A story by Nicoline, one of our volunteers in Honduras.
Every child living in Hogar Suyapa has its own horrible story. And though some of these stories are very similar, every child is marked for life by them in its own way.
The 7 (!!!) adoptive children of Donja Ana – the oldest being 17 years old – have almost all ended up in the nutrition center, undernourished and neglected or abused. When she saw the damage done, Ana couldn’t find it in her heart to deny the children a home, so she fought for their adoption.
Unfortunately she cannot adopt all children. Some will have to grow up here, in Hogar Suyapa, which is a wonderful home as well. One of them is Guadalupe, also known as Lupita. She’s a beautiful child with large, brown eyes. At first sight, she only seems shy because she doesn’t engage in contact with others and often plays on her own. However, the real reason – and a horrible one at that – is that her mother is addicted to sniffing glue and had Lupita doing the same thing since birth to quiet her down. When she was two weeks old, she was taken away from her mother and brought to us, her little face covered in glue. It seemed early, but the damage had already been done, because in these two weeks she suffered from serious brain damage, to the extent that the doctors said she would never be able to walk and show emotions. Hogar Suyapa is very proud that she can walk, smile and even babble a little at the age of three!
And then there’s the story of the two sisters – 6 and 7 years old – who came in this week. One was thin as a rake and both had a mature though timid, rough personality. They used street lingo to attract my attention: ‘Hey, psst’, and clicking with their tongue. At first I thought to myself: ‘How rude, I’m not going to react to that’. But when I was told one of them had been raped by her stepfather and her mother had allowed this to happen, my heart broke and I tried to give them some extra attention, which they should receive as children.
The girls only stayed a couple of days with us until the judge decided where they would be placed. This week one of them sat down next to me. I asked her if she liked it here. She shook her head and said they would go to another shelter for older children the next day. When I asked her if she would like it better over there, she shook her head again. She wanted to be with her mother and asked me why she couldn’t. I couldn’t tell her that her mother allowed her little sister to be sexually abused and that it was not safe to go back.
Help us help them!
More stories by Nicoline coming up
Do you want to come to Honduras? Check www.homelesschild.org for more information. Or would you like to help in the Netherlands? Call Ineke Wiersma on 0032 (0)43 4092194. You can also contribute on account number 212487167 in the name of Homeless Child
