The Hug

The homes my students live in are about the size of a cluster of six office cubicles. Often, a family of eight will reside in these four walled structures made of plywood and tarps. When I first saw entire communities living in these boxes, I gaped at it. I had a similar reaction of disbelief when I first saw small children frolicking in the open sewer systems that ran out onto the street. However, just like a body being exposed to disease, one gets immunity to such sights with time of exposure and they become normal. As a resident of a developing country, you are constantly surrounded by wretched quality of life. The needs are so immense, that you cannot spend too much time pitying people or loosing sleep over what you see. Otherwise, you would never get any sleep. You live on idealism and optimism, a shield from the reality.

However, even for the most hardened SM, the shield will crack, your optimism will run out, and your hope for humanity along with it. This happened to me yesterday.

It was afternoon, and I was out walking through the community where I teach. It has a large population of around 2,500 people, yet there always seems to be at least one of my student’s homes on every street. They will call out to me, and I’ll go visit their homes and their families. I very much enjoy visiting my students. Some of my fondest memories here have been sitting on front porches with a Peruvian drink in my hand as the sun sets, shooting the breeze about politics, education, what the United States is like, or just listening to stories of weathered old grandparents about their hunting days in the deep jungle of the North.

Yesterday was no different. The first house I visited was of a third grade student, and I found myself captivated by the stories of the girl’s mother. She had grown up in a family that raised cocaine. The drug trafficking world was something she had known intimately from a child. There were stories of good harvests and bad, stories of close calls with drug police, honest and corrupt. But more than those, there was the story that unfolded of many Peruvian families, and the decision they had to make. On one hand they could go into agriculture, raising corn and beans, and eek out a living often times insufficient to provide their own family with food. Or, they could grow cocaine, a crop that can be harvested four times a year, as opposed to one, and a crop that will be paid for in American dollars, as opposed to Peruvian currency. For many, this means that your family will eat and you may be able to send your kids to college.

As I walked to the next house, my mind was filled with ethical decisions and catch twenty-twos. In the rhetoric about drug wars in the U.S., the side of the Peruvian or Columbian family is lost. Nevertheless, I continued on and soon found myself on the front porch of another family, this time one of my second graders. As I chewed away on fresh coconut, the mother of the home began unloading her concern for her younger sister. Apparently, her sibling had slept with a neighbor boy four times. She was thirteen. Even for Peruvians, where the average girl enters motherhood at seventeen or eighteen, this is young. As she continued on telling me about her brother who was steeped in drugs, all I could do was shake my head and continue listening, feeling like lending an ear would help relieve her pain a little.

Her husband, a well respected man, walked up about this time. Upon hearing the topic of conversation, he said, “Mateo, our primary concern should be for our own family, not for the family of our parents.” It was obvious the couple had had this conversation before. He explained how he wanted to move away so they wouldn’t have to deal with the wife’s family, but she wouldn’t hear anything of it. Marriage counseling isn’t my specialty, but I offered a few words of advice, doing the best I could to peace make, and then stood up to leave. As I did, a scream of anguish pierced the evening sky from a neighbor home. It continued in bursts. I shot a questioning glance at the mother. “That’s Gerald she said”, shaking her head sadly. “His mother is beating him.” I was astonished. Gerald is one of my second grade students. He always wears his pants too high, exposing his ankles. He is an awkward but intelligent kid, who is always first to shout out an answer of some kind in class. He is picked on frequently. I’ve noticed signs of neglect before, but no bruises. Upon further questioning, the beatings are an almost nightly occurrence, screams as predictable as the rooster’s crowing.

I walked away. I did not want to hear Gerald crying. A dark cloud was settling over my mind. My shield of immunity was cracking. All I could think about were cocaine raising families, thirteen year old mothers, and Gerald’s screams. And now a new thought, as I remembered the student missionary who was murdered a few days before: a fallen comrade. I trudged through the street, hung my head, and said aloud, “the world is lost.” I can say things like that aloud here, and no one knows what I’m saying.

I felt helpess, powerless, and useless against the problems around me. It was a low point for me. However, my depressing thoughts were interrupted. Three small children playing in the gutter spot me. They giggled, and started running my way yelling, “Professor Mateo!”, no doubt younger siblings of some of my students. They all surrounded me, hugging me with all they had. Now, I’m not a huge hugger. I can go some time without a hug and not feel any withdrawal symptoms. But let me tell you, I clung to those children with all I had too, feeling like I was clinging on to the last pieces of innocence in the world, and also feeling that God himself had sent me human touch and love, just when I needed it. As the four of us stood there in embrace, I looked up at the sky, which was crimson and ribboned with the rising smoke of the evening cooking fires. As I did did, God seemed to say to me, “No Matt, as long as there is just a little love left, good was still worth fighting for, and the world was not lost.” And as I said goodbye to the three little angels who disappeared back to playing in the gutter, and as the sun completely sunk out of the sky, my worry was washed away and I had a new resolve in my step. Because any day where stories of humanity are heard, and a powerful lesson is learned, that day is not lost either.