Erminda is studying to be a nurse. South American Secrets started funding her about the same time as Yadira. Erminda like Yadira is passionate about her studies and her community. Every year she struts us through Urbina, everyone loves her and it is clear they see she will be a good future leader. It seems to be something most of our students have in common. When they show the travelers or would be tourist their communities and introduce the community members to us, it is like a parade through the streets as everyone comes forward to express their gratitude for taking an interest in their village.
Like all the other students, actually like everyone in the various communities, Erminda has a story that makes her special. About a year ago we were having dinner with a group of students and she began to share a piece of her childhood with us that really illustrated the life of many children of the Esmeraldes Jungle life. I had asked her where the children go to school. I saw the kindergarten and the classrooms for children attending first through eighth grade, but I did not see a high school. Erminda told me after eighth grade she went to school in San Lorenzo, which is where most of the students travel to in order to continue their education if their parents can afford the costs. She explained school was not expensive, it was governmentally subsidized. There were and are not any fees to go to school but materials and uniforms are not supplied, and transpiration is the biggest hurtle as getting out of the jungle to San Lorezo to get to school is easier said than done. Each way is a three to four hour trip that the students have to make on their own. As children become of age and are ready to take the next step and study in San Lorezo parents are forced to make a very difficult decision for their children.
First option the parents have is to send their children to Esmeraldas or Guayaquil to study with a family member who already lives there. Not many have this luxury and if they do it means seeing their 12 year old once of twice a year. The second option is to let them make the five day a week homage to San Lorezo where they are traveling up to eight hours a day just to get back and fourth to school. With this option comes the horror of having their children one day just never return home, disappearing from the face of the planet. Imagine asking your twelve year old to walk to school by him or herself with no way of communicating with you until he or she gets back that night. Talk about the worst kind of waiting game. Third and most common option is no continued education.
As Erminda told me of what her parents decided to do for her she began to show an emotional side to her I had never seen before. This story was truly from the heart. She explained that her parents took on two and three jobs at a time working themselves to no end, taking food out of their own mouths to feed and educate her and her sister.
Every week Erminda was given enough money to walk and to take a bus part way to school. This money was to get her through the week. It was not enough to eat everyday and have transportation to and from San Lorenzo, so she had to decide what days she would eat. All while having the daily physical demands on her, she had the pressure of knowing that if she did not do well in school her parents were sacrificing thier own health, diet, and well being for her for nothing.
While finishing her story she told me it is very difficult to see children on the dirt roads in the jungle in their school clothing because she knows they are going through the same sacrifices as she did and not all of them will make it. The story reminds me of the life patten of turtles. Two turtles lay hundreds of eggs and wait for them to hatch, when they hatch the baby turtles make their way from the whole they were born in, out towards the ocean. On their way to the water the baby turtles are snatched by birds and other animals. Then when they get into the water where other bigger fish eat them. Only a few turtles from the hundreds that are born actually live to be adults.
Like the baby turtles the parents of these students have very little control over their end-all success. Like the baby turtles, many of the children are snatched up by those who would seek out a vulnerable twelve year old child. Then like the baby turtle when they get into the water, or become educated, the corruption of life as they know it takes that education and makes it mute.
