Sr. Carol is a staff member at AMANECER, an orphanage network in Cochabamba, Bolivia. She is involved in the Saint Louis sponsored program, Pan y Amor.
The police in coordination with the State Welfare Department have begun rounding up those who live on the street and taking them out of the city in order to ”motive” them to change. Then, in a few days or once a fiesta has passed they either let them run away and they return to their street dwellings or they bring them back to the outskirts of the city and turn them loose. At the same time, our clamor for a closed detox program for them, which requires that the state assume its responsibility of legal guardianship falls on deaf ears. The current interpretation of the Code for Children and Adolescent’s makes such round ups are illegal as they do not take into account the individual child or adolescent’s wishes.
When the head of Police at the Service of the Community visited our day center recently, he had to ring the doorbell in order to enter. Upon entering, he made it very clear to us that it is illegal to have the young people under lock and key during their time with us. Thus, addicted children are expected to make a personal decision to get off drugs, which is very difficult for them to choose to do given the fact that the drugs affect them both physically and mentally. We continue, however, to try to get them into our center for as long as possible in order to gradually reduce their levels of intoxication in the hope that eventually they will be capable of making the decision to leave street life with its violence, delinquency and drug addiction. The current reality we face daily in working with this population is most frustrating.
My personal desperation reached its peak last week when one of the boys high on glue was sitting outside Amanecer Yaykuna sitting quietly relaxing as he was quite high on glue and it is always best to have those in this condition take some time to calm their hyperactivity and/or aggressiveness. According to a young vender who sells next door to our house, a taxi driver came up to the young man and accused him of stealing his rear view mirror, which he denied and offered to accompany the driver to a local commissary where he would prove his innocence. The driver became furious, grabbed our young friend by the neck, turned him around so that the confrontation was face to face and then hit him square in the nose, causing profound hemorrhaging.
We only became aware of the incident when his friend knocked on the door and asked for water so that he could clean up the mess. After the fact, this act was cause for comic relief but when we followed him outside and saw our young adolescent friend screaming and crying out his frustration in the middle of the street, it gave us quite a start. Fortunately, we were able to calm him down, treat him, let him sleep for a bit and then give him milk to reduce his intoxication and help to prevent frank organ damage.
Never before has anything so drastic and violent occurred at our front door and as we strive to insure that it will never again happen anywhere, we ask for your prayers. The Bolivian reality at present is tense to say the least but we cannot excuse violent outbursts and so feel called to continue and intensify our efforts to protect the members of the street population, especially children and young adolescents who are the most vulnerable. Almost daily there are strikes or protests throughout Bolivia that quickly become violent confrontations as people strive to get on with life in spite of continued political, economic and social unrest.
May God hear our united plea for justice for those forced to life on the streets of Cochabamba!
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