As part of the 8th grade “civica” class the students are required to do a community service project. This year’s class did a clothing drive and got donations of bags and bags of used clothing. They needed an extra chaperone today to go with them to deliver the clothes to a school “on the other side of the river.”
“The other side of the river” is a both literal and figurative phrase for a place on the outskirts of Corfradia of which, I don’t know if it actually has a name. At 9:45 this morning (45 minutes after we were supposed to leave… right on time by Honduran standards) the eight graders and I piled into the back of a truck with bags and bags of clothes and stuffed animals and headed to the other side of the river. We literally had to cross a flowing river in this truck that was about knee deep, a passage that would not be possible in your average sedan.
This part of town is where the real poverty is and the shift is clear. Houses are no longer made with the Cofradia standard cinderblock, but instead with whatever the residents of the “other side of the river” can get a hand on… wood, a piece of metal siding, some mud. Almost all of the students had never been to this part of town and they too were surprised by it.
We rode in the back of the truck (a liability which no American school would ever take) for about 15 minutes up a winding dirt road until we came upon a little two room school that was probably about the size of my living room in Laguna Beach. The public schools in Honduras only require education up until 6th grade and due to limited space and resources, kids only go to school for 4 hours in either a morning, afternoon, or evening session. We were there for the morning block and there were kids sitting around the dark rooms with one administrator, not seeming to be doing much of anything.
Our kids were expecting a warm reception in their do-gooding and were disappointed not to have a hero’s welcome. After getting over that initial disappointment, they started passing out clothes to the surrounding kids, trying to match the kids with the right sized clothing. These kids clearly only had one pair of clothing and seemed a bit confused about their sudden luck and they took the clothes and held them in a way that I can’t really describe: as if they were given something sacred, They did not fight over clothing and were not in any way pushy. None of them balked or complained about the colors or the styles, they just held them close to their hearts with a little smile behind their eyes.
Soon the word got out that we were handing out clothes and kids started literally coming out of the forest over to the school. These kids were even poorer than the students at the poor school that we were giving the clothes to. Matted hair, shoeless, with rotting teeth and big eyes, they stood around waiting for us to invite them over to the truck.
I noticed a boy lingering on the outskirts clearly hoping to get something, but too timid to ask. I asked him how old he was and he said 9. With an eye infection, wrinkly skin and a small frame due to malnourishment he looked more like a 6 year old. I was searching and searching for something for him, with no luck. We had a lot of girls clothes, but were severly lacking in the boys clothing. I dug throught the clothes and finally found a striped t-shirt and a matching pair of striped socks. It was a little small, but I thought it would work. I gave it to him and his eyes lit up. He put on the striped socks and gave this incredible smile and said “I have shoes but I have never had socks!” And I smiled back and said, “now you do.”
This experience was powerful. Here I was side by side with the “poor kids” that I came to Cofradia to help, handing out clothing to poorer kids. It was heart-warming to see these kids who I had perceived as poor giving their things away. The kids at our school, with the exception of a few, are by no means rich. But next to this little boy who has never in his life worn a pair of socks, they live quite lavishly. Poverty is truly relative.
This experience left me feeling sad, inspired, and overwhelmed. I am here trying to help these kids get an education in town when meanwhile there are kids outside of town who don’t even own socks. The number of people in this country that need help is shocking. It feels like we are here shooting a squirt-gun at a forest fire, and it is frustrating.
Above all else, though, what I experienced today was a feeling of supreme gratitude for the life that I have been born into. Why does the universe work in this way? Why was I born into my life and they were born into theirs?
Though I don’t have answers to those questions, I know one thing that is clear: My life has to be about using this status that the universe, for one reason or another, granted me to help children like the boy with no socks. I think it’s important that we all periodically take trips to “the other side of the river.”
