Today I would like to introduce you to Lupita (not her real name) – how I met her, a little of her story, and about the evening we spent together at the CFCA Christmas party.
Before I introduce her, however, we have to go back to my first full week in Tizimin. As I mentioned in earlier blogs, when I started, I was going to Panaba two days a week in addition to teaching in Tizimin. The first time I went to Panaba to meet the students, some of the mothers had prepared a light meal for us, and we had some time to sit and talk. After we ate, a couple of the students were in the building playing. I started chatting with some of them a bit, and a couple of them began to question me about where I was from, what it was like where I lived, and how to say some words in English. Because they kept asking me more and more words, I pulled out some flash cards and decided to do an impromptu lesson. They were so interested that I finally had to chase them away after about an hour and a half because some other students had arrived for a different class.
The following week I spent with the MAT – the group of sponsors that had arrived to spend time with their sponsored friends. One of the days on the itinerary was to be spent in Panaba. One of the first to perform during the program for the sponsors was one of the young men who had been so interested in learning English the week before. When he was done singing, the moderator announced that a young girl who was not sponsored, but who was the sibling of two sponsored children, was going to sing. She was amazing. When Lupita sings, she puts her whole heart and soul into it, and she is very talented besides. Shortly after the program finished, one of the CFCA staff members came to me, told me that one of the sponsors had decided to sponsor Lupita as well, and asked me to translate for them. That’s how I met Lupita. She is 9 years old but with none of the shyness so typical of most of the other children I have met there. She is very well-spoken and intelligent and told us that she would like to go to the university to study biology. It was during the course of the afternoon we spent together that I found out that the other young man who had sung was her brother, and that one of the other boys who had been so intent on asking questions my first day in Panaba was another brother.
Later, in talking to the director of the project at Panaba, I learned a little of the background of these children. They live with their maternal grandparents because their mother likes men and money and has gone to Cancun where there is more of both. The children have different fathers. The mother refuses to contribute anything toward the care of the children, saying that she needs everything she earns. The grandfather is in a wheelchair because he has lost both legs to diabetes and an arm to an accident. The grandmother cannot work outside the home because she needs to care for her husband and the three children, who are 9, 11, and 12. Their primary source of income, therefore, is the sponsorship of the children. Having all three of the children sponsored will definitely have a major positive impact on the family.
I need to end here for the time being and so will continue with Lupita’s story in the next blog.
