There is a boy who lived in Guido
Almada. His name was Ivan Fariña
and when I arrived in that place sometime in December of 2011, he was
only 2 years old. At the time, he was just learning to speak and as
he began juggling Guarani and Spanish, like most young Paraguayans
do, he also began incorporating me into his daily life. I worked
extensively with his family over my time in Paraguay and his home
became one of my favorite and most frequented stops on my rounds
through the community or for parties or during the holidays.
Ivan
was a troublemaker. He loved finding his boundaries, testing his
limits and then stepping over the lines ever so slightly. He was an
incredibly smart little kid although he never learned to pronounce my
name properly. To him, I was always “Mano”, the name he would
yell from his grandfather's lap every-time he saw me approaching. He
knew how to endear himself to people, if at the same time also push
their buttons. And he was a total ladies man.
I
cared deeply about this boy. I spent many afternoons watching over
him while his parents were out in the fields and tending to the
animals. I helped him eat and kept him in line during some meals when
his mother was too busy to babysit. We played with his few little toy
trucks in the dirt patch in front of his house. We kicked the soccer
ball. He was a happy, bright, beautiful little boy. After two years
and countless time together, I came to love him very much.
Ivan
was never a sick boy, at least no more so than any other poor
Paraguayan children tend to be. Of the few times I remember him being
ill, it hardly ever seemed to sap his energy and certainly never
diminished his spirit.
The
week after I left Paraguay, Ivan became very sick. He was
hospitalized for several weeks, then a month. It seemed like he was
getting better although so much time certainly took its toll on his
small 4-year-old frame. I imagine his body becoming worn and ragged
by some disease that he just couldn't seem to shake, but his smile,
his light, never dimming even for a minute. Then several nights ago I
got the news: at 10 pm, Ivan passed away. A child, a little 4 year
old boy, a beloved son and a grandson, my little buddy, fell victim
to some illness, some terrible disease, to the poverty of his people.
He was dead. That light had been irrevocably extinguished.
The
cemetery in Guido Almada is not large. The community itself is
comparatively new and though many people have passed, the plots are
modest, as much a product of economics as necessity. I have been
there many times. I have prayed there many afternoons. It is a
beautiful place, beautifully Paraguayan in its setting and the
surrounding landscape. But it belies one subtle and yet heartbreaking
reality: most of the graves are small. Child sized.
Child
mortality, something heartrendingly inconceivable to many in the
developed world, is something much too common for children and
families in the developing world. Out of all the families I lived and
worked with during my time in Paraguay, all of them had either lost a
son or a daughter, a brother or a sister, or a cousin at some point
in their lives. In the absence of decent medical care and without the
financial means to access the paltry facilities that do exists,
people face death—real, tragic, human death—as a matter of their
daily lives. Women must give birth to stillborn babies. Parents must
watch helplessly as their children wither away. Brothers and sisters
must say goodbye to their closest companions before the age when they
can understand what death is all about.
I
don't mean to paint a picture of some sort of hell or holocaust.
Surely, it is not so bad and for the most part, despite their poverty
and circumstance, these people live happy lives. But we should not
forget: the chasm between the developed and developing world still
exists today and we should do everything in our power, especially in
this modern day in age, to close that distance. I don't care with
what religion or political ideology you affiliate; I don't care how
you label yourself or what you feel your moral obligation is to the
world: the fact that daily thousands of children die of preventable
diseases, malnutrition, and neglect is simply unacceptable. In our
own way, we all bare some of the blame and some of the responsibility
for this state of our world. Even you. Even me.
I
wrote the preceding few paragraphs some weeks ago. I didn't have the
words (and still don't) for so much of what this transition home from
the Peace Corps has been like. I have almost decided to give up on
trying to communicate it entirely. If anything, that is what two
years in the campo have done for me: made me really good at dealing
with my own shit without relying on others. Still, I have forced
myself to write this story down and share it with people—for Ivan's
sake and for the sake of the thousands of other starving, sick, dying
children there are in the world tonight.
When
I received the news of Ivan's passing, I felt as if my heart fell
straight down and out of my body. My lungs stopped working. I broke
down into a pile of sobbing, chaotic tears. I didn't know what to do,
how to help, and I couldn't begin to imagine the emptiness that my
friends, my community, my Peace Corps family must be feeling. For
them, I have few words except for I love you, I will always remember,
and I am sorry I had to leave when I did. I wish I could be there to
share the heartbreak with you. I hope you know how much I care.
So
as I exorcise these last emotional demons from a body and mind that
has been so thoroughly (and thankfully) ravaged by two years of life
in a poor Paraguayan community, I hope that I can move on with a
purpose. That I can take the lessons I have learned, the lives I have
shared, and the love I have been given and make a difference in this
world. And even though I daily feel as if I am now living and working
in his memory, it is too late for Ivan, but not for the countless
thousands of others out there.
I
love you, little buddy. I miss you. I will remember you always.
-little
hupo