Half & Half

Living here is not for the faint hearted, it’s a real tug on the heart everywhere you turn, the streets are so dusty they cover everything in dirt, they smell, its over populated, everyone has the same trade and there is not enough to go around.
I haven’t started school with the kids yet, that’s Monday, as I dont graduate from my Spanish classes till Friday but the kids went back 2 days ago.

Its strange theres no real difference between vacation time and school here. There streets are not filed with the sound of kids playing in the streets as they should be.
It’s a hard life being a kid here its an endless struggle that never goes away.

Most kids, since I arrived, have been spending their school holidays working the streets selling bread, nuts, orange juice and oils for their parents to earn a living.

Thing is… now that school is back they are still required to bring in the same money. Some of these kids are as young as 6, but they are used to the daily grind of walking up and down the steep road from the dock to the market & from market to the mountains and they simply take it all in their stride.

What most families do if they have more than one child is ‘half and half’ they send one child to school in the morning and one in the afternoon, this way they can sell on the street when they are not at school. This also means that after school and work they have to catch up on the work they missed during the second part of the day from the other sibling. In my house at least they also help around the house in the evenings, running out to the shops for forgotten bits and pieces, cooking and pealing and cleaning the dishes which I have insisted I take over.

You can’t help everyone all the time and I have to have that as my mantra so as not to keep beating myself up and feeling down.
I have made lots of local friends though here and try to help them as much as I can, just remembering their name puts a smile on their faces, they still call me Amiga Lucienne is a bit of a mouthful.

Every morning I have to pass Brenda, (not a typical Guatemalan name) but shes fab! She is 11yrs old and picks oranges up in the mountain. She brings them back and squashes them to sell fresh Orange juice on the street. I have one each morning to kick off the cold I bought with. She shouts up the road as she sees me coming "jugo de neraja Amiga" and I shout back "Si" (good at the lingo hey).

Juan sells nuts which I buy for my break at class and then there’s ‘Pan girl’. Her name is Nancy, she’s only 7 but she’s really street wise. She makes and sells Banana bread ‘Pan de Banan’ hence the name ‘Pan girl’. I always buy it, it tastes like shit, but I buy it all the same, I have totally fallen head over heals in love with her.

The other day I was doing my homework with my Hello Kitty Pencil and she was mesmerized by it so I gave it to her. I asked if she had any sisters and realising that it was a great way to get loads more pencils she listed me all the girls in her family, shes pretty sharp. So next day I had to bring 7 pencils with me, she kept forgetting the names of her sisters as we counted but hey, theres alot of them to remember I suppose!!

I also found somewhere to get myself an ice cream I offered her a taste and she ate it for me in 3 mins flat. She then decided we should make an arrangement for the following day, same time same place, more icecream kinda thing. She’s so cheeky but so cute, yesterday morning she helped me paint my nails in glitter nail varnish and at the weekend we are going to set up a salon on the street painting nails and doing hair.

She thinks there’s a gap in the market, we’ll see. I’m not sure she’s a great business partner as it’s me who is going to buy all the stock and bring the tools but I’m sure we’ll have fun. We are not charging money anyway the only fee is that they practice Spanish with me as I work and if they get peckish they buy her bread.
The weekend is in serious need of some playing and laughter in the street so that’s my mission, not sure how it will go down with the boys but hey I suck at football!

All creative & fun boy ideas welcome!