What I Hope My Children See . . .

I remember sitting on a little wooden stool, with a pot of food and a few utinsels on another wooden stool in a two-room little home. I was in Capitan Miranda, Paraguay. The floors of the home were cold cement and four little girls crowded around watching me and my companion, Hermana Yanquin eat . . .their eyes, hungry with desire to be eating along with us. But it was custom for the guests to eat first. That and there weren't enough plates and utensils to go around. My heart broke as I choked down the food. I was in shock and I don't think I even knew it. I don't know what my thoughts were. I just remember sobbing as I left their house. I had never seen such poverty. Such desperation. Such hunger. I couldn't believe that I would be given food before their hungry little girls could eat. And it was so little.

I remember another little eight-year-old boy named Heber who lived down the street from these four girls. He would run through the red-clay streets barefoot and what seemed carefree. He always wore a smile. But he also wore a heavy weight on his shoulders. I remember asking him one time why he couldn't attend a mid-week evening activity with the rest of the children at church. Being one of the youngest of ten or more siblings he would rise before 5 a.m. every day to take the bus to a market in a neighboring town to sell fruit until midday when he would come back and go to school in the afternoon. His evenings were spent doing homework and going to bed early so as to be able to rise and do it all again the next day--all so his family could have their daily bread.

Just a few months ago, I found myself again in Latin America. This time in Honduras. In a rented car. My husband was driving. We'd stopped to fill up with gas at a station in a tiny pueblito along the way. Two children walked up to our car, each holding a stick with nails as pegs to hold their bags of coconut water. They must have been no more than 8 and 12. But they were out on a holiday trying to make some money. They were fascinated by my two girls. Their eyes brightened when they heard them speak Spanish and there was a little exchange of conversation between them. "Hola, ¿Cómo te llamas?" Not more than a few words were exchanged.

My girls will probably not even remember the experience and are both still too young to see what I saw on the other side of the window. I saw two beautiful children who were working to support their families. Two children who are working at a very young age. They may not even have the chance to go to school. I saw two children who reminded me of the four hungry girls in Capitan Miranda, and our little happy friend Heber who worked just as hard as they. I saw children who reminded me of just how good I have had it. And just how much I have, despite thinking at times that I live in poverty. I am a schoolteacher in the lowest paying state in the nation. But I have a roof over my head. I have warm running water. I have a washer and a dryer. I have plates to eat on. And although in the last few years a few forks have disappeared out of my silverware drawer, I have plenty of untinsels with which to eat, a table to invite my friends to sit and eat with me and a heater when the rain and snow falls. I hope some day, my children will be able to see this when they go to Honduras and that they will truly understand just how good life is for them.