$0.70
Last night, I was invited to a celebratory dinner with leaders of the organization Pa’ Mi Barrio to thank us for our volunteer work over the past month.
Pa’ Mi Barrio is an after school program for the poorest of the poor children in a specific neighborhood here in Medellin, Colombia. It teaches table manners, dealing with conflict, expression of emotions through art, and gratitude. There are psychologists that work there to assess and assist the most broken children. They supply scholarships so the children can get a private education past a 1st grade level (the public schooling system doesn’t actually have any value in this area)… and they keep them in school until they graduate college. They show the kids how to take care of their bodies, and eat well, and why it’s important to stay away from drinking and drugs. They give children a chance.
And after volunteering with the program, last night I was treated to Crepes and Waffles. We sat outside on a beautiful patio and talked for hours, and they shared so much more about the community of children my squad worked with for this past month…. And my heart broke for the first time on The World Race.
It wasn’t the stories of witchcraft or poverty that got to me.
It wasn’t the recent death and return to life of one of the little boys that got to me.
It wasn’t the reality that most children of that neighborhood won’t ever break the generational cycles of drinking, drugs, witchcraft, and not pursuing an education that got to me.
What broke my heart was the stories of abuse from their fathers towards their mothers, the stories of generational anger passed down, and the stories of how the mothers don’t know (or care to know) that their children have value.
Last night, I learned why this organization boycotts public transportation: it’s run by a mafia-esque group that enjoys and partakes in sexually abusing children. The bus drivers in particular will rent children to do with as they please, to “touch however they want.”
And as if it wasn’t horrid enough that grown men want to do something like that, here was the worst part: the mothers of this neighborhood easily and willingly sell their children’s bodies to the bus drivers for 2,000 Colombian pesos. Or, to put that in terms of US dollars, that is $0.70.
$0.70.
That’s all it costs to buy a child to sexually assault. From it’s own mother.
And it’s seen as normal by the locals.
And Pa’ Mi Barrio stands as a light in the utter darkness of this neighborhood (and has for almost 10 years), changing the projection of children’s lives: teaching them another way to live, teaching them that they have value, teaching mothers to love their children.
But it still broke my heart to know that the kids know what types of things happen to children in their neighborhood. And that their bodies, to crucial adults in their lives, are worth less than $0.70.
