PHOTOS AND STORY BY EMILY HARRIS
It’s 4:30 a.m. The sun begn to rise over the Caribbean Sea in the village of Seine Bight, Belize. Veronica Garcia, 31, cooks a breakfast of turkey wings, heedless of the ants that are crawling on the raw meat. Her four children still sleep on the concrete floor of their hovel. The air inside is still, almost tasting of spoiled milk. It is the only quiet time that Garcia has before her children wake.
Motherhood is a joyous but difficult struggle for Garcia. She says she lives her life with a great deal of faith despite not being able to provide her children with life’s necessities. The poor woman wants nothing but the best for her children, Reynaldo, 7, Janelly, 5, Jamie, 3, and Elmer, 16-months.
When speaking of caring for her children, Garcia said, “It is just so hard sometimes. I get run down very easily.”
Born into poverty, she moved from Guatemala to Belmopan, the capital city of Belize, when she was just a girl. When Garcia was four, she says her mother had a mental breakdown that led to her and her younger brother to being neglected. After her younger brother’s death, Garcia was taken into the custody of an American missionary, Reba Melholan. She returned to her biological mother at the age of 13, and soon quit school to work for hotels.
The lack of formal schooling makes Garcia’s everyday life difficult. Her home is filled with the smell of sickness. She is unaware of the importance of sanitation and health care, and her children become ill several times a year for months at a time. They are taught to go the bathroom outside, and are not taught how to clean themselves. The children suffer from sores on their feet, hacking coughs and running noses.
Garcia also complains about the painful swelling of her lower stomach. The throbbing tenderness in her stomach causes her to hunch over in affliction, and also causes cramps in her back. Her menstruation has not returned after the birth of her last son, and she can’t afford an ultrasound. She is not aware of what a pap smear is, and does not understand the importance of having an annual check-up.
If you have a medical emergency in this village, Garcia said, you die.
With feeble health care available in the underdeveloped village and a limited amount of government-provided medicine, it is challenging for Garcia’s children to recover from a common cold. Her children’s poor health conditions keep her up all night.
She is the bedrock of her family. A mother’s unconditional love prevails even despite her family’s desperate situation.
Her common-law husband, Jose, is six years her senior. She says sometimes it feels that he is just another one of her children. Jose Garcia doesn’t speak English, and is illiterate. His lack of schooling disqualifies him for most of the few jobs available in the country and works for less than 18 U.S. dollars per week.
With money tight, Garcia rations the food for herself and her children. Signs of her children’s malnourishment are evident by their elongated stomachs. Her children have no toys. Garcia uses the little energy that she has left to entertain them.