As I told you a few days ago, I read from the newspaper every day out loud to my teacher. I get to choose which article, and on the front page I noticed Miss Universe was in Guatemala working on an AIDS project. I am considering working for UN-AIDS here in Guatemala after I finish my studies, so I was interested to read about the problem here. Miss Universe, by the way, was from Mexico.
It's customary for my teacher to ask me my opinion of each article I read. I am reading each article aloud, and in Spanish almost every single letter is pronounced except for the H, so it does take some practice. Sometimes I find I need to re-read the article silently to myself to fully understand what the article is saying. I actually love this exercise because it's so easy to measure my progress. I read this morning's article out loud and I didn't need to skim back over it to understand what I read. To make a long story short, Miss Universe was here promoting a new online web page where people living with HIV/AIDS can go to share stories, successes, and generally feel like they are not living with this disease alone. There is still quite a stigma attached to it all over the world, and I feel probably more here in Latin America.
I think my teacher likes to talk about the articles after I read them to first of all make sure I understand them, but also because she really is interested in learning about life in other countries. She has never been out of Guatemala except to just over the border in Mexico once. I explained to her that in the States it's very common for both women and men to buy and use condoms. We are taught at a young age that the risk of getting pregnant is really the least of the worries of a sexually active young person these days. I explained that even the parents are becoming more involved in their children's lives and are being more realistic than idealistic when it comes to their children's health and safety.
I think I may have mentioned in a previous post that her neighbor runs a brothel out of her house. To be honest, I'm not sure if this is the same neighbor that was a witch and cast spells on her mother, but this really wasn't a discussion about religion. She said that 90% of the men here refuse to wear a condom, and I quickly pointed out that it's the woman's choice as well. She said it's "machismo" here for the men to not wear condoms, and the majority of men who frequent these brothels are married men. She said she heard some of the prostitutes talking outside her neighbor's house the other day and one of them was bragging to the others that she had worked 15 men the night before and made more money because she allowed most of them to skip the protection. This is how HIV/AIDS is spreading in Guatemala. When these men go home to their wives, of course they're not using protection with them. But...it gets worse. WAY worse.
Somehow our discussion became more about the role women play in the campos (in the poor communities, not within the community in which I will be living). There is a 13-year old girl in her subdivision, called colonias, who needed to quit school and start to work in order to help support her family. Her mother has a job, and her manager also owned a shop where they sell dulces tipicos (typical Guatemalan desserts and candies). The young girl started working for her mother's manager making dulces tipicos, and he raped her. The girl just had his baby about 3 months ago, and the neighbors are all trying to help this poor girl with food, money, clothes and things for the baby, and they are also trying to help her in another way. The neighbors have been trying to figure out who this guy is who got her pregnant, but apparently the mother is protecting him. She has told lie after lie to the people who ask because I guess there are a group of people who want to kill this guy (and probably the mother too). Then it gets even worse. My teacher reminded me about a lady that we saw while we were walking in the street a few days ago. I had no idea who this lady was, but my teacher said that she had a lot of respect for her at the time. Anyway, she told me that this woman had left to go to the market but had a bad feeling and instead returned to her house. She found her husband (the father of her children) raping her daughter...HIS DAUGHTER. She immediately grabbed a machete and chopped him to pieces. She went to jail for a while, but luckily a very intelligent and gracious lawyer (female) fought for her in court free of charge, and she was found innocent because she was protecting her child. Then I began to hear story after story of these young girls, 12, 13, 14 becoming pregnant with their father's child! I've heard three separate stories now where a father has violated his own daughter. In one of these cases, the mother was so embarrassed and angry with her daughter that she kicked her out to live on the streets. My teacher used to work for a project here in Antigua that gave food, education, shelter, and every other basic need to kids living in the streets so they didn't fall into a life of violence and drugs. She told me about this poor 13-year old girl who had her own child who was technically her half-brother. I can't even seem to process this information. I've been told that among the savages, literally savages, there is this sick and twisted idea that the father needs to be the girl's "first" when she begins to menstruate, and it is not that infrequent that the poor girl gets pregnant. As if that weren't sick enough, many mother's get jealous and blame the daughter for this behavior. I don't even have any children of my own, and I want to hurt these people. I want the guy from "El Secreto de Sus Ojos" to come and deliver his type of justice. By the way, that's a fabulous movie. I don't know what the answer is, but I feel like if the government isn't going to protect these young girls, somebody needs to get the job done.
This type of behavior isn't the norm here, but in some of the extremely poor communities it is happening. The only answer I keep coming up with is education. The girls need to be taught to demand respect, and the boys need to be taught to respect them. They need to be taught that they don't have to live this way. Honestly though, I'm afraid that one of the problems is these people have been relying on other people to give them things for generations. I know this might sound terrible, but I'm serious. These people do not need handouts. They need the education to help themselves better their own lives. That's all for now folks...I can't seem to get these images out of my mind and I need to stop thinking about them for a while.
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