Yo duermo con los chichitos

Yo duermo con los chichitos (I sleep with the little ones), at least once or twice a week, packing my bag on those nights with a bedsheet (to prevent my likeliness of picking up lice or scabies from the foursome), my toothbrush, a water bottle, bug spray, my headlamp and a book with the accompanied candle to see me through the night. Lately, the nights have been long, the energy different, the heat has picked up to a point where the body just can´t stop dripping. The chichitos are like little cook-boxes sweating through their clothes, turning their hair into mops, inviting all sorts of nightmares into their slumber that make them cry out in the night or fall out of their beds. It´s never a restful night, especially when you´re thrown into the crash course on being a mother to four, 4-year olds, something I´ve never wanted for but have grown to both love and dread.

Some nights are better than others, but there are always the precious hours between 4:00 and 6:00 a.m., when for some reason the earth gives us the slightess lull in moisture, giving our skin a break, allowing our entire being to relax. You can feel it in the air, its like the whole big world just takes a deep big breathe in and sighs out, and we all perfectly sleep.

The chichitos are my motley crew of sweetness, sass, and will. They are fickle. They are the only kids at Casa that do not have to awaken at 4:30 a.m. to begin their chores and continue forward with school and other work into 4 or 5 in the afternoon. In fact, really, they are the only children here that are consistently treated like kids back home - nutured, given plenty of time to play, learn, love, run. They will love you up one minute and the next tell you that they don´t like you, to go away, to never, ever spend the night with them again. Sometimes, I take it all to personally, but then my rationale kicks in, realizing that this is one of their means of control, of protecting themselves. Everyone eventually leaves them - their parents, volunteers, Guatemaltecan workers. All 4 of them remember their parents, their mama. Some get to see them twice a year, others visit them in their dreams and shake them awake at night, while others hide deep in their being having last been seen shot down in front of their ocean big wholesome eyes. Everything here, just tears you open wide.

Last week one of the chichitos returned from Guatemala City where 5 months prior she had surgery to correct a cleft palate, one of the many reasons that had driven her parents to abandon her. She is 4, back at the orphanage in Rio Dulce, where now all of the the volunteers are different from when she left. She can talk now and people understand what she wants or needs, which is a huge empowerment for her, but the welling of her grief and struggle are immense. It just flies out of her, some nights kicking her legs, flailing her arms, banging her head hard on the floor as if some other being possessed the child body. Sometimes in my broken spanish I can talk her through it, find her way back, other times she just rages and wears herself out.

But then there are those moments where language and rationalization mean nothing. No one needs words, only instinct, only nature, and it becomes completely clear to me why I must be here, at this moment. As I make my way to her bed in the jungle-thick night, my head grogy, my feet being pulled foward by her cries, body reaching over to lug up the heavy wet weight that now clings tight to my neck, whose legs wrap to my spine, whose head-top nuzzles deep under my chin. I ease into the bathroom, so as not to wake the others, where tile floor in the jungle can still bring a bit of coolness to the bottom of the footpads, reminding you where you are, what you are doing. She shakes and pulls me tight with each sob, her being is so close to mine that I can´t tell what is hers and what is mine, a slow deep wail for mama rises up through the pit of her being and I tremble, something inside shifts, creaks, moves up and out of me. Tears stream down my face, falling heavy, falling deep on her wet head, mixing with hers, down her face, into her skin. Both beings sobbing, both needing each other at that exact moment.