I take Daisy out of my comfort zone, which seems to have shrunk considerably since I gave birth. Paul is the trustee of a project out here that is run for schoolchildren, and we have a meeting with Unicef and another local group to discuss a possible merger and the future of the project.
The meeting is in a community centre on the edge of La Hormiga, one of the first settlements to have sprung up outside the peripheral road of San Cristobal. These settlements are called “The Belt of Misery” (note to estate agents, needs some rebranding), because the expulsados who live there started off living in shacks with no basic services.
Today La Hormiga has changed considerably from when Paul was first doing research there, with many two-storey buildings, electricity and water and a bustling market. The community centre is half an hour’s walk from where we are living, and for some reason we set off on foot with Steve, the American who started the project.
It’s a stony road, and I wince every time Paul loses his footing (he’s carrying Daisy), and we arrive half an hour late after Steve stops to buy arroz con leche (a kind of rice pudding drink) and tamales at a roadside stall. The assembled children and parents applaud as we walk in, but I can’t tell whether they are being sarcastic or not.
The community centre is basic and there are no facilities for heating Daisy’s milk. I swiftly take her home while Paul stays and hears how important the project has been to both children and parents involved. La Chozita gives scholarships to indigenous children and has given them a place to do their homework in the afternoons as well as classes in native languages, Spanish and maths.
It’s wonderful to see how confident some of these children, who could otherwise have ended up selling crafts on the streets, have become.
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