Elena

Whenever I wasn’t busy with patients, I was entertained by the children of the village.  They spent their afternoons teasing me, hanging from the big squeaky, swinging gate in front of the clinic.  They begged to come inside, and I looked for ways to expand their minds beyond the little village.  I searched eBay, stretching my missionary budget to buy Spanish children’s books by the lot.  We spent hours reading the books, looking at the pictures and making up new stories to go with the pictures.  The fruit trees behind the clinic and the church also were a great attraction, and many a little thief would bring me a ripe grapefruit as a peace offering for the dozens he had stolen.  The adults of the village were busy with daily tasks; besides, they were not nearly as interesting as the Gringa in the clinic.  My impromptu classes of tooth brushing or wound care, which were followed by small gifts of bandages or small tubes of toothpaste were very popular.   

Elena was among the many children who hung around the clinic.  Pixie faced and slight for her four years, she constantly readjusted her little sister on her hip. Talkative and bright, Elena’s comments became more disturbing as our relationship grew.  While watching me count out pills, or prepackaging bandages, she casually explained that she had to bring the baby with her since her mother was sleeping.  Her mother spent her nights fishing or crabbing on the river with different men of the village almost every night. 

I had already noticed that the women of the village barely spoke with Elena’s mother, and I found this information troubling.  I decided to investigate further.  My friend and neighbor girl, Suri was always a trusted source to explain the dynamics of the village.  I spent my lunch break in a hammock on Suri’s porch trying to understand.   Suri carefully explained that Elena lived with her mother, and little sister.  No, there was never a father.  Because of the shameful nature of the situation, I had to be especially direct to get the answers I needed out of Suri.  Sadly, my assumptions were correct; Elena’s mother was the village prostitute. 

The inescapable loneliness, shame, and responsibility that this little girl faced angered me.  At the first opportunity, I spoke with her mother in private.  Breaking all the rules of convention, I verbally acknowledged her business and then tried to convince her of the love of Jesus for her and her girls.  Assuring her of God’s promises to care for the husbandless and orphaned, I pledged to support her on her journey, should she decide to change her life.  She thanked me, but she remained unconvinced that God could forgive someone like her.                          As we talked, I was astounded to learn that Elena’s mother was only twenty-two years old, even though her face showed the worries and cares of someone who had lived much, much longer.   She told me of the many women of the village who berated her angrily.  The women were jealous, not only of their husbands’ attentions, but of the money wasted on this woman when their homes and children were barely scraping by. 

After several attempts to alter Elena’s mother’s thinking, I decided to focus on Elena, while continuing to show love and support for her mother.  One day, Elena confided how scared she was at night alone with her baby sister.  She told me how she didn’t know what to do when the baby cried all night.  Sometimes there was milk, and sometimes there wasn’t.  Angry that anyone would force such responsibility on a four-year old, I determined to improve her life.  I invited her and her little sister to stay with me in the clinic any night that she felt scared.  

Too poor for candles or a flashlight, there was often no warning of Elena’s arrival at my door since the area existed without electricity.  Soon, our impromptu slumber parties of three took on a life of their own.  I dreamed of the day I could keep her with me and save her from her hardships.  I wanted to offer her everything she and her little sister deserved.              

One afternoon after only a few weeks of our new arrangement, she came running to the clinic without the baby in her arms.  Her rapid-fire Spanish explained that she didn’t have permission to come and see me, but she couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.  The pressure from the town women was too much to bear and her mother was moving the family several hours away to La Libertad. Business was poor in the village, and by moving to a larger town, her mother could take advantage of the groups of immigrant travelers on their way to El Rio Grande. 

The tight hug from her strong, skinny little arms was almost more than I could bear, but I held back the tears for her sake.  Hurried by her predicament, I grabbed a bag, and filled it with vitamins and a package of cream of wheat for her to take with her.  Including a clinic business card with our phone number, I implored her to call if she ever needed help. 

Two months went by with no word, but I wasn’t surprised.  However capable she may have seemed, she was only four years old.  It would be impossible for her to dial a phone or even know exactly where she was.  However, one sticky afternoon during rainy season, I received an alarming phone call from her mother explaining that Elena was very sick.  She had a high fever for several days, and now she wasn’t taking any food or liquids.  Hoping for a prescription, my quick response startled Elena’s mother. 

“Give me two hours, and I’ll be on my way,” I said.  “Just tell me where you are.”

  She gave me hesitant directions to a bar/brothel on a back street of La Libertad, instructing me to park at least block away and to call before coming in to make sure that the man in charge was not around.  My housefather, Dave supported my hasty decision, and 90 minutes later, we were parked, hearts pounding, a block from the brothel.  I called the number and heard the fear in her voice as she told me to come quickly. 

Worried that the truck could alert unsavory people of my presence, Dave dropped me off at the front door and pulled away.  I walked through the front doors of a saloon for the first time in my life and looked around.  Inside, nothing was as I expected.  Three women with faces as worn and hard as that of Elena’s mother were cleaning the bar of last night’s partying, hosing down the concrete floor and plastic tables and chairs in the main room.  This was no life of luxury.  Elena’s mother quickly directed me to her “room.”  The main room was lined on three sides by doors every eight feet or so.  Opening her door into what seemed like a closet, I saw her cot sized bed touching three of the four walls.  Between the door and the cot, there were only two feet of space where she had an end table with a small pile of folded clothes.  Elena lay on the bed drenched in sweat.  The apprehension in me grew as I looked down at her listless body.  I was sincerely concerned, but not too concerned to keep myself from wondering, where does she go when her mother is working?

Shoving this thought aside, I checked Elena’s pulse and temperature.  She was alive, but she was burning up. 

Suddenly, I was filled suddenly with a courage and purpose not wholly my own. I turned to Elena’s mother. 

“This is no place for her to get better,” I asserted.  “I’m taking her home with me, and you can come get her when she’s better.”                     

Waiting only an instant for her to nod her assent, I began stuffing my thermometer back into the bag.  I scooped Elena into my arms and walked out, past her mother, past the women cleaning the main area, and through the front door.  I prayed for protection even while wondering what the consequences of my actions would be.  I knew that stealing a working girl from her pimp was a murdering offense in this town, but what about Elena?  Surely, she hadn’t been working.

I loaded Elena into the tuk-tuk, and we drove towards the ferry where Dave was waiting with the truck.  The drive home was tension filled as I tried to explain what I had seen.  I didn’t understand how anyone could live in those conditions.

Once home, I focused on rehydrating Elena and decreasing her fever.  A few days later when her mother showed up, Elena was playing with the other children, good as new.  With her hair neatly combed, and wearing a long dress, an onlooker would have been unable to guess that she hadn’t grown up Mennonite.  Her mother had brought her clothing, and to my surprise, her little sister.  Not yet walking, the baby’s smile and almond eyes were irresistible.  My house mother and I promised to care for the girls while Elena’s mom straightened out her life.  We assured her that while we wanted nothing more than to provide her girls with a stable safe environment, they needed their mother.  She agreed to try to start a new life and promised to be back for them in a few months. 

Over the next two months, the girls fit into our life as if they had always been there.  Their smiling faces welcomed me to the breakfast table, and I cuddled them in their flannel pajamas after bath time for a bedtime story.  It was to my surprise and dismay one afternoon that I received a phone call at the clinic from my housemother Christine. 

“Elena’s mother came and got the girls,” she cried softly.  “She and a man with a gun just showed up and packed them up and they’re gone.  I don’t know where she is taking them, or if she has her life figured out, but she didn’t look good.  She almost seemed a little high.”

We mourned the loss of the girls for several weeks, but comforted ourselves with the knowledge that they were with their mother.  While my fellow missionaries and I thought that adoption was beautiful, we believed that children should be with their parents whenever possible. 

Then the stories started to float back through different sources.  A woman had gotten to Elena’s mother.  This woman offered money for the girls.  She insisted that the gringos were stealing the girls.  She insinuated that Elena’s mother might as well sell them and get something for them if she wasn’t going to be with them.

We barely believed the stories even though everyone in town assured us of their veracity.  It wasn’t until two years later that I saw Elena’s mom at the clinic again.  She was pregnant, and her story confirmed and exceeded my worst fears.

She confessed that the rumors were true.  She had sold the girls.  She had been reassured that they would be adopted out to American families who desperately wanted children.  Badly in need of the money, she caved, telling herself she was giving them a chance at a better life while freeing herself from the clutches of her pimp.

Unable to live with what she had done and having been told by other women that this was an unforgivable sin, she had traveled to the city to try to get the girls back.  The baby was long gone, but the woman in charge assured Elena’s mother that the baby had gone to a nice family in the states.

                  Elena, however, was too big for adoption.  Childless couples in the United States wanted babies.  Elena had been put to work instead, caring for the babies who came through the house on their way to homes in the states.  Elena’s mother was allowed a few moments with her daughter before she was told she could only redeem Elena by providing them with another baby to sell.  Elena’s mother returned to La Libertad, and now, six months pregnant, she knew she was only a few months away from buying Elena’s freedom. 

“This baby,” she said, touching her stomach, “is how I’ll get my Elena back.”  And sure enough, four months later she and Elena returned to our village alone.  Elena looked older than her now six years. She was sadder than I remembered.  She was glad to see me, but there was none of the freedom in her expression and her heart was closed off from me.  Her mother was soon pregnant again and delivered yet another baby girl. 

                Once more, Elena’s face became a regular at my clinic window, as she brought her new baby sister for weekly checkups and for the free weight boosters we provided to underweight infants.  Hesitant to describe her time away, she did tell me that her time as a slave wasn’t so bad.  After they sold her little sister, they brought other babies, and Elena took care of each baby that came through the home as if it were her lost sister. 

                Elena’s mother continued to work at night in our village, but she never had enough money for food.  I soon found out that even the cream of wheat meant to bolster the baby’s weight gain was being exchanged at the local store for cigarettes. 

This information initiated me into one of the saddest practices I was to adopt during my time as a nurse in Guatemala.  Every week when Elena brought her baby sister for a weight check, I opened the bag of cream of wheat with my scissors, nullifying the resale value, and then taped it shut.  I reviewed the instructions for preparation with Elena, now eight years old, and I gave her a week’s worth of vitamins. 

                In the days and months that I worked with Elena and her mother, I constantly assured them of their infinite value in God’s eyes.  But mine was one small dissenting voice in a chorus that chanted their worthlessness and their doom.  Perhaps I’ll never know if my presence as a witness, a bystander in their story ever made a difference.  I tried to show Elena love, but she didn’t believe in love anymore by the time she came back to me.  She must be close to seventeen as I write this, and I am haunted by the fear that she is out there somewhere working, just as her mother taught her to.  And somewhere else in the world, there are two little girls who will never know just how loved they were by me and my fellow missionaries and by Elena who gave everything she knew how to sacrifice for their wellbeing.