Little Evelin

(This picture is unrelated to the story below, but its a good shot to capture the "aguayu" or traditional textile that women from the altiplano wear for carrying around just about anything...kids, chickens, sugar cane, pigs, etc.)

One similarity of families at our Comedor is that the youngest child in a family is the most smiley and cheery of the bunch; little Evelin who comes to the Apoyo Escolar in the afternoon is no different. While shy at first, Evelin is a sweetheart with bubbling energy and smiles, but it turns out she's more of a “bruiser” than the little dresses she wears let on.

In general, the youngest of the family are, in a way, innocent to the harsh reality of their situations. While childhood innocence might seem normal of children in general, my experience with these kids has been that dealing with difficult and explicit themes happens abruptly and early on. Today, while the older siblings and parents are stressing to bail water out of their houses and cringing at the sight of more rain- the littlest kids are out swimming in the street that is now their river-- attempting to catch snakes and frogs.

Nope, there’s no such G-rating system on movies here. That nonsense limits a child’s exposure, and exposure is better than protection, so that reality doesn't catch kids off-guard. That said, older siblings take the brunt of household chores, care for siblings and consequently they wear on their young faces expressions heavier than their years; the financial and other related stresses that are but facts of life. The littlest children are blessed with extra support from siblings and are looked upon by their family with an expression that is almost nostaliga and appreciateion for such young innocence.

So, today I was helping Evelin to practice writing her numbers today when we came to the number eight or “ocho”. “OCHO” she yells. “Yup”, I say. “OCHO”, she says again, this time up in my face and with more conviction. I’m pretty confused why all of a sudden she’s stoaked about writing her numbers, but always happy when the kids have “normal kid” moments of just being silly, so…well I run with it because I’m their CRAZY gringa teacher and if I'm only good for one thing it is relating with my students by making myself look like a raging idiot.

“OCHO”, I bark back at her and she echos back louder. Then somehow the word "ocho" changed from a number, then to a dog barking, next to a racist imitation of an old Chinese man, and later to a sneezing sound. Evelin’s favorite was the sneeze so she ran with it and this went on for sometime. I sneezed big and she sneezed even bigger. I would attempt to look more and more foolish and Evelin continued to copy.

And then the sneeze got too big.

Evelin drew her head back, gained momentum and smacked her head against the table on the way down, taking a sizeable bite out of her lip at the time of contact with the little table. When she lifted her head back up I didn’t know what face to make. My first thought was to freak out and check if she was missing teeth, but I remembered that my sister says to never act scared or the kid will mirror that emotion. My next thought was to laugh hysterically and the fact that the number eight escalated such excitement in the two of us to bring us to this moment and brutal collision with the table, and then that made me think of all those times you were reprimanded in school by teachers who said, “sure, its all fun until someone pokes their eye out”.

When Evelin brought her head back up her face looked startled at first and just as she was about to begin giggling her features morphed, got heavy and changed to expressions of pain and her lip started gushing blood from two teeth-marked places.

I swept her up into my arms and ran to the bathroom to apply direct pressure and rinse her mouth out when I met my boss, Pennye, (who is here visiting from the States) en route to the bathroom. Obviously this incident was not a big deal, but given my track record this week it didn't look to good. Pennye layed into me a bit after having heard a previous child abuse incident just days before involving me cuddling and tickling a little boy in my lap who had an unfortunate hole in the crotch of his shorts with his little member sticking out- inches away from my hands.

All told I still have my job, but it’s been recommended that I go and confess my sins this weekend.