What makes treating this boy difficult is that he does not want to eat anything; he only wants to drink water. Day in and day out, water water water. For the first few days he was here, I tried to force feed him through tying his hands with a cloth diaper and pouring liquefied food down his throat whenever he opened his mouth to cry in protest. He would wail and flail his limbs in protest, screaming because he did not want to eat.

After a few days, I decided not to force feed him anymore because I believed it was too inhumane. However, he still did not want to eat anything. He would pick at his food, maybe start chewing it, and eventually spit it out. It was not uncommon for this child to have four different bowls around him at mealtimes, all with different types of food in the hopes that he would like something and eat it.

One month later, he weighed less than what he weighed coming in. When his mom visited him one time, I asked her what he ate at home. She said that he ate exactly what we were trying to feed him at Nutre Hogar (beans and rice and chicken), and that he liked it. Her response made me so angry because she was obviously lying. If he had been eating these types of meals at home, he would not be nearly as malnourished as he is, and he would be more familiar with foods and would want to eat more than just water. His immune system is really fragile—as to be expected after refusing to eat. There were days where he would refuse to eat anything, including his milk formula. What ended up happening was that he wound up in the hospital for a week because he refused to eat anything and had a high fever that would not come down with medicines.

Now I’m back to force-feeding him, and it pains me to tie his hands with the cloth diaper and force food down his throat. However, I’m hoping that the ends with justify the means, and that he will learn to like food once he’s better nourished.

This entry is titled the same as a short story by William Carlos Williams that I read for one of my classes at Duke. In this story, WCW recalls using many forceful methods to make a girl open her mouth so he could diagnose her with strep throat. If my memory serves me correctly, I think the moral of the story was that he justified using force with the “ends justifies the means” principle. I can’t help but feel that what I’m doing to this boy parallels this story.

We had no AC, no internet, no TV – and not having these things really put everything into perspective for me. I’m so used to having immediate access to internet at home and at Duke such that I spend a lot of my time on the computer. However, not having this in Honduras not only enlightened me to how incredibly privileged I am to have the world literally at my fingertips when I’m in the US, but also to think about people living in Porvenir in even more compromising living conditions than me. I found it difficult to live in a house without AC and the internet; yet I still had access to purified drinking water, running water in the sink, a toilet and shower and electricity, and fans, a bed, pillows, a washing machine, and enough space to sleep 10 people, albeit a tight squeeze. Although it was admittedly a step down from living at Duke or at home, it was unimaginably a better living situation than many of the people in Porvenir, who have very limited electricity, if any; who get their water from a faucet that probably brings them contaminated water and gives them parasites; who probably don’t have as many fans as we had in the volunteer house; who wash their clothes with washing boards and hang them to dry on clotheslines outside; who may not even have beds or pillows or enough space to comfortably sleep all of the family members. The women in Porvenir get up at the first light of dawn to work on the day’s chores – cooking and cleaning and looking after their kids – and undoubtedly worry about so many more little things than I probably ever will have to worry about. Even the poorest households in the US have more access to basic needs than the poorest in developing countries like Honduras – where the corrupt government and limited infrastructure guarantees nothing to struggling impoverished families. In a conversation with a cab driver here, I learned that the poor constitute nearly 70 percent of the population and the other 30 percent are rich politicians and land-owners. Many of the people in Porvenir and surrounding areas work for Standard Fruit Company, which owns Dole. This multi-national corporation exploits cheap labor and reaps the benefit for themselves. Doctors here earn minimum wage and contend with difficulties unimaginable to health professionals in the US – limited supplies, technology, insufficient staff, limited beds for patients and no personal rooms, just open areas and large waiting rooms for recovering patients. Some clinics in rural areas may not even have access to running water or have a way to sterilize equipment and it’s really a double-edged sword because the people here are not content with the health services offered yet the nurses and doctors are strained with limitations on resources and basic clinic needs and above all the government has not provided the country with proper infrastructure to meet the health care needs of the people here. It’s hard to determine the exact cause of how all of this came to be – what came first, a chicken-vs-egg story if you will between corruption and the influence of multinational corporations. The multinational corporations, like Standard Fruit, carry with them an even worse form of the pervasive “machismo” here in Latin America – the ideology that men here can call all the shots without consequences, including domestic and child abuse, drunkenness, gambling, irresponsibility with regard to finances, family needs, and general “macho-ness” carried to an extreme. Companies like Standard Fruit come in with the hope to pay people the least amount they will accept so that they can reap the most profit. Beyond that transgression in the name of “efficiency” or “maximized revenue” – with a failure to carry the actions through to see the consequence paying people less than is enough to feed their family – Standard Fruit and other companies compromise the health of workers by exposing them to cancer-causing and otherwise hazardous and toxic chemicals. And on a community level, the runoff of pesticides into the Porvenir river is very damaging to the health of people that bathe in the river, swim in the part of the ocean that the river feeds into, or really have any contact with the river at all. Failure for the government to install a trash-collection and recycling system is also damaging to public health because people are inclined to burn their trash – plastic and all – which releases chlorine gas and other air-polluting fumes into the air that people breathe in every day. And the most basic need of all – clean drinking water – is not a right but a commodity, a luxury if an individual has enough money to afford it. Many of the families here are only able to survive from receiving money from relatives living in the US – money to complement the meager earnings they scrape off of working in the piñeras (pineapple fields) or selling fish they’ve caught in the Caribbean Sea.

The government’s inability to provide infrastructure to meet basic needs has stripped the people here of confidence that they can make a difference in their community through working together to solve a common problem. It is enough of a challenge for people to care for themselves and their children and their extended family and to cook and clean and scrape up enough money occasionally for healthcare. It is a different philosophy here than in the US, where we have the resources and the privilege to believe ourselves invincible and able to meet our individual goals as well as make a difference on a community level. In Honduras, partly due to the limited resources and the daily struggle to meet basic needs and partly due to resignation that individuals are powerless to larger corporations and the government that takes advantage of the people with no regard to their well-being, life is slower, difficult, and challenges are debilitating. It shouldn’t have to be this way – no one should fall victim to a vicious cycle of poverty and exploitation and health and environmental concerns through the roof. I think in a way that the people have learned to deal with it not by helplessly trying to surmount challenges through collective action, which may or may not – likely not – be successful (without outside help), but rather people have learned to do what they can to take care of their families and to acknowledge that some things are beyond their control. People here are friendly – and likely have united through shared challenges to build community.

Perhaps adrift or perhaps plummeting down an ever-stronger current of rising challenges, the ebb and flow in Honduras softens the presumed daily struggles with poverty and limited healthcare with an attitude of gratitude for life and sharing life with others and accepting delays and obstacles as a part of life. “Life” in essence is completely different here – it is not intensely focused on meeting personal goals and individual accomplishments and statistics technology convenience and efficiency, but it is rather a well-worn fabric interwoven with challenges and small triumphs, of patience and perseverance, of community and talking and finding simple pleasure, or at least feeling content, in cooking for a birthday party and sharing stories with friends and playing soccer in the park, sitting in the shade, eating mangoes, and accepting daily problems as something to keep you occupied and fulfilled in providing and caring for your family. It is not a culture that would necessarily mesh well with the US, which is so fast paced and work-oriented to the point that we have left behind community and socializing and patience in favor of TV and isolated success and superfluous commodities and superficial parties. We may not even know the neighbors down the street in the US, whereas here everyone knows everyone in their near vicinity and people spend a large part of their day sitting and talking or taking a nice stroll or going to church each night or just passing the time with neighbors here. Community is so much more than having one shared interest, but truly it’s having a shared underlying understanding about a complex situation and a shared attitude about what life is and what is important in life. Day by day, people are patient and wait for food to cook or for kids to draw or play or for the clouds to pass over the sun for a minute to get a bit of shade or for the rain to come or for the mangoes to fall off of the trees or for the kids to finish eating food so that they can feel better and so that the food scraps can go to the starving dog. It is a different life here – in ways simpler but in ways enriched with a stronger community bond, the kind that is built around shouldering a hefty burden and the unspoken understanding that your neighbor shares that burden as well. There is not so much a shared responsibility for community problems – since so many are the result of multinationals’ or the government’s negligence with regard to meeting people’s basic living needs – but I would describe it more as a strong understanding about what problems most people face in the community, whether or not there’s any good solution to them. I think in the US there is some awareness but not enough of a shared understanding that people are worse off than others and that poverty exists to a significant extent in some communities and households. In the US, we have more of an attitude of inferiority in the middle class, of “keeping up with the Joneses”, of wanting the next bigger, better, newer item, of striving for personal success even if it means life will be harder for someone else. Middle class neighborhoods in the US are still privileged with clean water, electricity, modern conveniences like refrigerators, AC, TVs, computers, internet, ample food available at a reasonable price at the grocery store, and so many other commodities that people in Honduras and other developing countries may never enjoy. We have cars and roads and bridges and enough infrastructure that we can get around easily, buy food easily, learn about news easily; we have good education systems and a decent healthcare system and generally just such privilege not to have to worry about meeting basic needs. Schools in Honduras are inconsistent; the government doesn’t pay teachers much and even the amount of education people receive is very inconsistent. Many of the women I interviewed had only a sixth grade education – and some only had a third grade education. Learning here is more learning the ways of life – how to cook and clean and be a mother at a very young age. Education in the public schools doesn’t really get people anywhere if there are no jobs – and since women have to stay home and care for the kids anyways men must fill the role of working, but then because of machismo even the men are irresponsible and blow the family’s money on beer and gambling and the family suffers and it’s really a sad situation. It’s sad to see people so friendly suffer and not have the same chance in life to get ahead and rise up out of their impoverished conditions just because they were born into poverty and into a country where privilege is a luxury for the few and basic needs somehow fall into the category of “luxury.” It’s disgusting to think that the Standard Fruit company and the rich landowners here can continue to exploit people and reap benefit only for themselves while failing to think about the well-being of the people who they’re dependent on to work in their fields. I hope someday things will change and people will re-direct their attention away from greed veiled by “efficiency” so that people won’t suffer as much. I hope at the very least the world can take notice of the vast disparities between the privileges people in developed countries enjoy versus the failure to meet even basic needs like clean water in developing countries. Even that, providing access to clean drinking water around the world, albeit likely impossible, would revolutionize public health and hopefully empower people around the world. I would do it if I could, but I am just one person in a vast space of 6 billion people all vying to meet their personal needs. I think even providing clean water for one community in Honduras would make a huge difference. I’ve thought more about it and realized it would be an incredible challenge even just to do that – and that beyond that I couldn’t just provide clean water to one area and not to another in close proximity because that would inspire jealousy and would also encourage people to continue to be dependent on foreign help rather than taking things into their own hands on a sustainable level. What really is sustainable anyway? Is it making the most out of poverty and settling for “good effort”? Is it providing with initial equipment and ideas and expecting them to find the motivation to rise to the challenge? Is it putting a lot of faith in community leaders who may or may not be able to find enough help in the community to carry out the project? Or is it something different entirely that I haven’t considered yet? I’m thinking that putting faith in a community leader is a good way to go. But it’s so difficult with limited ability to coordinate things from the states to Honduras and with different expectations and a different viewpoint on life and its priorities, is it even possible to coordinate something as large scale as a water purification project carried out on the level of individual homes working through a community leader? These are questions I’ll continue to contend with as I think about project design for next year and at some level I’ll need to let the patience and friendly gratitude of the Honduran people seep into my thoughts and goals so that I can continue to have faith and persevere despite difficulties and to find happiness in the simple pleasures in life.

These past weeks have been filled with news and excitement … so much so that I’ve barely had time to think and sleep let alone write and reflect. Zelaya, the Honduran President, was ousted with a military coup, and since then there has been a lot of political talk here in Honduras, albeit not much action. I’ve learned a lot about Latin American politics – about Alba and the Central/South American alliance, about how Zelaya supported los pobres (the poor) whereas Michelletti (the new interim president) has more support from big businesses and the rich, and about what various people in the community think will happen in the next few weeks when Zelaya returns, or doesn’t return, whatever it may be. I hope that everything will stabilize, of course, because safety is important and we need to be able to get out of the country in 5 some weeks. However, in a way it’s kinda exciting to be part of history and to learn more about Honduras’ politics and to compare Honduras to all the other countries’ governments I learned way back in AP Comparative Gov junior year of high school.
We’re very safe in the volunteer house and El Porvenir, and even if something happens at the capital (Tegucigalpa) or in the major cities, I doubt much of it will reach us way over on the northern coast. So far life has carried on peacefully as usual in Porvenir; the fishermen fish, the pineapple workers work in the field; mothers cook and clean and care for the kids; emaciated dogs run around and scratch their legs; wayward cows moo and make their way through stagnant pools and parade their smelly selves around town; kids run around, playing in the dirt, on the soccer field, climbing on trees, throwing rocks to make mangos fall, jumping into my arms whenever the opportunity arises, and generally just being energetic, lively, friendly kids. And the fathers are a bit more removed – they work and then hang out in the pool halls and drink beer and occasionally cause trouble, none that I’ve seen, only heard of happening at late hours in the night. The pool halls are a symbol of Latin American machísmo, or male dominance, indicating that men here can do as they like with little consequence. It is rare to find a father who is around the home or around their kids for many hours in the day. Yet the people here are muy amable – or very friendly – and they are very charming as well. With all the interviews we’ve done – about 17 right now and counting – I want to just stay with people and talk later, about their lives here and what challenges they face, and also what brings them joy in life. Each time we meet someone new, I feel more connected to this place and I’ve already begun linking faces to the word “Porvenir.”
Porvenir is a town full of all sorts of people – mostly friendly, some shy, everyone always waving and saying “buenos” (short for Buenos Días or good day in English) or “Adios” (goodbye) or “Hola” (hello) or “¿Cómo está?” (how are you?) or even “hello” or “goodbye.” It’s interesting that almost as much as I want to speak Spanish with people here and continue to improve my fluency, people here who know English are eager to speak English with us. We were talking with one of our friends here – Dani (or Oscar – he kinda goes by either name) – who was helping us scrape paint off the health clinic walls in preparation for a new painting this weekend. Akul was talking to Dani in broken Spanish and Dani to Akul in broken English, yet somehow they surpassed that language barrier and found a way to connect through a shared passion for soccer. They have loyalties to different teams and were each boasting that their team was better. It was quite amusing to watch, and on a deeper level quite amazing really that something like soccer could transcend the vast gulfs of cultural and lingual barriers to speak a common language of “sports.” Dani has since played basketball with us for the past few nights, and he will even play a game of monopoly with us tonight after we briefly interview him. That is one of the greatest things about this project, truly, the people we have met. Everyone is friendly and loves talking with us – all of us – whether we speak just a little Spanish or are fluent like Michelle. It has been eye-opening to learn of a whole different world of sorts – really a whole different way of living. Around here, when people set times for meetings people are generally late if they show up at all. The Honduran life isn’t centered around deadlines and stringent meetings and formality but rather wandering and free-flowing time and family duties and generally just a much more fluid work ethic. It was a bit shocking to me at first, and it has definitely tempered my high standards for punctuality and deadlines. We are right on target with our project and will probably surpass our research goals – but not because we were rigid about setting appointments with people, but actually quite the opposite. Most of our interviews have taken place from wandering around town and politely asking people if we can interview them about health. These have led to meeting some wonderful people, and to chatting after the interview for a while, and generally making new friends all around the neighborhood. I truly love the people here, and I’m so sad that we’ll be leaving so soon. The fluid time has made it seem like we’ve been here for much longer than just 3 weeks, and also that we have much more time than just a week to learn about people’s lives here. But, time goes on, relentlessly, unaffected by our work here. Everyone has been very hospitable and they all have expressed their happiness with us coming to work here. It is so rewarding to talk to people individually about all the problems that I had in the past only imagined affected people here. Although it’s disquieting to realize that in many cases I was spot-on accurate for the issues that affect people – parasites, malnutrition, lice, and diabetes, it’s good to connect with people and almost more touching to realize that these diseases affect people on a daily basis and impact their daily lives, albeit somewhat tragic. We have also learned of other illnesses that impact people here – cervical cancer, alcoholism, drug use, malaria, dengue fever, high blood pressure, arthritis, poor dentition, the flu, colds, and general aches and pains. It is amazing to me that somehow in the face of limited medical care, poverty (and thus an inability to foot medical bills or pay for medicines), and high unemployment rates, people here can accept the burden of living with parasites and other illnesses and continue on with their daily lives, friendly as ever. People here do not seem embittered by the monumental challenges they face. However, I’ve gotten a sense that it may be enough to shoulder the burden and live with the challenges rather than to be motivated to do something about the problems and actively combat them. People seem okay with passively dealing with individual concerns but it is extremely challenging to motivate people on a large scale to do projects that could improve their self-sufficiency. In one sense, I can understand because it seems that somehow as humans we learn to deal with the unique challenges – be they medical or something altogether different – we all face, but it is harder to empathize with the montón (mountain) of other challenges that we collectively face. We can fend for ourselves, and maybe our families if we overextend a little bit, just enough to get by – but it is another issue altogether to organize and motivate people to work together to resolve a common problem. Resources here are limited and many people live on a day-to-day basis, doing chores and cooking food and generally not planning much in advance because it is enough just to do and not to get caught up in something that may not even come through. As Americans, we have the convenience to have so many things provided for us – tons of food, conveniently pre-prepared, the internet at our fingertips, TV, phone, car, gas, etc. – that we are afforded time to plan ahead and keep a minute-to-minute schedule and go wherever we need to be in an instant. The pace here is much slower. People walk places, or if they want to go to Ceiba – a major city close to town here – then they can take a local bus which comes every hour. To find out news, they can talk to their neighbors or the local supermarket owner who has a TV to find out what is going on in the world. At a time like this when Honduras is in the news a lot, a suspect people do this a lot and talk a lot about Honduran politics. However, since life is a lot slower here, I feel as if in general people aren’t too concerned with what is going on in other countries or in the world but are more preoccupied with taking care of kids and cooking and working and doing the day-to-day chores that keep life on track, albeit at a slower pace than I or any American I know would expect for our own lives.
In a way it is a very valuable lesson to know that life can continue and our project can continue and we can still meet all our goals and deadlines without really mapping it out minute by minute but just letting it happen naturally. As a generally optimistic person, I’m inclined to think that life always turns out for the better, no matter what happens, and so I think that things tend to fall into place at the right time. This is not to say that bad things don’t happen or that sometimes everything seems very messed up and broken, but I think that eventually what needs to happen will, and if that means resolution, it will happen, and if it means perpetual brokenness – well I don’t think that can exist. There must be some hope. And for our project – I think that the hope resides in the people here, that they can be so friendly and willing to talk to us and that despite the monumental obstacles they face – medical and otherwise – I think that by caring for themselves and their family maybe they can make things a little better. Bit by bit they can build up the economy and if altruists are willing to help, they will send doctors and money to build up the clinics here. It will take time and patience and money – lots of it – but I have faith in the people here and their ability to love and be loved. As it is, that is what drives life and what ultimately drives me to be here and experience life here firsthand and become even more inspired to do the best I can to help the people here and to love and be loved by all those whom enter my life.

To make up for not posting much on this site about our project, I’ve posted snippets from my June posts in my other blog, http://memoirsofhonduras.blogspot.com. Feel free to check out these posts, the other blog, or email me at annabrown27@gmail.com with any thoughts, reflections, or questions.

6-13-09 post: Arrival in Honduras

Finally I’m here. I’ve waited a long time to finally return to Honduras and actually implement the project I’ve been planning this full year. I’m unbelievably excited to be here, to learn more about Honduran culture, challenge my abilities as a leader, and do something meaningful with the skills I have to offer. I’m also quite nervous. I’m afraid that what I have to offer is not enough, that I’m not up to this monumental challenge of community service in a striking new form. I think what will pull me through is keeping an open mind throughout all of the fluctuating plans, uncertainty, and fear. I hope to stay confident and yet to also know my limitations as a leader and as a volunteer.

It’s pretty crazy here already. I just arrived yesterday, but already we’ve spent a lot of time exploring the city of San Pedro Sula. We’re waiting here another full day and night for our last team member to arrive. There are all sorts of fast food places in San Pedro Sula – more than I would have ever expected to find in Honduras. In the “centro” – the small downtown area of the city with a beautiful waterfall located between the church and the municipal center – there is a corner where Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonalds, Wendys, Burger King, and Popeyes Chicken all intersect. The church is monumental and gorgeous – it has statues of Christ on the cross and beautiful stained glass windows. I would guess that it’s about a third the size of the Duke chapel – which is a huge edifice here. Compared to La Esperanza – the town I stayed in last summer for a week – San Pedro Sula is noticeably noisier, more bustling with urban life, and not as run down. There are paved streets, not as many open gutters as La Esperanza, and a close-up view of Honduras’s beautiful mountains. Interestingly enough, there’s a Coca-Cola sign quite similar to the infamous Hollywood sign, and it lights up at night. Who would’ve thought there could be so much big company presence in a country so weathered down by poverty, poor health conditions, and crumbling infrastructure?

Coincidentally, today investigators from CMS (Centers from Medicare and Medicaid) descended upon Browning as well. These healthcare examiners basically determine if the hospital meets the standards, follows protocol and is functional enough to continue receiving funding from Medicare/Medicaid. If a hospital fails the inspection three times, funding ceases and the hospital closes. This hospital has failed twice, and today they arrived to assess a possible third strike. Lets hope the lights don’t go out for good.

[Uploaded from my Verizon Wireless device]

Growing up in the very Dutch, very Christian Western Michigan, I noticed my public school tended to carefully tiptoe around touchy subjects like evolution and Native Americans. We learned the “cool Indian” things like how they lived in wigwams in Michigan, built canoes from trees and traded with the French. But we tended to skip over the more absurd events such as the massacres, mandatory “white schooling”, and executive orders uprooting entire nativ

communities from their homelands. In fact, I remember in my 8th grade history class learning about the brilliant Thomas Jefferson and the divine “Manifest Destiny” Ideals that changed the country. I remember thinking “I would have loved to live in that time- explore an uncharted, uninhabited land out West, pick out any plot I pleased and settle down.” I remember thinking “Wow. Lewis and Clark were so brave, such adventurous and courageous pioneers that helped promote the expansion of our beautiful country and our quest for freedom.” However now, as I am living among the original settlers and explorers of our land, as I am seeing the dwindling families and cultures that were rudely pushed aside as the excited white men came rushing through, I realize manifest destiny was the most absurdly ignorant and blindly misunderstood robbery in history. We trampled lives, cultures and blatantly went against the precise things we were promoting: freedom, liberty, and opportunity.

Native Americans were indeed the original settlers of the land that is North America. Europeans sailed west, explored, and somehow came up with the idea that due to the color of the Native American’s skin- they were merely weeds that needed to be plucked and discarded so that proper and civilized life could be planted and sowed. The Native inhabitants were accustomed to battles and feuds with nearby tribes. The Blackfeet here on the reservation for example, warred with the Flatheads to the west and the Cree to the south. Jokes still fly around the reservation, but surprisingly no matter whom you speak with, it is clear the Blackfeet were the strongest and most powerful of the plains warriors. Yet once they heard that their enemies(the Cree and Flatheads) had already joined with the white men, trading for guns, etc. The Blackfeet had no choice but to see the white men as a threat. And so it began.

As I’ve spent almost two months in Browning, where the majority of people are Indian, I’ve been attempting to describe the sentiment that surrounds my presence. Every once in a while, when the conversation drifts back to the history of the Blackfeet or cultural heritage of their tribe, an interesting pause appears. Its almost a pause to recognize- “You. You and your people came and told us to move. it wasn’t enough that you killed many of our men. That can be accepted, since war was frequent between Indian tribes anyhow. No, it is that you came and brought your new ways and changed our ways forever. We can never recover from the harm you brought.”

]]> http://dukeengageindy.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/the-histories-of-this-land/feed/ 0 whitneywoodhull child-and-tipi http://dukeengageindy.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/bittersweet-goodbyes/ http://dukeengageindy.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/bittersweet-goodbyes/#comments Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:34:01 +0000 Julia Chou http://dukeengageindy.wordpress.com/?p=106 ]]>

Every now and then, usually six months after first entering Nutre Hogar, a child becomes sufficiently plump (according to peso-talla, or weight-for-height) to leave the center and go home. While this milestone signifying good health should be and is celebrated, I cannot help but have mixed feelings about the whole affair.

Two kids left the center last week, amidst rounds of hugging to say goodbye. Both were boys. The first one’s dad came to Nutre Hogar to pick him up, whereas the other’s mom has been staying near Nutre Hogar for the last month to help her son recuperate from surgery to repair his cleft palate. For the sake of anonymity, let’s call the first kid Niño, and the other Chico.

Niño’s father was thin, with a face browned and weathered by sun. Deep wrinkles creased his face., and his teeth were crooked and brown. He could not have looked more dissimilar to his son, who after staying in Nutre Hogar for six months, had a lighter skin tone, no wrinkles, and was pleasantly plump. Niño started squirming once his father picked him up, and a staff member commented that Niño probably didn’t recognize his father because he hadn’t seen his father for about six months. To this, the father said, “But it’s only been three months!,” and the staff member started looking through her notes to confirm whether or not this was true.

She found Niño’s date of entry, which was indeed a day in January, six months ago. I silently stood in shock, wondering how a father could “misplace” or not notice his son wasn’t at home for an extra three months. Filled with self-righteous indignation, thoughts such as, “How is such a man capable of taking care of his own child?!” kept running through my mind, mixed in with the drone of staff members telling the father how to properly feed the child. Too soon, father and son left Nutre Hogar with several large bags full of clothes, food, medicine, and toys for them to bring home.

The staff members then turned to Chico, who had recovered remarkably well from his surgery. His mother, like Niño’s father, had a face weathered by sun and she looked very old for having such a young child. Wearing the traditional clothes of the Ngöbe-Buglé and keeping her hair tied in a low ponytail with a cheap velvet scrunchie, she listened intently to the staff member’s instructions. I never doubted how much she cared about her son, though I did wonder whether she would retain in her memory any of the care instructions.

The big shock came when she was asked to “sign” her name for her son’s release from the facility. Instead of signing, she stuck her thumb onto an inkpad, and stamped the “Sign Here” line with her thumb. I took this to mean she was illiterate, which upon reflection, is not very surprising at all given the high rates of illiteracy among the Ngöbe-Buglé women.

So here we were, returning these precious children to an apparently absentminded father and an illiterate mother. Despite the harms that come from taking these children away from their parents for such an extended period of time, I thought that perhaps Nutre Hogar was doing these kids a huge favor by not only feeding them, but by also providing them with a caring, nurturing environment. When I asked a psychologist if there were any harms from separating the children from their parents, she responded that sometimes there were problems (e.g. depression) that occurred. However, these cases of depression were rare, and it was far more common for the harm of parental separation to be outweighed by the amount of attention and care given at Nutre Hogar.

But how paternalistic and condescending am I being? My impressions of the parents were all first impressions, and I very well could have judged them wrongly. I know them no more than they know me, and I know far less about their culture or their parenting skills. I am very mixed on this issue.