By Alejandro Bonilla
Summer rains bring flowers and green mountains to the landscape of Guadalajara, Mexico. For five months out of the year, the rain changes the scenery and we’re blessed with abundant fresh air.
But not all is renewed in this part of Mexico. The rain brings many difficulties to the most vulnerable…the families of Lomas de la Primavera, a neighborhood in metro Guadalajara that is afflicted by extreme poverty. This area looks like a whole different world – a world where it seems all hope is lost.
Mayra Moreno and her five children are just one of many families in Mexico who live in dire circumstances. You can tell just by looking at their house that everything is difficult for this family.
Mayra and her husband, Salvador Muñoz, built their home out of scavenged boards, sheets of tin and cardboard, high on a steep hillside. The dirt floor makes the picture even grimmer. “Honestly, I can’t sleep well at night, because I don’t know if we’ll be alive in the morning. The night wind is so strong it feels like our house is going to be destroyed, ” Mayra reflected.
The family shares two improvised rooms, one for sleeping and the other for cooking. No one in the family sleeps well, because the water leaks through the drafty structure when it rains. The weariness accumulates in their faces; all of them look listless. Because there is only one bed, Salvador and Mayra sleep on a makeshift mattress on the floor and leave the bed to the children.
Salvador, 32, works as a bricklayer in Guadalajara. Like many Mexican workers, he has no steady job or medical assistance – and his meager earnings are just not enough to support a family. “Every month we pay the owner of this land $1,000 pesos (US$100). We need to pay 50,000 pesos (US$5,000) to finally own this land where we live,” Mayra explained.
Mayra works hard to care for her family; every day she wakes up early to prepare a breakfast of beans and tortillas for her husband. Then, she starts to fix the plastic sheets, cardboard and tin that the wind moved during the night. Before her children get up, she starts washing clothes in rainwater, which she collects in pans as it drains off the roof – a welcome blessing in the rainy season. But in the dry season she has to lug water from a public source located almost half a mile away – trudging back and forth several times a day carrying heavy buckets.
The Muñoz children smile, laugh and play, as most children do, in spite of living in the middle of this poverty. Nevertheless, their weariness and malnutrition are evident, and a tinge of sadness hovers in their faces. “We used to eat beans and tortillas every day. Sometimes we eat some ducks, chickens or rabbits that we have bred…we eat them when we don’t have any other food,” explained Mayra.
In the middle of this complex situation, the Muñoz children are able to attend school because Children International provides sponsored children with shoes, backpacks and notebooks every year. “I think that without Children International’s help we would not be able to provide our children with all the things they need to go to school,” observed Mayra. The older Muñoz children (Andrea, José, Gerardo and Brenda) are currently sponsored and attend elementary public school. The younger daughter, Monica, goes to a kindergarten close to her house.
Mayra regularly takes her children to the Children International® community center in Paraísos del Colli, Zapopan, for medical checkups, because the children are constantly coming down with common maladies like the flu, diarrhea, and stomach and skin infections. “We don’t have to pay anything and the medications cure our children. Gerardo has asthma, and Children International has taught me how to control this disease,” Mayra said.
But children are resilient, and the Muñoz children are happy despite their grim circumstances. “I like to play with my cat, my ducks and my rabbits,” remarked Gerardo. Then he corrected himself. “Well, the rabbits – we ate them….” But Gerardo smiles a lot, and the expression in his eyes reflects the hope of a better future.
“I would like my children to get a degree or learn a trade,” dreamed Mayra. “I believe that with the support of Children International, they will be able to continue studying…we can’t do this alone.”
And they’re not alone. Children International represents a real opportunity for this family to improve their lives – especially the children. Besides receiving medical attention and educational tools through the sponsorship program, the family receives boxes of food each month to ensure their basic nutritional needs are met.
The situation is difficult, but change is in the air for the Muñoz family. They are determined to survive; and for them, each dawn is just a little bit brighter.
