Javier is a homeless man, spending most of his waking hours drinking and committing petty crimes. When I told him that Anna had killed herself, Javier was silenced, shocked, and saddened. Having lost his lover and his unborn child, he almost shed a tear. But he did not. He walked on. I have not seen him for nearly two years.
Maria’s burial structure was destroyed because the cemetery permit was not renewed. Although Daniela and her mother continue to have a frigid relationship, both Daniela and Natalia now live with Daniela’s mother. Daniela sells fruit drinks on a downtown corner.
Daniel Chávez remains a street boy, eight years later. He is currently one of the older boys who abuse younger children, physically and probably sexually. Christopher Chávez lives in a home for street children. I have not seen them in two years.
Juan Carlos and César continue to sleep on the street, often inebriated and sometimes committing small crimes.
Vicki is doing remarkably well in a home for teenage street girls. I bumped into her in 2005 on one of the main streets of La Paz as she was running off to a class for beauticians. She has a small baby girl, and they are doing well together. It has been a long journey since the days of child prostitution and selling overgreased potato chips.
Ernesto, Rosa’s grandfather, died on the streets in 2000, from alcoholism. Rosa spotted her biological father once over the last eight years. He did not acknowledge Rosa during their brief encounter. Rosa’s grandmother, Monica, continues to sell trinkets and other small goods every morning beginning at 8 a.m. in Plaza San Francisco. Over the years, multiple attempts were made to assist Catia in taking responsibility for her daughter, but she continued to lose her ongoing battle with alcoholism, regularly putting Rosa’s life in danger. Rosa was eventually adopted by a loving family. She is doing well in school and aspires to go to college.
In April 2005, Catia disappeared from the streets.
I completed my Harvard residency program in internal medicine and pediatrics in 2002. I now split my time between Boston and La Paz. I work several months each year at the Boston Medical Center at Boston University School of Medicine, where I am a hospitalist in pediatrics and internal medicine. My dual roles as a Boston hospital doctor and a Bolivian street children advocate are made possible by Boston University’s Dr. Barry Zuckerman, Dr. Bob Vinci, Dr. Jeff Samet, and Dr. Jeff Greenwald, all of whom value the work we provide for the marginalized in both Boston and Bolivia.
Do you see our invisible children? Economics and technology widen the moats and heighten the walls between us in the developed world and the poor of the developing world. Political parties distort our vision. Many on the left wish us to believe that our street children are innocent and helpless victims. In contrast, those on the right often define these children as violent, lazy vermin deserving of their torture. Street children are not good or bad, but rather complex human beings with good and bad qualities—just like us all.
Do you see our invisible children? Have you focused your vision on them so that you may judge them? Tell me what is black and white in their world of gray; I myself am so often confused. Is it wrong for a street child to steal a piece of bread to survive one more day? Is it right to give a street child money, knowing he may use it to buy drugs? Is it better to leave him penniless, knowing he might starve? Forced to choose, do you help the street baby or the street boy or the street girl?
Do you see our invisible children? I take issue with the current tilt of American Christianity. The “wealth and prosperity gospel” says that Christians, because of their belief in God, receive gifts from heaven. Does this mean that the street children need only believe in God to find themselves living in loving homes with food and medicine? Does the popular understanding that God helps those who help themselves mean that the street children do not help themselves and that they deserve to be starved, murdered, and raped?
Sometimes my anger gets the best of me. I yell and snap at those I shouldn’t, as well as those I should. What is anger in the cause of the street children? Perhaps it is passion. My passion is still youthful and strong. My body, however, has aged. Where once there was a healthy tuft of hair, there is now a smooth patch of scalp. As my workouts become more difficult, my waist widens. My spiritual blind spots remain, but I am more aware of them and am searching for others yet unknown. My hypocrisy weighs the same as it used to. My family, children, friends, and colleagues will readily attest that I am far from a saint. Sometimes I do not treat the children as well as I would like. Working with street children is mundane and often hopeless. For street children, it is always about “me”—not unreasonable since no else cares about them. Through all the troubles, I try to remain present in their lives, but sometimes at a cost. The heartbreak, stress, rage, and hopelessness have contributed to the many valleys of my life.
To know the street children is to have one’s life transformed. So many of the peaks in my life have come from being present with the street children. I truly enjoy seeing the children play and smile after being cured of various diseases. To play soccer with a street child and see him or her happy for a millisecond is one of the most treasured gifts I can ever receive. My other peaks are my marriage to my caring wife, spending time with our daughter, Grace, and looking forward with great anticipation to our new daughter, Lily, from China, and another infant due in June 2006.
I still struggle with my lifelong conundrum: Why did God take my sister Mingfang and not me? Why must our children suffer on the street? Why is such evil allowed to be inflicted upon our children? Intellectually, I have come to accept that God has created us with free wills. He also allows us our evil, our neglect, and our blindness.
Will you decide to see my invisible children? My children ask for your money. But more important, they ask to be seen, to be known as human beings and as children. Tell our stories, they told me. To Daniela, a hundred dollars made me rich. The street children flounder in absolute squalor. They ask for your understanding and empathy and not necessarily for your sympathy or forgiveness. They ask to live with dignity.
Our lives are short and fleeting. What is the legacy we leave behind? Maybe my legacy is a few square blocks of La Paz, Bolivia, where all the children have homes.
Our children die not from disease or malnutrition. Our children die because they are poor. In reality, most of us do not even watch the children as they die, for we dare not let ourselves see the children. See my children.
No, you needn’t help them all, because we simply can’t. In fact, I prefer that you help just one. That is, help one child at a time. There are 70 million street children in the world. With your help, there will be one former street child. One child in a home. And then two. Three. Four. Five, six, seven. . . . A girl named Rosa, a baby named Elisa, a boy named Jesús. . . .
You can donate to our efforts at Kaya Children International, P.O. Box 337, Lincoln, MA 01773 or online through PayPal at www.kayachildren.org. The Bolivian Street Children Project is a nonprofit organization.
Chi-Cheng Huang, MD
La Paz, Bolivia, April 2006
Acknowledgments / Chi Huang
Kristin Huang, my wife and my best friend, for her support and encouragement during difficult times.
My daughter, Grace, for making me laugh every day and for showing me what is truly important in life.
My father, mother, and sister, for their continued support.
George Veth, Deb Veth, Ben Branham, Kristy Branham, Anton Villatoro, Thania Villatoro, Kurt Leafstrand, and Laura Leafstrand (Bolivian Street Children Project board), for believing in our work.
Daniel Harrell at Park Street Church, for providing me the initial opportunity to go to Bolivia.
Park Street Church, Bethany Church, Christ Church of Houston, and churches in La Paz, Bolivia, for helping us build homes for our children.
John Chung, for allowing us to run our homes in Bolivia.
Dickler Foundation, for believing that we can make a difference in the lives of children in Bolivia.
<
br /> Kep and Debbie James, for their guidance and wisdom.
Tobi Nagel, Arthur Kim, Michael Balboni, Mark Valle, Reuben Gobezie, Richard Rhee, Steve Swanson, and Manish Shah, for their prayers, support, and friendship.
Tom Petter, for his teaching.
Irwin Tang and Josh Busby, for their lifelong friendship.
Barry Zuckerman, Bob Vinci, Jeffrey Greenwald, and Jeff Samet at Boston Medical Center, for the support in allowing me to care for people in Boston and abroad.
Joel Katz, Marshall Wolf, Jane Sillman, Bruce Levy, and Howard Hiatt at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, for the mentorship and guidance in my development as a physician during residency.
Paul Farmer and Jim Kim at Partners in Health, for preventing me from becoming disillusioned and for allowing me to focus on the poor.
Laurence Ronan at Massachusetts General Hospital, for providing me the opportunity to be an internist and a pediatrician.
Sherry Penny and Pat Neilson at Center for Collaborative Leadership at the University of Massachusetts, for teaching me about leadership.
Susanna Finnell and the honors program at Texas A&M University, for providing a college student so many opportunities to grow intellectually and socially.
Bobby Slovak at A&M Consolidated High School, for teaching me to think critically as a high school student and for opening my eyes to politics.
Elaine Smith at A&M Consolidated High School, for encouraging me to enter into science.
Chrissy Hester at A&M Consolidated High School, for her support and encouragement.
Residents in the Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics and the Harvard Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Program, for keeping me on my toes clinically.
Acknowledgments / Irwin Tang
I thank my family for supporting me in the writing of When Invisible Children Sing. I thank Chi for our lifelong friendship and the opportunity to help him write this book. I thank Sabine Zenker, Nancy Truong, Lucia Bardone, and Gay Talese for their help on this book. I thank the editors at Tyndale House—Janis Harris and Lisa Jackson—for recognizing the importance of this work. I thank Wes Yoder for finding a publisher for the book. And I thank every person I met in Bolivia.
When Invisible Children Sing Page 26