Children's village

For me, growing up was real fun. Having access to my dad’s reading addiction, the hyperactivity of my sister Renatta, and Romina’s spoiled personality, it was natural to spend many afternoons looking for shelter in my books. I used to ride my bike if the weather allowed me, but I read when I didn’t want to play out in the sun. I remember my dad used to read Proceso weekly magazine, and I kept them as treasures… I thought they would have an historical value, until we discovered recycling.

In this childhood, to isolate myself was an option, and I drew upon it when playing dazed me. My house and neighborhood were nice places, full of children, dogs, bikes, skates, and trips to the store and ice cream carts.

The past Holy Week, I found childhoods so far away from mine. I’ve participated in many social assistance activities in many ways, but I have never experimented children solitude so closely.

We arrived to catholic missionary camp in Pesqueira, Sonora, one day late. I’m proud of being part of this service since 2007. I guess it should be noted that we do more than church activities. We try to give as much as we can, and a little more. Three doctors come along with medicine and donations sponsored by city hospitals. The members of the camp also bring clothes, toys and shoes, and improvise a flea market. Every day, we visit an area, finding out needs and inviting people to church events.

As I came late, I didn’t have territory to visit, but knowing Holy Thursday program, I went with the Navarro family. My friend, Mrs. Yoly Navarro is mother of five. The youngest of her kids are the same age as mine, so I told her I would take them with me, and visit the other side of the road of her designated blocks. Suddenly, I became the leader of a small army: Andres and Diego Navarro, my son Becker, and other ten Pesqueiran kids, wearing three-day-in-a-row clothes, bare feet and dusty, spiky hairdos.

My army and I walked just a block, and we ran out of houses with people.
- Here's where I live, but no one is home until my momma, grandma and grandpa come back from work. - said one of my little companions. -
- So, at what time is that? - I asked.
- Later in the afternoon, when the field van comes over.-
- And who stays with you during the holidays? -
- Well, I have a lot of friends though. I get bored in the house, so I come out and play with them in the streets. Some minutes before six o'clock, I run back home, so my momma thinks I've been playing in the yard.-

We changed course slightly, to keep walking and find other homes. Isaac, age 7, is in love with a 14 year old girl, so playing his game, (and dead curious too), we walked along to visit "Jessica." In the self-assigned blocks, the lots were large and
surrounded with wire fences, most of them were pure desert land. Some of the
houses were abandoned, in those, they left open the septic tank hole, and neighbors
have been filling them with garbage.

I found many left alone children in their houses, even a pair of 5 and 3 year old kids. While their families worked, there they were, waiting for them to come back

home. My new friends explained me that it was because of the days off. Regularly, the kids that go to school stay playing at the sports field of the town. Some other children stay on the field across form the church, were their parents pick them up. Some of them are left from dawn to dusk, even before the local school is open. Each family manage to give their children instructions of what are they going to do until adults come along. They spend most of the days growing up in solitude, with no adults around.

At least, most of them have a place to live in. They're different from cities abandoned kids, since rural town kids have families. Even then, there are not enough services to earn a livehood on the streets, as city children. They can't work cleaning cars, as clowns, or beggars. I can't decide either if that's a good or bad thing, I'm just saying that it happens.

The mothers of this kids, are teen girls having babies. We talk with them about chastity, values, hygiene, (even contraceptive methods, against the Missionary Manual that says that it should be a natural method). We try real hard to teach something that could make a change in the future.

Rural town girls have humble dreams. They dream about having a home with a good man and having babies. When they get knocked up, and without the chance of having their own homes, the couple ends up living with their parents or their in-laws. There are families of 15 people living in the same room. They share clothes, food, toys, disease, linings and lice.

Otto, a missionary father who had been working in Hermosillo, reached his wife
Elena a couple of days later. Otto told us that, before coming, he felt that the story Elena told him was dramatic and exaggerated, but the plan was the same as other families: missions. “This is the house. There's no water, the mom doesn't know since when the service was shutted down. It's been a while since she doesn't shower the children. There's no electricity. The husband works in the field and she takes care of the four children. The oldest is seven, the baby is one year old. The doctor is going to check them withoud appointment, since they are malnourished and lice invaded." After seeing the doctor, the missioners gave them a shower and four granolla bars they had on hand. The youngest one insisted to share his bar with his mom. She refused to eat it: "have it, you're litte". He tried to feed her, at least with a tiny part. How does a person so little knows he has to share? What kind of instinct told hime that he should feed her mom with a part of the only food they had?

And that's that. Many women and some men came over to the church services. Many of them, as Father Hugo said, have a magical faith, waiting to have a better health if they are baptised or because they get to go to mass every once in a while. Some others came for the flea market coupons, to trade them for stuff. Meanwhile, the children's village boiled as anthill. Playful children like anyone else. Dirty, careless and having fun, playing tag, hide and seek, the bombier. A hundred kids, three hundred kids... ¿A thousand?

- Ma'am, ma'am, would you give me a Rosary? -
- Only if you pray with me.-
- But it's too long! -
- If you pray with me, you won't feel it that long... -
- But my sister wants it.-
- Tell your sister to come and pray with us. -

And suddenly, a miracle happens: We had a line of people of all ages, looking for the microphone to pray together. I do not know that these little people ask in prayer, but hopefully, I'm not the only one who prays for them.