Between life and death

Chapter One: La Violencia and Its Effects

6. Between life and death

She is living in the village called Sontza and here the poverty is extreme since there is no health clinic, school, drinking water, or electric light. They don’t have a corn mill and they don’t have roads. The people of this village don’t have a doctor or medicines. She is very worried about her husband’s recovery, about feeding her children, clothing her family, and about the fragile state of the house because the tin roofing has holes and it leaks on them when it rains. She needs someone to help her with her family’s health and economic survival.

The woman and her children are sad because her husband is quite sick and she, by herself, is working to support her family. The responsibility falls on her to do the work of her husband in addition to her own.

Due to la violencia her husband was orphaned when he was two years old. His parents had been murdered and he suffered a great deal during his childhood because he never knew his parents’ love. A family adopted him, but they looked down upon him and mistreated him and didn’t give him enough to eat. He grew up with a lot of suffering and malnutrition and that’s why he is now sick.

The husband said he was going to die, but he’s sad because his family will be left in misery and will suffer a great deal in poverty. What he most remembers in his life is when he was ten years old. They sent him into the mountains all alone to take care of the cornfield for 15 days. He cried a lot because this really scared him. He didn’t like this, but they left him there tied up so that he couldn’t go back. They left him without any food, but he was so hungry that he used to eat the ashes from the fire.