Honduras: A bellyful of tortillas and worms
On a remote Honduran hillside, Grandma Filomena adeptly grinds corn kernels into flour, packs the flour into flat circles, and tosses the raw tortillas onto a rusty piece of metal over an open fire. Her barefoot grandchildren flock around her, eager for a bite to eat.
Four-year-old Rosbin Gonzales only gets a few corn tortillas each day, and he’s sharing them with a tummy full of worms. He lifts his shirt to reveal a hard, swollen belly. “Worms,” he says. “It hurts.”
This isn’t uncommon for the Gonzales family. “Sometimes they get sick and lose weight,” says the mother, Amabilia, of her children. She is especially concerned about her youngest, eight-month-old Marlon, with his frail little body and sunken eyes.
Health clinic too expensive
The children have never been to the clinic to get treatment for worms. “Yes, there is a clinic in the community which is about one-and-a-half hours' walk away, but when the river swells we’re not able to go to the clinic,” says Amabilia. Besides, she says, “We can’t afford it.”
The family is enrolled in a food distribution program, designed for pregnant women and mothers of children under age two. But these monthly provisions of food—intended to feed just eight-month-old Marlon—do not last long when spread throughout the entire family.
“When we find something to eat, we share with the whole family,” explains Amabilia. The whole family includes four sets of aunts and uncles, countless cousins, and grandma Filomena. Amabilia continues, “Sometimes, when we can afford to buy meat, we cook soup for the whole family.”
Earning money a challenge
One pound of chicken doesn’t provide enough protein for so many mouths. But they cannot afford to keep livestock, and earning money is a constant challenge for these families who live far from any town.
“It’s difficult to find jobs,” says Amabilia. “We find jobs in the lands of the rich, picking people’s coffee. Right now there’s no coffee.”
Malaria a constant threat
Baby Marlon has a fever. At night, there are a lot of mosquitoes and the children get bitten. Malaria is prevalent in these high hills, and although they haven’t been tested, it is most likely that she and her children are infected.
Knowing that her children suffer frequently from worms and a fever, Amabilia says, “I do get concerned because these worms can kill them. And sometimes kids in the community have died because of fever.”
Unclean drinking water
Amabilia tries to get rid of the worms with a home-made concoction using a local plant, which she mixes with water. This only perpetuates the problem. Worms and diarrhea are most likely from drinking unclean water.
“We have some wells, but they are far away from here. We go to the river. The well is more than half an hour walk,” says Amabilia.
Ana Lorena, Amabilia’s nine-year-old daughter, says, “I go to fetch water. But I don’t like it.” For a child, or even an adult, it’s much easier to walk to the nearby stream than to walk half an hour with water splashing out of a heavy bucket.
Amabilia explains that people use the river farther upstream to wash their clothes and to bathe. She knows that the water is contaminated, so they try another method. “When it rains, we take advantage of the rain,” says Amabilia, explaining how they use buckets to catch the rainwater.
Even if Amabilia’s family takes time to get clean water from the well, lack of sanitation and latrines means that they are constantly being exposed to other harmful pathogens.
