Chocolate Child.
The light caught and reflected in the chocolate coloured eyes of the little boy as he grinned and reached out to take the sweet I was offering him.
“Gracias.” he said.
“De nada.” I replied, my Spanish hesitant.
“¿Muy bien, español es muy difícil verdad?” he laughs girlishly.
“Sí.”I agree whole heartedly. This wee boy, José, had attached himself to me the moment I had stepped out of the battered mini-van onto the soil of his small Honduran village. He somewhat reminded me of the stray kitten that used to hang around my place, with its dark dirty fur and ribs showing through its skin. My heart went to the both of them.
“Oye, May! Mira!” little José was hopping up in down on one foot, excited, pointing at the aeroplane flying overhead. “¿ Como se dice en ingles, por favor?” he asked, his mouth crammed full of lollies and his eyes alight with curiosity.
“Aeroplane.” I said. He smiled winningly, well as winningly as possible as anybody could with a mouth crammed full of sweets, and started to mutter the new word to himself.
I was amazed at how bright and happy a child in his situation could be. His family were well off by the standards of the village, his father being the local pastor, but by New Zealand standards, he and his family had practically nothing. He shared a small corrugated iron house with his mother, father, two brothers and one older sister as well as various other relatives. He hardly went to school, the nearest being kilometres away in the nearest city, but he was still very bright. His clothes always started the day clean, a luxury few here could afford, but wound up covered in dirt by the end of it due to his enthusiasm for life.
“Oye! May!” José shouted from across the other side of the dirt beaten track, the village’s main street, “Come, play fútbol.” His English already surpassing my Spanish. He and several other children were organising each other into teams on the village green.
“You goalie May. I am Striker.” He propelled me over to the makeshift goal with force you wouldn’t expect from such a small skinny child. He along with most of the other children in this ramshackle village, was very lean. In most of the children you could see signs of many missed meals, sunken cheek bones and ribs sticking out under thread bare shirts and dresses.
“Comenzar!” shouted the elected referee, a boy on crutches’ who’s foot I had treated earlier that morning. The children launched into the game with surprising skill and speed. A kaleidoscope of colourful flashes played out in front of my eyes. José was darting and slinking around the other children, his catlike grace evident in his stride. A boy in red made an impressive attempt at a sliding tackle as the José flicked the ball off to a girl in a tattered blue dress. José bent down and offered his grubby, sweet covered hand to the fallen boy who flashed him a rueful grin and muttered something to José along the lines of “Maybe next time I’ll get it off you, instead of landing in the dirt.”
“GOAL!” The shout went up just on full time from the other end of the makeshift field. The celebration that followed would have rivalled those of the players in the FIFA world cup. There was chaos as many children ran around to slap the back of the successful goal scorer. Girls cart-wheeled past, flashing their multicoloured skirts and boys started to show off flipping themselves in the air and landing on their feet. I stood and looked on in awe as these children with so little, celebrated like they had the whole world in their pockets. I wonder if the reason they are happy is because they have so little. And for that very reason they had so much, as life for them isn’t controlled by greed or desire to have everything associated with success.
-Hannah Dearlove
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