Antonia Perez, 18 months, reaches her hand out for her father while she lays on an examination table at a doctor’s office in Zacapa, Guatemala.
Photo by Casey Brooke Lawson
STORY by LAURA AMMERMAN MIZE
PHOTO STORY by CASEY BROOKE LAWSON
Antonia’s tiny body is smeared with dirt. Her hair is matted and dusty. Jose slowly runs his hand over the ribs and spine protruding from her emaciated back. Turning to the girl’s parents, he tells them he can help save their starving daughter. Domingo Perez rubs his face in thought. Though his 5-year-old son died a month ago in nearly the same condition, Domingo isn’t sure if he will accept help for his daughter.
Twenty-one-year-old Jose Salguero meets dozens of families like this one each year in the mountains and jungles near his home in Llano Verde, Zacapa, in the southeastern part of Guatemala. Most families living in desperation do not seek help on their own, so Jose goes searching for them. He travels up to seven hours to reach their sometimes remote villages in the hopes of saving children from starvation and the life-long effects of malnutrition.
If the parents are willing, Jose will take the children to Liberty Nutritional Center at Esperanza de Vida, the missionary organization where he works. The name means Hope of Life. There they receive free medical care, food and clean clothes – necessities of life many do not receive at home.
The hesitation Domingo expressed is familiar to Jose. Despite the desperate conditions of their children, the parents he encounters often must be persuaded to accept aid. The majority of parents, Jose says, eventually allow him to help their kids.
“But some don’t accept, and they say to me that they would rather have their child die in their home than in another place,” he says, “and this is really, really hard for me to hear.”
Jose tells Domingo he will move on to another home and return later.
Guatemala’s hungry children
When it comes to hunger and malnutrition, Guatemalan children are among the most unfortunate in the world. Chronic malnutrition affects almost half of the country’s children younger than 5, the largest percentage of any nation in Latin America, according to Food for the Poor, a non-profit organization based in Coconut Creek, Fla.
The CIA says that approximately 56 percent of the Guatemalan population lives below the poverty line, and, according to UNICEF, 41 of every 1,000 children born in Guatemala will die before age 5.
The Guatemalan government, like many others in Latin America, is not equipped to offer aid to most of its poverty-stricken citizens, says Pilar Useche, an assistant professor in the food and resource economics department at the University of Florida and a faculty member with the university’s Center for Latin American Studies.
“Governments in Latin American countries, they have much less resources than in other places,” she explains.
The federal budget in Guatemala is less than that of many state governments in the United States: just $4.9 billion to govern a nation of about 13 million people. By comparison, the state of Florida, with about 18 million people, had a 2008-2009 budget of $66 billion.
For many children like Antonia, organizations such as Esperanza de Vida offer the only way out of an early death.
A life saved
Jose is about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and a bit stocky.
He wears braces on his teeth and his dark hair in a style called a ‘faux hawk’ – one that’s similar to a Mohawk, but without the shaved sides. His clothes are trendy and colorful: bright T-shirts, baseball caps and sneakers in hip American brands, like Hollister, and his favorite, Converse. He owns a pair of stylish, square-shaped black and yellow glasses. He’s proud of a gold-colored ring from his high school, which represents his graduation, and he likes to tell people about the good grades he received.
He rides a Kinlon JL125 silver motorcycle with red and gold stripes.
Jose loves to sing and, with the backing of Carlos Vargas, the man he calls dad, he has produced two CDs of bachata, merengue, salsa and reggaetÛn music. In many ways, Jose seems out of place in Zacapa, Guatemala.
But Jose himself was once like the starving children he seeks to rescue. He was so young he has no memories of his days living in poverty, but he has heard the stories. His father’s job did not bring in enough money to provide the basics they needed to survive – clothes, food and medicine for the illness that tormented his mother. They lived on tortillas and beans.
Jose does not know exactly what it was that plagued his mother. He calls it trastorno mental, and says it threw her into convulsions she could not control. Before he was born, his older brother and sister were both killed when his mother fell on them during seizures. Each only lived to be a few months old. His parents, who did not like to talk about the older children, never told Jose their names. On two occasions Jose’s father, Candelario, saved him from sharing his siblings’ fate.
Then, Jose says, God sent “an angel” to help them. Carlos Vargas, the founder of Esperanza de Vida, found the family and offered help in their desperation. Jose describes the day Carlos arrived.
“This day all of me was dirty. I was without clothes. I was hungry. We didn’t have anything to eat that day.
“We couldn’t continue going the way we were.”
Carlos offered to help the family and to take Jose to live at Esperanza de Vida.
“I believe there was so much desperation in my parents that they accepted that I would come with them [the missionaries],” Jose recalls. “I think my parents thought that it was a blessing of God.”
Jose was about 18 months old.
The beginning
Carlos began Esperanza de Vida about 20 years ago, inspired by the need he saw in Guatemala and his own recovery from a serious illness. During his illness, Carlos left his home in the United States and returned to the Guatemalan village where he was born.
“I started praying to God, ‘Do something with me. I want to get out of this bed. I want to walk again, and I will dedicate my life to the poor.’ ”
Shortly afterward, he says, he was healed, and he began taking in needy elderly people. He resumed work as a jeweler in the United States, traveling back and forth between the countries to develop Esperanza de Vida. With support from churches and money from his job, Carlos eventually built the asilo de ancianos - the home for senior citizens. The organization grew from there.
Today Esperanza de Vida’s support comes from a variety of sources, including churches in Guatemala and the United States, locals who donate supplies like livestock and food, and groups who pay to stay at the organization during mission trips.
Jose was the first child brought to live at Esperanza de Vida. At that time, the orphanage that today is home to more than 75 children did not yet exist, so he lived at the asilo.
“It was really beautiful to live with these old people,” Jose says, “because the love that I didn’t have from my parents, they gave me. It was really special.”
Some of Jose’s best childhood memories were made playing ball and singing with Yolanda Rosales Sandoval. She came to Esperanza de Vida in her 40s, after Carlos Vargas’ brother found her living on the streets in Guatemala City, barely able to walk. Now in her late 60s, Yolanda has lived at the asilo for almost 21 years. A large green pet bird named Arturo keeps her company.
“She used to carry me in her arms and I played with her…” Jose remembers fondly. “She was really fun. I was with them [the people at the asilo] all the time.”
The orphanage was completed when Jose was about 6 years old, and he moved out of the asilo. But he has not forgotten the people there who were like a family to him. He once spent a month painting the entire building bright hues of orange and red. When he visits the asilo, he is a celebrity. He still dines with Yolanda on a regular basis and now lives in a small apartment just yards away from the asilo and right next door to the nutritional center.
Jose says the asilo residents and young workers who helped care for him in his childhood inspire the work he does today.
“One thing in my life that I want to do,” he explains, “is to help people who need it - because when I was little at the asilo they helped me.”
When he was 17, Jose began accompanying Carlos on trips into the countryside and small villages to look for suffering children.
By the time he was 18, he knew he wanted to continue in the work.
“God says ‘Let the children come to me,’ and I thought of those words,” Jose explains. “And that’s what I’m doing. I’m bringing the children to God.’ ”
Now Jose and Nery Brenes, rescue coordinator at Esperanza de Vida, head this part of the mission’s work.
Sometimes local municipal leaders contact Esperanza de Vida with a list of children suffering from malnutrition. Other times, Jose and Nery simply pick an area and set out to find families in need of help. On days he does not go looking for children, Jose works in the office, keeping records about the children he finds and doing other administrative work.
Tomorrow Jose will visit Gual·n, the region where he once lived with his parents in a tiny shack made partly of palms. His parents are no longer there: his mother succumbed to her illness when he was 10. His father, an alcoholic, died of liver problems when Jose was 16. He says it will be emotionally difficult to return.
“In one part it’s hard for me, but it makes me happy to help the children there.”
Trembling hands
Guillermo Ramos and Rosa Elvira have lost four of their 16 children to hunger or disease. Four others are grown. On a small plot of land given to them by a local leader, they are striving to ensure the survival of the eight still left in their care. But with little money and limited resources for farming, the task seems like a losing battle.
Two small branch and adobe huts shelter the family of 10. All eight children sleep in a tiny room, on beds of twine stretched out over open frames. The family’s diet of corn tortillas and herbs is taking its toll on the two youngest children – Carlos Mauricio, 1 and Oscar Daniel, 2.
Jose has traveled several hours, by bus, foot and push carro – a wooden platform with wheels pushed by hand along railroad tracks – to reach the family in his former home region of Gual·n so he can check the boys’ progress. He has been to the home before. In November 2007 he took the two boys to Esperanza de Vida, where they stayed for about five weeks. Emma Hern·ndez, the director at the nutritional center, says both boys had recovered to a level of nutrition considered normal during their stay. But today Jose is not pleased with what he sees.
Oscar Daniel is malnourished again. His hair is thin and light colored, a rash reddens his face and his belly has a bulge that typically indicates the presence of intestinal parasites. He cries when Jose examines his stomach. Carlos Mauricio looks much the same, though he seems less frightened. Jose takes pictures of the boys and makes notes about the family for future reference.
Rosa Elvira explains that she was breast-feeding the boys, but has run out of milk. The modest harvest Guillermo brings in during the six-month season – about 200 small ears of corn a week, approximately 15 pounds – is not adequate to keep the family well fed, and there is not enough nutritional variety in their diet. The family never has corn left to sell.
Guillermo has tried to work land where other kinds of crops are grown – like beans – but there is little land left here to rent. Any that is available is too expensive. The family currently pays 200 quetzales a month – about $27 – to work the land owned by a man who lives in Guatemala City. Guillermo must work extra jobs, weeding other people’s land or guarding herds at night, to earn the rent money. Outside of harvest season, their entire income comes from these odd jobs.
Before his hands began to shake, Guillermo worked more and the family’s food was not so scarce. But since he was attacked by a bull four years ago, there has been no stillness in his hands. He has never seen a doctor for his ailment – there is no money for that – so he lives with the constant trembling. He is 61 years old and his face droops with exhaustion. He says he has two wishes: to work the land as long as he can, and then to die.
Jose begins to negotiate with the couple to take the two children back to Esperanza de Vida’s nutritional center. The couple is hesitant – Rosa Elvira says she will miss the boys too much and that she doesn’t have the money to travel between the center and her home.
Jose describes the Liberty Nutritional Center to the couple. There are toys, he says, and other children to keep the boys company. Finally, a deal is made. On Wednesday, two days from now, the boys and their parents will meet Jose at the nearest bus stop to send the children back to the nutritional center.
Returning
At the nutritional center on Wednesday, Emma is not surprised to see the Ramos boys have returned. Recurring malnutrition in children is common here.
The boys are malnourished, she says, though not severely. They could improve with outpatient treatment at the center, but since they live so far away, the boys and their mother, who has accompanied them, will be allowed to stay for two weeks to a month.
Emma seems optimistic about the boys’ chances to recover, but admits that repeatedly seeing the same children in the nutritional center takes its toll. Her face takes on a look of fatigue.
“I feel frustration,” she explains in an exasperated tone. “I feel sorrow, anger and compassion.”
Jose shares her frustration. The hardest parts of his job, he says, are “to see the conditions that the kids are in,” and the times when a child dies. He estimates he has saved about 70 children. The organization’s records about the number of children who die after being rescued are unclear. Some die before Jose even reaches their homes.
Some of the parents Jose encounters take better care of their children after receiving help from Esperanza de Vida, but others do not. Jose says it is difficult for him to return children to the living conditions in which he found them and that he keeps records on the children so he can visit them and check their progress.
Despite the challenges of his task, he tries to keep his focus on the children.
“The most important thing to keep focused on is the children,” he says. “You can’t have your mind set on the parents; you can’t think of yourself.”
The best part, he says, is “to be able to see them [the children] recuperating and playing and eating.”
Jose’s temperament is sometimes moody, but the children often make him smile.
After Carlos Mauricio and Oscar Daniel have been admitted, Jose wanders into the back, where other children, some of whom he has rescued, rest in cribs and strollers. Pedro Pablo, who is just a few months old, was abandoned by his parents. Jose lifts him up into the air, making silly noises and faces, grabbing the baby’s nose and cheeks. Jose smiles at the baby, who is waiting for someone to adopt him, and feeds him a bottle. More than anyone, Jose knows the importance of saving even one life.
Eight ounces
On Friday, Jose goes to visit 18-month-old Antonia, whose parents eventually decided to accept his offer of help. But their daughter is too sick for the nutritional center and was admitted to Hospital Regional de Zacapa. In this hospital, some of the public restrooms lack running water in the sink, toilet paper and paper towels.
Jose finds 18-month-old Antonia sleeping in crib number 30 in the pediatric unit. It is her third day in the hospital. Seeing her brings a smile to his face.
“Hola,” he says in a hushed voice before unwrapping her blanket and picking her up. He stares at her with a look of wonder on his face.
The little girl lets out a weak, scratchy cry as Jose cradles her. Being touched only seems to cause her discomfort and fear.
Antonia’s hair and body are now clean, but removing the blanket reveals loose folds of skin running down her legs. The diaper she wears is too big for her. An intravenous plug sticks out of her arm.
When she was admitted, Antonia weighed nine pounds. She should weigh about 25, according to the doctor in charge of her care, who also says she has a urinary tract infection.
With Antonia in his arms, Jose follows Astrid Aldana, a nutritionist at the hospital, into her clinic. Inside, he carries the child to a scale, where Astrid removes her diaper.
The nutritionist uses a pen to slide the weight into place.
“Click. Click. Click.”
Antonia weighs in at just over 9 pounds, 8 ounces. Astrid is pleased with the girl’s growth.
“Eight ounces. Yeah…that’s really good,” she says. “She is hungry, so she is getting right.”
‘There are always memories’
This week, Jose and Nery have rescued five children. In addition to Antonia and the Ramos boys, they also have taken 3-year-old Rigoberto and 5-year-old Rujino to the nutritional center. Rigoberto, like the Ramos boys, has been there before.
The joy Jose takes in rescuing these children is accompanied by a desire to do more. He knows his work is akin to addressing the symptoms of a disease instead of the causes.
He dreams of leaving Guatemala and studying at Liberty University, in Lynchurg, Va. He wants to study music and video production, two of his greatest personal interests, as well as something more relevant to his work on behalf of needy children.
“I’d like to study psychology so I can be able to help the parents,” he says, “the parents that are in extreme poverty.”
Jose says he wants to help parents understand the implications of having so many children and encourage them not to have more than they can adequately care for.
His dream to study in America, however, will only come true if he receives a scholarship or money from another source to pay for it. If that doesn’t happen, he plans to attend Universidad Mariano G·lvez de Guatemala.
Whatever happens in his future, Jose’s work to save the children is, in part, an effort to counter the sad knowledge of his childhood with the promise of hope he can offer to others.
“With time, I am forgetting,” he says of his past. “But there are always memories.”