White people can get money out of the wall with a piece of plastic. Just like that, for nothing! Respectfully, he runs his sticky little fingers over my credit card, and his thoughtfulness brings out deep frowns on his otherwise flawless face. Here and there on the tiny fingers remain proud remnants of toothpaste. Since he first visited the dentist, Pedro is an active member of the enthusiastic brushing-brigade. Thee times a day, they diligently clean their teeth, the underlying motive for which is of course the painful memory of drills and pincers.
Together we are seated in the doctor’s waiting room, with 48 pots of poo and just as many tubes of urine. I try to make it look as if it is part of my daily activities to lug around with trays of poo and pee but secretly I find it revolting All the children have participated in the compulsory worm test this morning; the urine is to bring other potential attackers into broad daylight.
When you wander the streets you’re prone to pick up a thing or two here and there. Sometimes the children have the most bizarre little ailments, that our western guest doctors always get excited about when they have rediscovered yet another syndrome that was exterminated decades ago in Europe. Because these doctors are a little ashamed of their embarrassing attitude, they let out badly controlled whoops of disbelief and delight in such cases and as soon as they imagine themselves to be unnoticed they feverishly start shooting photos of the most exotic lumps, pimples, spots and boils. The children appreciate this with timid pride and a hint of suspicion.
I always wonder what they do with those photos. Do they hang them as trophies in their practices? Or do they bring them to seminars to show slides magnified a hundredfold for envious colleagues? As long as the children cannot be recognized it seems rather innocent to me.
As sitting on your own at the Honduran doctors’ with a package of poo and pee isn’t the most exciting way to spend your morning, I had had the brilliant idea to invite Pedro for a little outing. When you’re eight and you live with Proniño, an outing is considered a spectacular event. You can legally play truant, you’ll catch a glance of the exciting streets that once were your home, and if you play your cards skillfully, you might even be able to extract an ice cream out of the deal.
For now though, the ice cream is relegated to the back of Pedro’s mind by the astonishing discovery of the plastic money-maker. To him, it is incomprehensible and in utter disbelief he keeps asking if I can explain how it works again and again.
So, aren’t you punished when you use this card? But is it real money that comes out of that wall, or is it fake? It must be fake Bas, don’t you think? And can you ask as many notes as you wish? Also a hundred-million-thousand? Are you the richest man in the world? You must be, right Bas, other folks don’t have a strange card like that!
With enthusiasm, I join in with the big game of question and response, in which each answer guarantees a new stare of disbelief followed by a barrage of disarming child’s questions. Would little Pedro know what a cell-phone is?
The number of the practice is listed on the door. Exasperatingly slow, I dial the number, while I make the boy an accomplice in the plot with a wink and an index finger in front of my lips, asking for silent cooperation. The suspense is virtually unbearable for the little lad. Magnificent.
“Bloowp”. It is the only sound I make before I cowardly end the call. Pedro shrieks with laughter. Immediately, he wishes to give it a try himself and he grabs the phone out of my hand. To my dismay, he understands the whole calling procedure surprisingly fast and there is no stopping him.
The assistant is not amused. She suggests that we come back the next morning to collect the results. Pedro and I readily agree and take our time to discover the magic of a modern town. Two playing truant!
In our excitement we make a sprint for the cyber-café, because I had told him, with only slight exaggeration and in colorful terms, how the people in my country could see his picture on some kind of television screen. Even when he wasn’t there!
Before placing children’s pictures on www.homelesschild.org, I ask their permission, but no matter how hard I try to explain what the internet is, to children who have never visited a website in their lives, it remains an abstract story. That, however, doesn’t bother them in the least and apart from the odd exception they find it thrilling to tell their stories for the people in far away Holland.
His face is shining and we keep surfing all over the site. Every page he’s on, even if it’s only his arm or him as a vague shadow in a hidden corner, we need to visit three times at least. Little Pedro with a football, Pedro wrestling a play-fight with his best friend, Pedro wrapped around Bas’s neck, there comes no end to it. The football photo is the one that most intrigues him, as he is decided to bring Honduras to win the World Cup on his own strength, later when he’s big. He begs me to tell everyone I know how fantastic a player he is, for Holland might then decide to pick him for the youth selection.
It’s time for an ice cream.
“With mum we never went for an ice cream”.
“No, but your mother had no money Pedro, that’s why”.
“Why did she never have money? I always had to beg for it on the streets and I came back home with loads every day”.
“But you’ve got six brothers and sisters and they all need to eat, so there was never anything left for an ice cream or candy”.
“We never had any food, just rice, and mum spent all the money on pills that didn’t make her better. And sometimes she was mad, or crying, and then she even hit us”.
“That’s because she’s very ill and desperate, that is why she can no longer care for you and you ended on the streets, you understand?”
His, bitter, sharp stare cuts right through me.
“No”.
Should I explain to him that his mother has cancer and is dying miserably alone in her dusty clay hut? I walk off to pay for the ice creams. When I return, I anxiously avoid Pedro’s questioning eyes. Coward.
Hand in hand we continue our stroll through town. Silently. Fortunately, the shopping street offers some comfort and soon enough his child’s brain is seduced by the meringue music that bawls from the speakers of even the smallest stalls, by the Honduran toffees that stick in their wrappers and are sold on every street corner, and, to my dread, by the ATM, in front of which a villainous looking guard with an eighteenth century carbine and a brand new pair of fake Rayban sunglasses has taken position to guard the local elite from kidnappings and assaults.
Although no less than 120.000 people live in El Progreso, the town has only one money machine, that only works when the bank manager feels like filling it up, when there is no power black out in the area, and when the computer connection to the international credit card center can be made. That means a day or two per week.
I don’t need money. Pedro thinks I do. He wins. Obviously. Now that I have been bragging about my magical money making powers, opting out when it comes to the crunch would be considered deeply suspicious. There I find myself next to a disbelieving eight year old boy, in front of a teller machine that only work two days per week. If it fails, I will be knocked from my pedestal, if it works I’ll be as close to Superman as I can possibly get. It works. Of course it does!
Pedro has decided that he finds it all fantastic. Until now, he really liked me, but in the last hour he has spontaneously come to love me. Love is still so simple when you’re only eight. After the miracle of the monetary operation, I have been officially elevated to the rank of magician. Only yesterday I tried to explain to him that Harry Potters’ tricks aren’t real, but he’s no longer going to buy that. If Bas can make notes fall from a wall, then Harry can fly, at least.
“Bas, can you fly as well?” his tiny hand squeezes mine even harder for a moment, as if he wants to prove to himself that I’m real and that he is not roughly going to be thrown out of this wonderful dream by his sick, angry mother.
As a hero of flesh and blood I can hardly be beaten by a juvenile cartoon-like figure with burgeoning pimples.
“Of course, and without a broom”.
“No, you cannot!”
“Yes, I actually can”
“Without a broom?”
“Piece of cake, but only when it’s very dark and all the children are asleep.”
He is visibly disappointed with that last remark and promptly demands that he is allowed to stay up until it is dark enough for me to take off. Well…
For now, he will have to be satisfied with a one-way trip home in my dilapidated wreck. In a suburb we run into the older kids, who just came out of school. For once Pedro does most of the talking and he chatters away about all his discoveries: phones without wires, a television screen on which the people in The Netherlands can follow all his soccer matches live, and he has even learnt a trick to get free banknotes out of a wall. As many as you like!
He’s sitting on my lap behind the much too big wheel of my little car. As a cherry on the cake I had promised him that he could personally drive us home today. Not as cool as flying but not bad either!
A month before that, I had given each of the children a top. The sort of top that in the Netherlands only people above sixty have actually played with as a child. It was the best present ever. Unbreakable. All the children have great fun with it: they make it turn in the palm of their hand, bounce on their knees and even use it to launch marbles. I’m terrible at it, to Pedro’s great annoyance; he cannot grasp that I can fly but am too clumsy to use a top!
Playing with the toy he has soon forgotten the artificial magic of the credit card. What remains is the magic of happiness. That magic is pure and reachable for everyone who is ready to accept it. For the greatest good, money cannot buy a place on the front row and I often believe that I can read more happiness in the eyes of the Proniño children than in those of their Western counterparts, who amuse themselves wearily with their new play station and who stare at me with a vague look of indifference when I suggest hide-and-seek or playing tag. How modern do we wish to be?
As soon as I arrive at the center the next day, the children buzz with excitement. Obviously, they’re discussing something important, while they throw curious looks at me from time to time. They are by no means shy, but to my discomfort I notice that they are unusually reticent today. Then the biggest pushes Pedro in my direction. He staggers toward me.
“Bas?” sounds his shrill little voice.
“Yes, tell me”.
“Bas, maybe tonight ya’wanna stay for a very long time, please? Or maybe you can stay over for the night, please, if ya’want?”
Not understanding, I look at him and ask why he wants that so badly.
“Because then you can fly for me when it’s real dark! With no broom!”
Oh no…
