Genaro

Well, here we are in 3 de Mayo. Daisy told us to come here to see the beautiful artesanias, but really I've seen enough to last me a lifetime, and I think Caila agrees with me. Instead, we trudge for about ten minutes (which seems like an hour) up the hill (that feels like a mountain). By the time we arrive at Casa Hogar, I'm dripping sweat, and the odor of sewage wafting from the open gate does nothing to encourage me to enter. But, as I have learned, interesting smells are as much a part of Mexico as corn tortillas and 5 peso ruta rides. And if Caila lived and worked here for two months, I'd better be brave enough to enter. So, in we go. Caila shows me the small apartment where she used to live right next to the girls' room. About ten girls share the cement-floor dormitory where the scent of rot and garbage permeates the air, and flies congregate on the single sheet covering the king-sized bed right inside the door. I don't know how many girls share that bed, but I know I wouldn't want to sleep there.


Caila chats with some of the girls while I venture outside and meet Genaro, who is mastering some kind of toy that looks like a cross between a top and a yo-yo. The trick is to wind the string around the base and then with a quick flick of the hand, fling it to the ground and get it to spin. "Me ensenas?" I ask him, and he presses the toy into my palm. With my clumsy hands I awkwardly try to imitate Genaro's finesse. The top doesn't seem to want to cooperate and instead plops and pirhouettes stubbornly across the dusty cement. Genaro hops after it, winds the string and plants it in my hand once more, positioning it carefully and hooking the ring around my thumb. "Asi," he instructs, and with a seemingly effortless gesture launches his imaginary top into the air. I try to copy once more, and again it clopples with a lifeless thud, bouncing into the patch of gnarly parched grass nearby. Genaro sighs and throws a hopeless look my way, shrugging his shoulders as if to say, "I tried." I plop down on the cement staircase next to Alejandro, who seems to understand my chagrin as he reads aloud from a tiny Gospel of Mark. As I sit here, watching Genaro ply his magic toy that I can't seem to master, I wonder what other tricks and talents are lying dormant within him. If he can manipulate this little plastic top to glide gracefully over the sidewalk at 7, what could he be capable of at 15, or 21, or 35? He is so young...how will he know that he is something sacred? Will someone be there to push him, to tell him he can do anything? Will he figure it out on his own?

What kind of agency does he have here, as an "orphan" whose parents are too poor to care for him? Can Abrigo del Dios give him the resources he needs to rise above its dusty concrete walls? I don't know, or maybe I am afraid to know the answer.