Thank You

Dr. Chavez, Dra. Uribe, Dra. Gutierrez, Dr. Velasco and Dra. Malu: Mil gracias por todo su apoyo y amistad que me dieron entre estos dos meses. No puedo expresar la admiración profunda que ustedes me inspiraron en mí. Les deseo mucha suerte con todo. Dios les bendiga por el trabajo noble que hacen día tras día. Nunca olvidaré las lecciones que me han enseñado.

“It makes me feel alive. To know I can love someone so much it hurts.” ~R. Cafaro

Goodbye

It’s six pm and I’m sitting at an airport Starbucks. I feel so incredibly strange. I feel like I am going to a new world, rather than returning to the same old thing. At this time yesterday I was at the gate of Alalay, standing in the same spot where I always eat Anahi with kisses, complying with tradition for the last time.

The French have a saying that I discussed with Casey a few days before he left for home. “To say goodbye is to die a little.” Truth. Especially the little part. Because you don’t really die. You go on living and you leave a piece of yourself in the heart of another person. You go on living with a hole in your heart. You fill it with memories.

It was a slow Monday afternoon; many of the girls were not at the home. I sat quietly with Maria and Shirley in the living room. I had spent the entire day before buying little presents, wrapping them and writing notes. That morning, Alex and I made a few last minute purchases and bought two cakes from Brosso. When it was time for coffee, everyone sat together at the long table and Gaby gave me a big card, signed by the girls. It had a big drawing of Piglet on the front. I acted surprised but Yoseline had spilled the beans twice already that afternoon. I tried to say something nice, thanks girls, I love you so much…but I choked on my own sobs instead. Gladys patted my back as we ate cake and then we handed out presents. I was glad Janeth like the skirt. I got her something extra special because she had a birthday on August 10^th. She twirled it around and showed it to the director. She will look so beautiful in it. I couldn’t stop crying the whole time. The girls kept coming up for one more hug, one more kiss. Gaby and Anahi gave me some more bracelets and Janeth gave me a beautiful woven bracelet that must have taken her weeks to complete. Gladys stood behind me and threw her arms around my neck as I sat talking with girls before it was time to go. Lourdes, Anahi and Shirley gave me cards they had made. Mary gave me a rose she made in school and a ring from her boyfriend Miguel. When I hugged Shirley goodbye, her tiny body shook. It was the most awful feeling to hold her as she cried. I never realized how small she was.

Yoseline did not say a word. She just sat in my lap, looking at me with her sad, beautiful eyes. I have never seen her so silent; she is a natural chatter box. We sat quietly for a moment, just the two of us, in a chair by the window. The sunlight blinked on her new jeweled hair band. I…love…you…I stammered. We held each other so tight. She sniffed sharply and buried her soft, brown cheek on my shoulder. I didn’t want to ever let her go. I wanted to stop the horrible, clumsy crash of the second hand that brought me closer and closer to New Jersey. This sucks. And other poetic thoughts too.

Anahi scampered up the steps to put away her present. I gave her my Tower sweatshirt. For a year, I wore that thing with pride all over Princeton campus and now my little sister can wear it, oversized, baggy, sleeves drooping over her hands, to keep warm in the Andean winter.

Gaby walks with me back to my home in Sopocachi. I am glad I did not have to leave alone. Her school is more or less in the same direction so we walk most of the way together and then part on a street corner. I hug her twice, her gorgeous smile lights up her face and then she is gone.

Elise and Alex arrive late to their night shift so that they can have dinner with me. We go to my favorite restaurant, sushi and Thai food. We say goodbye and I finish packing my suitcases. It’s amazing how many alpaca products I actually thought I needed. I tell Arminda that she has a lovely granddaughter and should be very proud of Lorena. When I was wrapping presents for the girls, Lorena came up and asked me what I was doing. I thought she would ask me if she could have a lip gloss or something that I was giving to the girls at Alalay. Lorena is only eight years old but when I told her these were presents for orphans, her eyes flashed with understanding. She took off her headband and said, give this to one of the girls. I don’t really need it.

I see a red car with a familiar luggage rack on the roof. I wait. The driver is not in the car. It’s 4 a.m. I wait another ten minutes. I realize the driver came early to take me to the airport and is sleeping in the front seat. Jorge! Wake up, it’s time to go. Jorge wakes up and asks me what time it is. Don’t worry, I say, we have plenty of time, thanks for driving me so early in the morning. Tranquila señorita, it is my pleasure to serve you. Jorge is the CFHI designated chofer. He is in charge of all the airport transportation for the CFHI students. We chat on the drive up to El Alto. I stare out the window at the black night, sprayed with the million yellow city lights of La Paz below. A mountain rimmed basin draped in a wet spider web, each droplet of dew reflecting the crescent moon’s shine. Jorge is glad that I enjoyed my time in Bolivia and my rotations. I tell him I am sad to leave. He says not to worry. You’ll come back. You have grown, your character has grown and you’ll come back again some day. He reaches out the window to grab a highway pass. You will see your hermanitas again. Sí, pues, sí. He’s so sure. And when you do come back I will be here to pick you up from the airport. I smile and wonder how one country can have so many beautiful people, up to the last drop. We pull up to the terminal and he opens the door for me. I tip him, we hug and kiss, and then I begin the long journey home.

I'll miss you

Every morning, I have fresh orange juice and homemade papaya jam on bread. I walk on uneven cobblestone streets. All day long, seeing faces, hearing voices. Always thinking of her.

Señor, ya me arrancaste lo que yo más querría

Oye otra vez, Dios mío, mi corazón clamar

Tu voluntad se hizo Señor, contra la mía

Señor, ya estamos solos, mi corazón y el mar.

The Situation Room

Dra. Malu and I talked today about the social situations in Bolivia so that I would better understand the girls who walk into her office. Servicio de Adolescentes is an outpatient clinic for adolescent health issues located in Alto Miraflores. The number one issue is teen pregnancy. Why is this? Abortion is illegal in Bolivia. Which means is it underground and very dangerous. There are two ways to abort, as far as I can tell. The first is the use of papaya and natural herbs that the Aymara use to terminate pregnancies “the natural way”. The other option is to go to a dentist’s office. Many dentists perform abortions in a back room at their private practice, but there is absolutely no accountability. No statistics, no laws, if you get an infection or die, no one cares. It’s one less baby born into poverty and one less unwed girl selling fruit juice on the sidewalks. The girls that come to see Dra. Malu live with their mothers or alone, having been abandoned by their lovers. Usually, the men are older, by ten years or more. Sometimes the men are married with families or divorced with other children. They skip town, or they just leave. Just leave. What about child support? I ask, naively. Dra. Malu sighs and looks me in the eye. It only exists on paper. The government and lawyers are corrupt. Yes, technically in Bolivia the law states that if you can prove a man is the biological father of your child, he owes you financial help. But there are loopholes and no one stands up for the women to ensure they receive the money. Lawyers are easily bribed to favor the man’s case. Same goes for judges. So I look at the seventeen year old girl sitting in Dra. Malu’s office expecting her second child and I see little hope. She can only receive the medications that SUMI provides and Dra. Malu’s words of encouragement. Her first child is a year and 3 months old, and does not walk or talk. He is malnourished. By accident of birth he is indoctrinated into a system of unaccountability. The government, his father, his grandparents, society- everyone is failing to take responsibility for him. And he pays the price, as will his mother, as will his unborn sister. I am angry. This needs to change. The laws must be rectified and enforced to ensure that mothers can feed their children. It sounds so simple. But how?

Dra. Malu and I ride to Zona Sur where she conducts a workshop for other doctors regarding adolescent care. She asks me, how’s your love life? I tell her about Sergio and she lights up and wants to know all about him. More girl talk. It never gets old. We keep chatting and discover that both of our mothers are Paraguayan. This is really cool, she is the first person I have met in Bolivia with Paraguayan heritage. It’s surprising since we are bordering the mother land. Anyways, we both agree that Paraguayan women are the most beautiful in the world. I tell her I am learning so much from her and hope to use this experience to fuel my thesis. She encourages me to write about adolescent health issues for my senior thesis because there are so many problems in Bolivia that no one is addressing. I begin to feel that helpless, desperate moth banging around inside my brains again. I know, I know, as we bounce along the congested streets of Miraflores. So many problems but what can I do? I am just one person. I wish I were smarter, more powerful, more important. I am a college student in Bolivia, seeing life up close and personal. I am a newborn with a red face and slits for eyes. I am seeing the world for the first time and I am scared.

Another Goodbye

We go out to dinner to say farewell to Molly. She and her husband are the cutest couple ever, very funny and smart. After dinner, Elise, Alex and I go with them to Brosso to get icecream. This time they didn’t have mint chocolate chip so I got apple pie delirium. It was everything the title implied and more. Dear Molly and Angelo, best of luck to you both, and lots of love.

Chocolate, Love, Dancing

Arminda makes us pizza for lunch and I fall asleep right after I lay down to take my siesta. I have nightmares that I arrive late to Alalay and the girls are sad. I wake up and dash out the door, on time. Alex and I buy chocolate bars for the girls. Each has a different flavor of crème inside- orange, pineapple, mint, grape, raspberry, lime. When we arrive the girls have not come home from school yet so we wait. They are so excited to get these big bars of chocolate and pick out their own flavor. Shirley takes an orange crème and thanks us repeatedly with dirty chocolate kisses. Mary takes a grape crème because that is her boyfriend Miguel’s favorite flavor. Anahi presents me with a woven thread bracelet that she has been making for me. It is red and black, my favorite colors and it the perfect size for my wrist. She gives me another one, blue and black, to go with it. I sit in the living room and Gladis tells me about her former job as a traffic zebra. The mayor offers all the children of appropriate age who live in halfway homes and orphanages jobs to dress up as zebras and direct traffic. It’s an okay job, you just wear this ridiculous zebra outfit and direct pedestrians at busy intersections. But Gladys says the uniform is really hot, even in the winter. And sometimes cars don’t listen so it can be dangerous. She quit after a week and they didn’t pay her so she went to the office today to complain. I was proud of her that she wanted to try to take care of this situation all by herself. I would have been intimidated at age seventeen to demand compensation for a week’s work. What a girl. As we sat studying flat worms for her nature class, Mary asked me to be her madrina for her quintera this November. I said I would be honored. Joselin and Anahi will have their quintera in a few years too, so I will be the proud madrina of three beautiful girls. Today as we were hanging out, coloring and doing hair, a song came on the radio. It was Bendita La Luz by Maná, one of my all time favorites. I danced with Shirley and Joselin to the song, twirling and spinning them all around the room until they were out of breath. Bendito Dios por encontrarnos. I couldn’t agree more. I got a special hug from Gaby today when she came home from school. She is such a quiet girl but she is always near me when she has free time from her chores and always softly smiling. I can feel her love in the simple things she does, like brushing my hair or playing little summer camp hand games. She has a bracelet that identical to what my mother and father wear, a simple string of wooden beads with pictures of Mary and Jesus on each bead. On the back it says Sergio & Gaby, her name and her chico’s name. She giggles and lovingly traces the letters with her fingertip. Maria was sitting drinking her tea and I came up behind her, singing the song, Ava Maria, cuando serás mia? She rewarded my antics with a great, hearty laugh. I love hearing it. As usual, when it was time to go, Anahi walked me to the door and I ate her with kisses and said goodbye. You always tickle me! she giggles with a crooked smile as her bangs fall in her face. Only four more days. My heart is breaking.

Another Monday

As Molly and I bounce along a minibus ride to Servicio de Adolescentes the smell of cooking onions fills the air. We pass through an outdoor food market- hanging sausages swing in the wind and cholitas sit on the sidewalks with their bushels of chamomile and coca leaves for sale. We arrive to a new looking, clean facility equipped with exam rooms and even a dentist’s office. Young mothers listen to a charla as they wait to see Dra. Malu. Dra. Malu is a very lovely woman with dyed red hair and a very friendly disposition. She calms the pregnant teenage girls with her kind words and sincere, soft, motherly approach. We see only a few patients and the exams are minimal; the only instruments we use are out hands and eyes. We feel the mother’s stomachs for the baby’s head, positioning, heart beat and movement. It is an incredible feeling to touch an unborn child, growing inside its mother. After we see the patients, Dra Malu breaks open a bag of empanadas de queso and some glass bottle of coca cola. We have a little mid-morning party to say goodbye to Molly. We chat with the medical students about boys, relationships and girl stuff. It was so fun. On the ride home, I hit my head on the roof of the minibus as I exited. I pick up my laundry from the dry cleaners and head over to the movie store to see if Mr. & Mrs. Smith has arrive yet. Come back tomorrow, the shopkeeper tells me. Anahi really loves Angelina Jolie, so I am impatient to give her this little present. On the way home, a man is pruning a tree, if you can call it that, right there on the sidewalk. The entire tree is practically spread from the store fronts to the street, leaving only enough space for one person to cross at a time. A beautiful little boy, about thirteen years old, smiles at me as I shuffle past. He had the face of an angel and is pushing an empty shopping cart to the nearby supermarket where he must work. Chocolate skin and almond shaped, brown eyes set off his perfectly soft, mild-mannered smile. Bolivians are so beautiful.