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 Vallarta Living | February 2008 
Offering Outstretched Arms Full of Love for Orphaned Children
 Maria Leano - Orange County Register
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| | A California resident is inspired to help an orphanage for abandoned and abused children in Guadalajara, Mexico. | | |
"Will you hug me?"
It's October 2007 and I'm standing in the courtyard of an orphanage in central Mexico. I'm wearing only a light cardigan on this 54-degree morning – but it's the outstretched arms and expectant face of the little girl in front of me that really make me shiver. The woman walking me through the home looks like a mother, and another small child crawls into her arms without a word as the two of us talk. This is not my first time at an orphanage, but it's the first time I've experienced such an outright craving for affection.
The first hug signals to the other children that the visitor is safe, and many others quickly approach ... the 6-year-old who wants to show me her new socks; the 7-year-old who wants to write her name down in my notebook; the 4-year-old with the sad eyes and cookie crumbs on his shirt who just wants to be held. Of the children I meet that morning, not a single one asks me what I've brought them; they don't want toys or gifts or candy. What they want is a moment to be known, appreciated ... and perhaps loved.
It's amazing. When I packed my tank tops (yes, 80-degree weather had been forecast) and boarded a plane at LAX just a few days earlier, I never thought that an impromptu visit to a run-down orphanage would be the highlight of my Mexican vacation. Or that in the months to come, I would scour travel Web sites looking for promotional fares, plotting my next trip.
Turning away isn't easy
Located on the outskirts of Guadalajara, The Oasis of Childhood Home for Children A.C. is one of dozens of such residences for abandoned and abused children in Mexico's second-largest city. Foster care is rare in Mexico, and these shelters (alberguesas they are known) are the destination for children who, though not all technically orphans, have nowhere else to go. Since the home's founding in 1982, more than 700 boys and girls affected by neglect, family violence or extreme poverty have found refuge inside the gates of The Oasis. But – as I saw firsthand on this, and subsequent, visits to The Oasis – the needs of children victimized by their own families go beyond material needs for food, clothing and a place to sleep.
Just hearing the stories is almost too much. Some of the children legally removed from their homes because of abuse receive psychological attention through a state agency, but many others must wait for access to such help until the nonprofit home can raise the funds to have a social worker available to all the children. It's a sum totaling less than $1,000 a month; however, at the moment, the expense is out of reach for administrators scrambling to meet urgent maintenance and personnel needs. "I don't know where I'm going to get the money," says Gabriela Tejeda, the home's director since September 2007, "but I'm going to get it."
That Tejeda is even spearheading efforts to expand the range of psychological, medical, and educational programs offered to the children who call The Oasis home is notable, considering she is already the national director for the Mexican nonprofit, Fundacion Vida y Familia A.C. (VIFAC), an agency primarily focused on assisting destitute pregnant women. Heading one nonprofit is demanding enough. Taking on the workload of a second one... is insanity. But as Tejeda and I both found out, walking away from The Oasis is impossible.
A comeback
I returned to The Oasis two months later to find encouraging signs of progress. Gone from the children's faces were the white splotches on the skin that signaled malnutrition. Gone, too, were the lingering colds and eye infections that a routine doctor's visit remedied. In fact, the government agency that runs the Oasis was renovating an unused space in the home and turning it into a medical clinic to better provide regular medical attention to the home's 90 boys and girls, ages 1-17.
Also under way, was the construction of classrooms within the gates of The Oasis. The school-age children currently attend the afternoon session of classes at their assigned public schools, but the burden of the lengthy bus commute, both economic and in terms of time, is considerable, and Tejeda believes that the children will benefit from receiving instruction from teachers especially trained to meet the needs of this population. Two classrooms had been built so far, though by the time I visited, work on the project had ceased due to limited funds. (The home's operating budget is less than $9,000 dollars per month, and dozens of volunteers supplement the work of a handful of paid staff. Neither Tejeda nor anyone from VIFAC receives a salary from The Oasis.)
When I go back a couple of days later, at least a dozen boys and girls clamor for a picture of their Korean friends to keep in their rooms.
A roller coaster of emotions
For every happy moment, like Christmas, there are gut-wrenching ones. Like being told by a staff member that the reason some of the recent arrivals feed themselves like animals is that, well ... they were treated like animals. By their own parents.
Knowledge of these terrible stories is not what keeps me coming back. It's the certainty that something transforming is taking place inside the gates.
It's not just the new windows or freshly painted walls – both of which I notice when I go to Guadalajara for a week in mid-January – it's that I know that beyond fixing roofs and repairing showerheads, the nonprofit behind the Oasis views its most important project at the home as offering the children in its care the tools to heal, to learn and to become productive members of society. After all, even the youngest of these will turn 18 some day, and when that time comes, Tejeda and her colleagues want to know that those young adults will have the skills to be independent, healthy and productive members of society. Tejeda tells me she is making plans for the older youths to receive training in a craft or trade. It's a priority in a long to-do list full of priorities, but I wouldn't be surprised to find some kind of class running by the next time my frequent-flyer miles allow me to return. make my way down to Mexico.
I leave The Oasis on a sunny, January afternoon much different from the cold October morning when I first came. In more ways than one, it's a beautiful day. Around me, children laugh and play in the yard just like any other youngsters their age. In truth, I know that they have reached this oasis only after crossing deserts no child should have to cross. But seeing light come back into eyes that were once dull reminds me of the resilience of children. The innate hope that there would be life on the other side of the barren wasteland of their pasts allowed them to hold on and survive.
I will bring them water.
Maria Leano lives in Anaheim. She can be reached at marialeano(at)gmail.com. |
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