, but at one house there were four younger children playing under a sink, using old towels to cordon off a “fort”. I ducked my head under to say hi, and noticed some of their toys—old water bottles, some string, old candy wrappers, one toy truck, and a kitchen knife. Not a kitchen knife like a butter knife, but a knife for cutting steak. Their whole bodies were covered in dust from sitting on the dirt floor to play, and none of them even had sandals.
The main goal of our visit was to make sure that there is nothing going on or not going on in the house that the family isn’t telling us. These families are very impoverished, and a lot of times they’re embarrassed or don’t know how to ask for help. It is usually very obvious if there is something amiss, such as they don’t have any food in the house, there is a new baby on the way, the kid’s bed broke and now she’s sleeping on the floor, etc. Today all of the families seemed alright besides the usual grinding poverty. One woman told us about a mother and her two daughters that she has seen around on the streets—apparently she is worried that the older girl is being prostituted out at night. So Alex, the guia responsible for that family, gave her permission to tell the mother of the girls about ANA's programs. Its this kind of word-of-mouth information that allows ANA to spread and grow in communities.
It was an interesting experience, especially since I’ve noticed the feelings of shock and sadness that I use to feel in the face of such poverty don’t really bother me as much anymore. Have I gotten used to seeing this kind of poverty to the point that it doesn’t seem strange to me anymore? Is that a good or bad thing?
And more complicated issues are also raised—to what extent do we butt into their lives? Should we tell the kids to stop playing with a dangerous knife, take the 6 week old puppies that are being starved by an old woman who also looks very lacking for food away from her? Is it OK to take pictures of every room in the house for the organization’s purposes like we were doing, despite the fact that most of the families seemed embarrassed by their poverty and the fact we were documenting it? And how is it OK that an hour after seeing all this suffering and poverty, I go home to a terrific lunch prepared for me by Maria-Elsa, of more food than I could ever want to eat?
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