Maria Cristina Pio Pio

Maria Cristina, Samuel and Christy

I feel as though I should honor this woman with a page of her own. She is the mother of the family we built for. She is 33 years old and a widow. She has 6 children. I think it is extremely difficult to be a widow in any situation, however here you add poverty to the mix, the inability to read or write and I think it is even more challenging. Maria was very guarded when we first met. She works very hard all day and is trying to do the best for her children. Her youngest, Eswin is 1 year old. He keeps her very busy. He is a tiny little thing who seems very timid. When we first arrived he screamed when he saw strangers entering their property through the gate. Maria often has Eswin on her back in a blanket. They tie them around their body and the kids just hang off the back. It is a mayan backpack kind of thing. The children will stay in these up to five years old. Sometimes you see woman walking around and all you see is some little feet hanging out of the blanket. The crazy thing is their heads are also covered when they are sleeping. I don't understand how they do not suffocate. Anyway, think about this, you have a baby on your back while you cook over an open smoky fire, you make multiple trips to get water which you will carry on your head filled(about 35 lbs.), you do laundry by hand quite a distance from your casa, this week add carrying block to the mix and so on. She is a prideful woman who has 4 of her children in school. When we come to build, the children really get excited and want to be part of the whole experience with us so it is somewhat of a fight to get them to go to school. Maria had a difficult time getting them to do even do their school work. The children would sit on the ground to do it. Samuel was practicing the letter "V" for vaca(cow), he was doing it in script and print. He was really doing a great job. He wrote the lettter about 500 times. Her daughter, Christy, who gave her a much harder time about school was studying the dictionary and writing words and their definition in her notebook. I have to tell you her handwriting was incredible. Christy refused to go to school all week. Anyway, Maria has quite a bit of responsibility every day.  She was so happy at the prospect of having a sturdy block home that when ever I would ask her about it she would have a look of happiness about her, yet still somewhat guarded. It was almost like she could not believe this was really happening to her. She cooks over an open fire in a small cornstalk shack. The smoke in there is incredible and it makes your eyes burn. I would go in to see what she was cooking and she would be frying black beans for her family, about 6 beans per person. It was also extremely dark in there so I don't know how she could even see what she was doing. I am always so amazed at these women. They are busy all day. She had done her laundry one day and she hung everything over a fence, and then it rained so she quickly grabbed it all and wrapped it up in a big piece of cloth and then put it in the shack..the rain would stop and she would hang it on the fence again....it is rainy season, I can only imagine how many times she does this routine. Some of the women have clothes lines so at least if the sun is out the clothes will dry quickly.
 I cannot say enough about this woman except that she is an example of perserverance and determination. She is like any other mother in the world, she wants what is best for her family and under the  most difficult cicumstances she makes every effort to create a warm and loving home with the dream that her children will have more opportunity and promise in their lives. I commend her and can only remember her as an example of strength and determination when times are difficult.