Motherless. The little boy on this year’s calendar and on the last newsletter is Sergio. He is five years old, the youngest of six, four older brothers and a sister. He came to COAR a year and a half ago, when his mother was dying of malignant melanoma. Fearing the children’s father would not care for them after she died, she asked COAR to take them in. The last (and maybe the only picture) they have with their mother was taken at COAR one week before she died. Sr. Mary Pat also took the older two for a visit with their mother at the home of her friend, a few hours before she died.

Poverty. Their poverty is dire. The father fled the eastern half of the country during the war and came to Zaragoza where he had a relative. Soon after he met Sergio’s mother and they had their first child. The father was educated through 9th grade and has no job. The mud and sticks “house” is really one room without windows, furniture, or privacy. The kitchen is a small outdoor fire pit fueled by whatever wood can be scrounged. The children go down to a small river each day and carry dirty water to a 55-gallon drum from which they will drink, cook, bathe, and wash dishes.

Sergio’s mother lived with this poverty, had raised her children in it. Why was she unwilling to leave them in it after she died? Because this poverty also has its dangers - unsafe neighbors, poor nutrition and sanitary conditions, and bleak opportunities for children unsupervised. With a father absent much of the time, who makes sure motherless children go to school, study, eat right, wash their clothes? Who tries to guide their choice of friends or protects them from outright danger?

Weekends at Home. The father was not as sure as the mother about allowing the children to live at COAR. In the end, he allowed only the four youngest to stay, Sergio, 3, Dalila, 4, Carlos Daniel, 6, and Adolfo Ernesto, 8. The two older boys, now 12 and 14, remain at home. They do not attend any school and will probably never learn to read and write. However, like all children, the youngest desperately want to be with their father. They go home at least one weekend a month. They are reunited with their two older brothers, extended family that lives in the neighborhood, and their father’s new daughter (six months old) and the child’s mother. They sleep where they can and likely “eat” mostly soda pop, which keeps the hunger at bay but provides no nutrition.

^ The family will be together this weekend, the four at COAR, the two oldest who live at home, their father, their new sister (six months old) and her mother.