When Invisible Children Sing

by Huang, Chi Cheng,Tang, Irwin,Coles, Robert

  His hair is jet black and his cheekbones wide. Pure indigenous. He cannot be older than nine years old. He looks up at me with his mop-styled haircut. I look down at his feet. They stick out of a pair of filthy, tattered Converse sneakers.

  “Are you Jorge?” I ask him.

  “No!” he announces. “My name is Fernando.”

  I kneel down and untie Fernando’s shoes. I am bombarded by waves of putrid odors. I open the door to let some air out and return to his feet. Sheets of white skin exfoliate themselves from his pruned and damp feet, which are jungles of fungus. I look up at him. He gives me an innocent grin, and I force a smile back at him. I am going to have to clean his feet. Maybe I can put on gloves. No. That would hurt his feelings too much.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks me. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t smell anything? When was the last time you washed your feet?!”

  “I don’t wash my feet,” Fernando says indignantly.

  “What about when you take a shower?”

  “I go swimming in the river. That’s my shower. That’s how I take a bath.”

  My instinct nudges me to tell him I cannot help him. I look up at him once again. His dark brown eyes sear into my heart. I take a deep breath through my mouth and begin pulling sticky sheets of skin from his feet.

  “You go swimming?” I ask him.

  “Yeah. That counts as a shower, doesn’t it?”

  “How about I get you some socks?”

  “I don’t want socks.” Fernando tilts his head. “Did I ask you for socks?”

  “You need to wear socks, Fernando.”

  “What for? I’m fine. They just itch.”

  “Okay. How many times do you think you should take a shower each week?”

  “Once.”

  “How about three times?”

  Fernando pauses to consider. “Well, I’ll think about it. But that’s a lot, you know. What’s wrong with my feet?”

  “You have a fungal infection.”

  “What’s a fungal infection?”

  “A fungus is an organism that lives on your skin, especially if you don’t wash your skin and keep it clean.”

  I wash his feet with a towel. More sheets of white skin peel off. He giggles. “That tickles!”

  “So, Fernando. How often should you take a shower?”

  “Three times a week. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.”

  “Okay. But how about spacing them out?”

  “I’d rather get them done quick.”

  I rub antifungal cream on his feet. I squeeze out the entire tube.

  “When you take a shower, Fernando, what do you use to clean yourself?”

  “Water.”

  “I suggest soap.”

  “No,” he tells me.

  I wrap Fernando’s feet in gauze. “You need to use soap,” I tell him. In future examinations, I would discover that all the Bururu boys feel the same way about soap. I continue with the physical examination.

  Temperature: 98.4

  Heart Rate: 80

  Respiratory Rate: 21

  Blood Pressure: 100/60

  Weight: 35 kg

  Height: 4 feet 2 inches

  Fernando’s ears are filled with wax. He has cavities in his right lower molars. But otherwise he seems to be in good shape. During the examination, I explain to Fernando that I am conducting a survey of street children to learn how they got on the street and how they live and survive. “So, Fernando. Why are you here?”

  “What do you mean, why am I here?”

  “Where is your mother?”

  “She’s dead,” he says uneasily.

  Silence. “How did she die?”

  “Bus wreck.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Two months ago.”

  “I’m sorry, Fernando.” I pause out of respect and then ask him, “So it’s just you and your father.”

  “I never knew my father.”

  He must hate me for asking all these stupid questions. “Why did you never know your father?” I continue.

  “He left when I was a baby.”

  “So what did you do when your mother died?”

  “I went to my aunt’s house.”

  “What happened there?”

  “She did not want me there. I was just another mouth to feed. She always shouted at me, made me work all day, and called me bad names . . . so I left.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I slept on the streets. And then some of the children told me about Bururu. So I came here.”

  “What do you think about this place?”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t have to be out there anymore.” He points at the open doorway.

  “What’s so bad about being out there?”

  “Are you crazy?” His brows wrinkle together toward the bridge of his nose. “It’s dangerous out there. Drugs. Knives. Fights. The adults.”

  “The adults?”

  “You’re crazy! If you talk back at them, they will give you a good beating and call you trash. Knives are everywhere. You never know when one will suddenly appear in your back. We stuck together as a pack watching each other’s back. Thinner kept me warm at night. It messes up your brain and makes you crazy. Just like you.”

  “You’re right. I am crazy. How are your feet?”

  He peers down toward his toes. They wiggle in a synchronous manner as if they have a life of their own.

  “You should wear these socks.” I hand him a pair of tricolor cotton-polyester socks still in their shiny wrapper. Fernando holds the socks in his nubby little hands. “I’ll think about it.” He skips away with his bandaged feet sticking out of his Converse shoes.

  Alejandro is a lanky boy with a perennial smile on his face. Seventeen years old. He is tall for a Bolivian. Five feet eight inches. There is a small scar across his left cheek. His age and the amount of time he has spent at the orphanage place him as the biggest brother among the band of boys. He stops fights and encourages the children to do their homework. I have worked here only a week, but I have grown to like Alejandro for his heart and his kindness.

  “Hello, Alejandro. How are you?”

  “Good, Chi.”

  “Alejandro, I am going to perform a physical examination and ask you a few questions.” I press my stethoscope against his chest. “How long have you been at Bururu?”

  “Six years.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  “They are dead. My mother died when I was two years old. I don’t really remember her. My father left me when I was five. He just left me and went down south. I heard he died recently of old age or something.”

  “Are you sad that your father is dead?”

  “No. He didn’t do anything for me. He left me like a piece of trash.”

  “And your mother. How do you feel about your mother?”

  “I never knew my mother, so I don’t have feelings.”

  “What did you do when your father left you?”

  “I stayed with my uncle and cousin, but that was not a good situation. My uncle had many different women around all the time. He would beat me and shout at me. At times, he didn’t feed me. I suffered this for three years, and then I left when I was eight years old.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “The streets, of course.”

  “Which streets?”

  “Everywhere. All the streets. I did not know where to go. I ate and slept on the streets. That was how I spent my days for three years. I shined shoes. I begged. I asked for odd jobs. I slept in warm corners of the city. I watched my back. I survived.”

  “And then you found Bururu.”

  “Bururu is my home. My family. I am very happy here because Bururu has provided me with a trade. I am a cook. I have studied cooking for three years. Each month it costs about sixty bolivianos. My school is at the University of Sanchez Lima. The people at Bu
ruru helped me to take the next step in life, to someday live on my own.”

  “Why do you like cooking?”

  “Because cooking is very beautiful. And in the kitchen I can eat whatever I like. Ha ha ha!”

  “Aren’t you doing an internship in cooking?”

  “Yes, at the Hotel Presidente.”

  “Hotel Presidente? Isn’t that one of the premier hotels in La Paz? A five-star hotel, no?”

  “Yes, but I have not started yet. I’ve had trouble obtaining my certificate of citizenship.”

  “But you’ve lived in Bolivia your whole life.”

  “But I do not have any idea who my mother and father are. As a result I do not have anything. They have looked through all the records. Record after record. I am not there. I do not exist. I have been trying to obtain my citizenship for the last three and a half years.”

  I shake my head. A young man who has pulled himself up by the bootstraps despite not owning any boots is being denied the opportunity to work because he is not considered a citizen in his native land. His Aymaran ancestors have been in Bolivia for several thousand years, but since the Spanish conquered this land, being an indigenous Aymara or Quechua has held no advantage. “Well,” I say to him, “I am glad that you’re here. You help out a great deal and the younger boys look up to you.” Reading from my survey, I ask Alejandro, “Did you use drugs when you were on the streets?”

  Alejandro shakes his head vigorously. “I never did those things. I believed in myself—in life. I did not learn those evils of the streets.” Alejandro thinks for a moment; he wants to tell me something, perhaps something about his past? Alejandro stands up. “You must have patience, Chi. You need to make them understand. Little by little. Give them food once a week. Once a month, check their wounds in order to make sure that they are healing properly. Talk to them. Teach them. Tell them about God. Show them love. Show them which actions will give them a good life. Show them which actions will inflict pain in their lives and lead them to death.”

  I remain silent. I feel intimidated but inspired. I pump up the blood pressure gauge. “I will try,” I tell him. “I will try.”

  He walks in wearing red jeans seven sizes too large. Folds of denim hide his feet. His shirt is buttoned up to the top. His hair is wet and neatly combed. Wood chips litter the ground, and perhaps this explains his cautious shuffle. The wood saw in the adjacent room roars and shakes the windowpanes. I imagine the windows exploding and scarring this distinctly dysmorphic little boy. His brow juts forth from his large, wide head. Does he have an underlying chromosomal or hormonal abnormality? I have no book to refer to. Even if he has a defect, I can’t do anything about it. I barely have enough money to care for the common cold. He sits calmly on the end of a chair with his feet hanging, unable to touch the ground. He looks around the room, his gaze settling on the potatoes.

  “I think we are going to have potatoes for dinner tonight,” I say.

  “Good. I like potatoes.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jorge Limachi.”

  “How long have you been in Bururu?”

  He counts on his fingers with great precision. “Four years.”

  “Four years! Four years is a long time, Jorge.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you like it here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It is nice here, and Señora Lydia buys me clothes and shoes.”

  “What else do you like about Bururu?”

  “We get to go to school. We learn everything. We do our chores and homework. We also get to sleep and wash ourselves.”

  “Before you were here, did you live on the streets?”

  “I didn’t live on the streets.”

  “How’s that?”

  “One day I arrived at the square, and two young ladies and a young fellow found me.”

  “Why did you leave your house?”

  “Because I did not like my father.”

  “Why?”

  “My father used to make me work all day on the farm and then he would beat me.”

  “Why did your father beat you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you misbehave?”

  “No. My stepmother would tell him to beat me.”

  “So what did he do?”

  “My father would tie my hands like this.” He places his wrists one on top of another. “Then he would whip me with wires or large sticks until they broke. Sometimes he would use rubber hoses and hang me from my neck.”

  I stare at Jorge in disbelief.

  “Um,” intones Jorge, “one day my father got very, very angry. He placed me in an iron barrel. I remember it was very early in the morning. He filled up the barrel with water. He kept me in the barrel for two hours, and I almost drowned.”

  “So how did you leave?”

  “My father left me at my aunt’s house.”

  “Do you like your aunt?”

  “No! She was a perverted woman.”

  “What do you mean, ‘perverted’?”

  “She would often get angry and bathe me in cold water. One day she told me, ‘Tonight you will take a bath with cold water.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ After the bath, I slept on the floor, covered only with a plastic foil. The very next morning she told me, ‘We’re going to sell some food.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ As she was cooking that morning, I took about five bolivianos. Then I told her, ‘Auntie, I am going to pee outside, okay?’ She replied ‘Go, but come back quickly!’ Once I got outside, I ran and ran until I could not run anymore. I walked down a dirt road. A nice man with a truck gave me a ride into the city. He drove me all the way to the downtown area. He did not ask me why I was all alone at night. If he did, I would have lied to him. When I arrived at Plaza San Francisco, I walked and walked, trying to figure out what was the next thing to do. Then two cholitas who were selling trinkets asked me why I was not at home at such a late hour. I did not answer them. They eventually let me sleep with them at night under the tarp covering of their market stand. They were very kind to me and helped me with many things.”

  “So how long did you stay with them?”

  “One and a half months. They asked me if I knew about Bururu. I said no. So they took me here.”

  “So, Jorge, what happened to your mother?”

  “She died in a fire when I was very young.” Jorge thinks for a second. “I have a picture of my mother.” Jorge pauses again to consider this fact. “Do you want to see the picture?”

  “I would love to see a picture of your mother.”

  “Follow me,” he says. Señora Olivia and I tail him as he runs out of the storage room, up the stairs, and into his bedroom. He unbuttons the top button of his shirt and retrieves a key tied precariously to a tattered piece of yarn around his neck. His entire worldly possessions are kept in a two-by-two-foot wooden box in the second-floor hallway of Bururu Home for Street Boys. He opens his wooden locker, the hinges of which are only halfway screwed in. He rips open his Velcro wallet and carefully pulls out a discolored one-by-two-inch photograph. His mother is a young woman with a pearlike body wearing a brown bowler hat. She must be from the southeastern region of Bolivia. The cholitas identify their origins by the color of their hats. Jorge’s mother is a cholita without a smile.

  “She is very pretty, Jorge.”

  “I know.” He carefully places his most prized possession in his wallet and places the wallet back into the locker.

  “You miss your mother, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” He looks down at the floor. “Yes, but she is safe now. She is in heaven. I say a silent prayer every night, for her and for the people who help me.”

  It is 5 p.m. and I have done six physicals today. Most of the orphanage children are surprisingly healthy. Besides the occasional skin infection, the children need a dentist more than a doctor. Nearly all the children have severe cavities requiring extraction. I walk out of Bururu and down tiny cobblestone roads. The old women who
sell llama wool sweaters watch me.

  “Who is that Chinese man?” asks one to the other. “He is here every day.”

  The sky is a brilliant light blue. I walk down to Plaza San Francisco. Five street children are sprawled out supine on a grassy area. They are asleep, perhaps drugged up. Another street child carefully sifts through their pockets in search of a few bolivianos. The homeless stealing from the homeless. I should do something. Do something! What? Perhaps I should rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. Now that I am here, among so many in need, I am incapacitated by sadness, overwhelmed by the work before me. I walk to Burger Center, a restaurant that caters to first worlders, and I order a cheeseburger with fries and a large Coke. I remember Titanic really is playing tonight at the cinema. I hate romantic movies. I might go see it.

  I find Mercedes on the roof of the Yassela building. She lies on her left side in a fetal position, the morning sun splitting her evenly between light and shadow. She wears a dark peach knitted sweater and black sweatpants. She rests her head along her extended arm, but she is completely aware that I have come to re-dress her wound. Two days ago, she showed me a new gaping wound on her left wrist, but she needed me to play her silly game, and I didn’t play long enough to win the prize: the privilege of treating her wounds.

  I crouch down beside Mercedes and whisper gently, “Mercedes . . . Mercedes . . . Mercedes, it’s 9:30. Time to wake up.”

  She does not respond.

  “Wake up, Mercedes.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “I need to treat your wound. We made a deal. I let you use my radio, and you allow me to wash and re-dress your cuts.”

  “I hate you. Leave me alone.”

  “I love you too. Now get up,” I say rather harshly.

  “I hate you!”

  She doesn’t really hate me, I tell myself. She just wants me to get out of her face. “You can hate me all you want,” I tell her, “but you still need to get up. You are living in Yassela, so you need to listen to what the staff asks you to do. Besides, this is for your own good.”