Kids, MGMT

“Ana”, she smiles at me, her arms and legs pouring out of the dress that doesn’t quite fit.  She’s skinny for her age but long.  She won’t be very tall, but her limbs will be elegant.

“Iris,” I smile back at her, as she hops to my path.  “¿Qué hay?”

“Na’a.”  The country dialect is heavy.

In my first few weeks in site, Iris, a six year old, quickly became one of my closest friends.  I think it’s common amongst Peace Corps Volunteers – the kids are the easiest way to get into a community.  Iris was no exception.  There were days she arrived at my house early in the morning, took me walking around the community, and introduced me to her favorite people.  One was her Papa Teo, a man old enough to be her grandfather.  Complicated family ties aside, I assumed he was the father of one of her parents.  She made him buy us duros and we sat on his porch, watching people walk by.  She introduced me to the other children; playing soccer and eating mangos.  But she never introduced me to her parents, barely allowing me to know where she lived.

There are community members who live in extreme poverty – wood or bamboo houses with panka roofs because concrete block and zinc are expensive.  Others live in large, multi-bedroom homes, painted, with glass windows.  My own house is a mixture of the two extremes, made with bloque and zinc, but my windows are nothing but screen covered spaces.  The back, my kitchen and storage area is wooden, but my bathroom is surrounded by block.  Most of the poorer houses belong to the elderly, who live on $100 a month, given to them by the government.  Walking back from the beach one day, I saw Iris’s house – like mine, a mix of the rich and poor it seemed, until I got closer.

She ran to the road – a sandy path – to meet me, a flower in her hand.  “Gracias, mi amor,” I told her, “Esa es tu casa?”

She nodded and tried to veer me away.  Her house was a one roomed block house.  The stove and gas tank were chained outside, with no cover.  During the rainy season, they carry it in.  The house has one bed, and Iris sleeps on the floor.  Or does when she lives with her mother.  I folded the flower into my hair.

Slowly, Iris’s story came to light.  Her father left her mother with three children, plus a daughter from another woman.  Her mother gambles and drinks, leaving her children to roam.  Soon after her youngest brother was born, her mother went into a downward spiral.  In the first world, we can recognize it as post-partum depression – a serious affliction of women that strikes after a child is born.  But the third world, seeing children as a blessing no matter the circumstances – of age or no, father or none – did not understand.  As she began drinking, gambling and ignoring her children, the community reached out.  Her older brother was fed by various families, clothed by the government, and cared for by himself.  Iris, barely four at the time, went to live with Papa Teo, then Eni, then whoever would take her.  Small for her age, she was passed clothes from anyone and everyone.  When her mother – when she lives with her mother – forgets to wash her uniform, the school janitor gives her shirts to wear.  Large men’s shirts, with her skinny arms hanging down and her skinnier legs barely visible.  She’s starting to get taller, with the stick thin limbs neglecting to round out.  She looks my very own feral child.

I still watch her, hoping that suddenly, the school will stop giving up on her, her mother will give her love, and she’ll stop belonging to everyone but herself.