"The Price of Education"

Click here to read the story of one of our students written in his own words - Cristian

Many thanks to the anonymous writer who sent this piece in to us.

Now, this is going to be a tough exercise for some. Imagine you are a woman. A woman in her early thirties, though some would say you look more like a careworn forty five. You have four children: two girls aged twelve and ten; and two boys, eight and seven. You worry most about your girls: OK, when you were a bit older than them, you managed to fight off a teenage pregnancy though only just. And things were different then anyway. But what about them? Twelve is a worrying age these days. And the boys? The local gangs are merciless recruiters, and they start them young.

Your husband was of no help. Mostly he drank whatever he could get his hands on. When he died, a
couple of years ago, still only in his thirties, the children were sad. Of course. But it meant that the beatings stopped. It meant also that you no longer needed to hide the precious little money you were able to earn and which was the sole support for all six of you. Anything your husband managed to earn - a rare occasion - he drank. It also means that your money now has now only to be split five ways. Sad, really - mostly for the kids. But .... must look on the bright side of life.

Before it gets light, you are awake. The rain drumming on the corrugated tin sheet of which your home is made, and the water running through and across the bare earth floor would keep anyone awake, if only with worry. You check the children. Two girls in one bed, two boys in the other. Still sleeping. Children will sleep through anything, thank goodness. They’re huddled together. It gets cold up in the hills of Guatemala, and you haven’t quite enough warm bedclothes for all them.

How’s your imagination doing? Keep going...

You know there’s no food today until you earn some money to buy some. And you know it will take too much time and too much wood to light a fire to make a hot drink before you go out into the rain to get some work. The elderly, rusted, gas ring would do it more economically, both of fuel and of time. But it’s been three weeks since the gas bottle ran out, and you haven’t managed to save up enough to buy a full one yet. Used sparingly, as you do, it could last you six months. But for now - nothing. Just work.

So, leaving the children asleep - why wake them? for what? - you fight your way, as you do every morning, up the mud-slick slope from your home until you manage to reach the track.

You follow it all the way up the hill until you reach your place of work. It’s an open-air, cold-water sink where people bring their clothes to wash.

You will do the washing for them until your hands are blue and numb. It’s what you do. It’s how you feed your children. And - eventually - buy gas.

As you work, you brood on the children. Luckily, half-sisters and cousins live around your home, in tin shacks of their own, on land which the local municipality allows you - for now - to use. It can’t really be used it for anything else. It’s too steep and inaccessible. Your extended family will look out for your children. It is a necessarily cooperative society you all live in. Subsistence and survival is the only objective you all have. You think about it as you wash other people’s clothes. How can you manage to avoid this desperate grind for your children and theirs in turn, and theirs after them. And how can you keep them wandering the tracks and gathering in the aimless little groups which all kids will - but, in your case, with the two major risks you worry about ceaselessly: unwanted pregnancies,
and drug-fuelled gangs. How? Well, of course, there’s an answer for both. Get them to school. Give them the education which will allow them the opportunity to break out of this subsistence existence, and will also keep them off the streets and their minds occupied with other, good - not damaging and evil - things.

Still with me? Hands blue yet?

Student Profile - Cristian

Every now and then we print the story of one of our students, written in their own words. Let me introduce you to Cristian...

"Hello! I´m Cristian and at the moment I am 16 years old. I have two brothers and two sisters. In the beginning, we used to live with our biological parents. My parents never had a stable relationship and when I was 8 years old, they separated because my dad had an alcohol problem and they had many different problems that couples have. Throughout the separation, there were many problems that had to be sorted out in court. Because of these problems, my mum went to live in another place and we stayed with my dad. My younger brothers and sisters became my responsibility. Then, somebody that used to help me asked me if I wanted to study and he said that he knew a school that would be able to help me.

“I started studying in the first grade in 2005 after the school year had started. In the following year, I thought I would have to repeat the grade but I was told that because I did well and because I knew how to read, write, add and subtract, I would go into the second grade and then the third grade. That year, the Foundation helped to put us with a foster family because of all of the problems that we had at home. We went to court and after analyzing the situation, the judge decided that a foster family would be best for us.
“Last year, I was supposed to start the fourth grade but the Foundation decided to place me in an accelerated primary programme called NUFED. In this programme, I could complete two grades in one year. That year, I promised my foster mum that I would get good grades and I did. I was the head student of my class.
“Now I am in “Primero Basico” (Year 7) and it hasn’t been easy but I know that if you put effort into something, you will do well and that you must work hard at everything. I am happy for everything I have achieved and I hope to fulfill more of my goals too like joining the San Felipe church, working during the vacations and buy myself a bike one day like I have dreamed of as well as helping my brothers and sisters at home. I thank God for everything that he has given me and keeps giving me and I thank the Foundation for appearing in our lives to provide us with the hope of a having a better future."

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