a visit

"I used to live under that bridge," Mario tells me as we drove over the muddy water filled with floating trash, "that river is where I learned to swim".  I was not expecting the conversation to turn so personal and my mind filled with questions, but I was suddenly distracted by Adriana's shrieking as she was passed from her mom's lap in the front seat to us in the back as the police approached on their moto.  "The police get mad if you're sitting in the front Adri," her parents explain, trying to reason with their 18 month old, but she just wanted to see the "agua, agua, agua!"  All I could think about was culture and how toddlers "need" to be in car seats.  Maybe a car seat would have been a more useful present than the plastic blocks I brought down?  Or would they see that as insulting?  Or would it even get used?  The conversation had now shifted to Adriana's love of water and the moment has passed to ask about Mario's bridge dwelling days.  But I found it hard to engage in the conversation because I kept thinking: how do you actually live under a bridge?  And how does it feel today to drive over that bridge in a truck you own?  As my mind wandered down the road of "But how?" Adriana continued to chant "agua!", unaware that we were headed to the doctor because the non-potable tap water she loves to bathe in gave her parasites. 

That night back on the Ranch, Dinora rounds up the girls for a bedtime prayer.  I'm impressed at how many decide to join in this activity, until I notice her make a check mark on the attendance sheet next to the names of the girls present.  Yuri begins, "Dear God, I pray for the children under the bridges...".  Attendance is semi-obligatory, but her words are genuine.  When I was Yuri's age my most intimate fear was that my parents would die and I often begged God to let them make it home safely from their travels.  This night I find myself surrounded by orphans asking God to look upon children living under bridges.  I think of Mario's family.  When Yuri had finished praying for the sick, the hungry and had given thanks for the day, the girls shuffled off to get ready for bed. 

The next day we rise early to be escorted by the Honduran military to the inauguration of a national youth leadership program.  I'm sure the military bus was made before I was born, but since the kids had never been in a bus that had lights on the ceiling, they kept referring to it as an airplane.  As we head down the pothole filled careterra a olancho Franliseiny asks, "Honduras is beautiful, just really poor?  Right?" Here eyes lingered upon a house constructed from plastic tarps, wood scraps and congregated tin.  Does their fantastic view of the countryside make up for the fact that it must leak every time it rains?  I agree with Franli, wondering why she needs validation of her country's poverty?  Or maybe its beauty?  She then tells me she really wants to go the states.  For some reason that has been a hot topic this week and a number of girls have asked me if I think it would ever be possible for them.  They don't dream of crossing the river or dessert ... they still have their hearts set on going to Hollywood and befriending Selana Gomez and Demi Lovato.  I encourage them to keep getting good grades and practicing their English, maybe 10 or 20 years from now our country will have made some strides in immigration regulations and these girls might actually get a visa?  It feels unfair to humor their dreams when they've already been through so much.  But then I think of Mario.  I wonder if he ever imagined he'd be a successful engineer back when he was learning to swim in the floating dump? 

As I head back to my room that night, brilliant stars blanket the sky and there is a silent orange glow of brush fires in the distance.  It is still unbelievably hot, but I am thankful for a break from the sun that night provides.  This is such a land of contradictions: beauty and poverty, cleansing water that makes you ill, children who against great odds overcome the circumstances of their birth.  But these unlikelinesses make hope so powerful, and it is the nature of hope to blossom in the improbable places.  Nonetheless, busy days leave me too exhausted to ponder social and cultural paradoxes, so I let the chilly shower wash away a day's worth of sweat and dust and the shrill of the cicadas becomes my lullaby as I drift off to sleep.