Child of El Salvador

By Penny Raife Durant

1987 - An old woman finds a baby girl abandoned by the road in El Salvador. In the USA, Diane Remer-Thamert mourns the loss of a stillborn girl. Civil war is raging in El Salvador. Diane’s husband Glen wants to adopt a child from El Salvador. He meets a Salvadoran attorney whose father can help them. Glen goes to El Salvador to meet the attorney and becomes involved in helping Salvadorans who wish to flee. Diane flies down a few days later. She is intimidated by the military who carry automatic weapons and wear mirrored sunglasses. The couple meets Norma in an orphanage, and Diane knows this is the child intended to be theirs. Adopting Norma is a struggle played out against a fickle and dangerous government in El Salvador and a suspicious American one. Will Glen’s involvement in unauthorized activities cost them their child?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penny Raife Durant
• Release date: Jun 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476356587

Penny Raife Durant

Penny Raife Durant is the award-winning author of nine books for children and young adults, including the YA novel about AIDS, WHEN HEROES DIE. CHILD OF EL SALVADOR is her first book for adults. It's narrative nonfiction, set in the 1980s in El Salvador in the midst of civil war, and concerns adoption and the Sanctuary movement.

Book preview

Chapter One

A baby's soft cry wafted on the humid air.

The old woman wiped sweat from her brow with a flowered handkerchief then tucked it back in the waistband of her full skirt. Clouds were building in the west, but rain from the night before had only made the air stickier, not cooler. She stepped around a puddle by the edge of the road.

Mentally, she went over her list of what she needed to buy at the market. She concentrated, so it took a minute for her to recognize the sound that pulled at the edge of her brain. A baby crying.

Crying was not an uncommon sound on the streets of San Salvador, both from children and from adults. The war had torn many families apart and left them in grief. This cry was different.

Are you hearing things, Lupe? she asked herself. Crazy old woman. She laughed and looked around. She saw no houses where children played in the yard, no buildings for families. The cry came again. The woman looked farther down the road. Only a mound of dirt and scattered trash lay along the road's edge, not far from the creek. Perhaps it was the water in the creek or a kitten mewing.

The sound continued, and a pang tugged at Lupe's heart. It reminded her of the feeling she had when her own babies would cry and her breasts would tingle in response. Her breasts had been dry for many years, but they had suckled and nourished three sons and one daughter. They would never forget it.

Lupe followed the sound to the mound of dirt and rubble spilling along the creek bank. She held the flowered handkerchief to her nose as she stepped through a pile of disintegrating paper, damp boxes, broken and worn out pieces of plastic and pottery, and mud. Flies buzzed near her ears. The cry seemed louder, but still was soft and weak. She moved a large yellowing piece of paper that crumbled as she lifted it. Beneath the paper, lying on a torn cushion lay a baby.

"Dios Mio!" she cried. Gently she picked up the baby, afraid that the child, too, might disintegrate in her hands. With her handkerchief she wiped the baby's eyes and face. Mud streaked across one cheek. The baby weakly wrapped its fist around Lupe's finger. She held the tiny figure against her chest.

Where have you come from? she asked. The baby could not answer, but the old woman knew. Parents too poor to raise the child had abandoned her. Perhaps they had too many children already who cried at night from hunger. Perhaps the mother was alone, her husband killed by the death squads. Perhaps both had been disappeared. The old woman would never know the exact story.

As she held the child, a truck rumbled by, stirring the fetid air. There was no license plate on the back of the dark green vehicle and Lupe shuddered. The death squad. She had seen the trucks before, even heard the pre-dawn visit they paid to her neighbor, dragging her husband away with large black guns shoved into his back. People said they were soldiers, but they didn't wear uniforms. Others said they were from the guard, earning a little extra pay by terrorizing and killing anyone suspected of anti-government activities. It had been six months, and her neighbor knew she would never see her husband alive again.

The grip of the tiny hand on Lupe's finger relaxed. She roused from the fear and memories the truck inspired. The thin infant in her arms was starving. How long had it been since the baby had been fed or had a clean diaper? The baby's cries were little more than whimpers.

A clinic, La Cruz Verde, the Green Cross, was a short distance up the hill. I will take you there, little one, she told the child. Perhaps they can nurse you back to health.

Lupe shook her head as a tear started from one eye. The child's hair was matted with filth. The arms were thin and the stomach distended from starvation. What could anyone do? The child would probably die anyway, as so many had died before. She had little reason to hope it could survive.

The child whimpered and Lupe's heart lurched. I will try, little one. I will try.

Cooing softly to the child, she walked as quickly as her old, tired legs would carry her up the hill. Sweat sprouted again on her forehead and on her upper lip. The slight weight in her arms and the length of the child's limbs suggested to her that the child was about two months old. She remembered her own children at that age and smiled. Sweet round faces, mouths eagerly sucking on small thumbs. Her image of them was replaced by one of grown men laughing as they climbed into a truck and brandished rifles in the air, yelling as the truck drove off, leaving her standing in the swirling dust and exhaust.

We will make things better for you, they had said. But they had not returned, and life without her children was far from better. Every morning she went to Mass and prayed for their return and every afternoon she checked for information about them.

She knocked on the door of the Green Cross, glancing furtively across the street at the truck with no license plate. Would the soldiers think she had stolen the baby? Many had been stolen before. Until the government stopped foreign adoptions of Salvadoran babies, children had disappeared from their homes, their yards, their cribs. Lupe knew it wasn't hate that motivated the thieves. It was money. The street value for a baby was at least $50, the equivalent of a month's wages for a poor man. By the time the child reached the foreign land, eager couples were willing to pay as much as $5,000 for a baby.

Lupe looked at the infant asleep in her arms. Perhaps it would have been better to have been stolen than to have been abandoned to die. Lupe brushed that word from her mind as she brushed a fly from the child's face. No, she said softly. Not again.

She glanced at the military outpost behind the truck. The soldiers paid little attention to an old woman with an infant. Still, it was not advisable to run counter to the government's wishes. These were dangerous times.

A woman with soft brown eyes opened the door.

Lupe sighed. She had come to the right place.

"Yes, vieja, grandmother, is your child sick?" the woman asked.

Lupe nodded. She knew the woman would help if it wasn't too late. This child isn't mine, she said.

The woman opened the door wide and tugged at Lupe's sleeve. Come in and tell me about it.

Lupe slipped inside the cool building. Its tiled floors were swept though the blue paint on the walls was cracking. I found this child down the road by the creek, Lupe said, nodding with her head. Just now. I heard a cry. The baby was left under a paper. It is very hungry. Can you help?

She thrust the child into the arms of the lady with the kind eyes. Again with her handkerchief, she wiped the child's face. Then she dabbed at her own moist eyes. She shook her head. So many deaths. So much sadness.

Flora thought the old woman was a grandmother who came to the clinic with a sick grandchild. Then she looked closely at the infant. When she took the child into her arms, she felt the limp muscle tone and noticed the lifeless eyes. Flora held the filthy child against her white uniform.

Yes, vieja, I will try to save the child. You did the right thing. You are a good Samaritan.

She let the old woman out the door and noticed a tear running down the wrinkled cheek. She thinks it is too late, that the child will die, she thought. This child must be saved. I cannot let death win again.

Flora took off the baby's diaper. The sight of red sores on the baby's flesh made her wince. "Pobrecita, she said. A little girl should not have such sores."

The baby's crying had stopped. She was too weak to cry anymore.

Flora felt the baby's skin. It burned with fever. And you are sick besides. Flora spoke with a soft tone, trying to mask her fears. I will put some water on to boil to make a nice bottle for you. While it boils, I will bathe you. She washed the baby's hair and rubbed soothing lotion into her skin.

At last Flora gave the girl a bottle and rocked her. After a few sips of the rich milk, the baby spit up. Flora gave her a few drops of milk at a time. Would enough stay in her stomach to bring her back from starvation? Flora left the baby in one room while she attended to her duties, but her thoughts stayed with the sick infant, willing her to fight for her life. She checked on the girl often and took her home with her that night.

During the night she got up and fed the child every two hours. She struggled with death over the baby girl, praying hard that the child would live.

When the food came back up, she wept. Do not let this girl die! she pleaded as she carefully cleaned the girl and then rocked her.

After two days, she began to feel hope. The baby now drank an ounce of milk, spitting up only part of it. Her eyes were beginning to shed their lifeless glaze.

I will win the battle and have you for my daughter, she told the baby. She was rewarded with the slightest pressure of the baby's fist around her finger. She smiled as a warm glow filled her heart.

Flora told her supervisor at La Cruz Verde about the baby girl. I will have a daughter, she said.

You are breaking the law by keeping the child, Flora.

Her supervisor shook her head. But she is mine, Flora said. With God's help I have made her well again.

I know you want to keep her. I understand. You have saved her from death. She feels as if she is your own. But she is not. You must hand her over to the authorities. We cannot have trouble here. The supervisor's eyes were stern to match her words. They could close La Cruz Verde, Flora, for just such a violation of the law. She swept her hand over the crowded waiting area and raised her eyebrows. You cannot let these people down. You have trained to be a nurse, to help them.

Tears formed in Flora's eyes, and she merely nodded.

That night she rocked the baby and sang to her. Bright dark eyes beamed back at her. How could she let the child go? Wasn't it right, if not legal, for the baby to be hers? There had to be some way to keep her.

Flora heard a shot followed by screaming in the middle of the night. Someone was being taken away! A loud pickup truck roared off, leaving a shrieking woman standing in the street. The baby started to cry. Flora's hands shook as she picked her up and held her. She soothed her by making soft hushing sounds while someone guided the screaming woman inside again.

Would the authorities take Flora away if they knew she was breaking the law? Would they close down La Cruz Verde? What would the poor people do when they were sick? Who would help them?

Flora lay across her bed trying to think of a solution. By morning she knew it was useless. She would have to give up the baby. She would take her to an orphanage because she had no choice. Too many people depended on the Green Cross. She could not let them down. It was wise to be afraid.

After ten days of constant caring for the child, Flora took her to a home for children called Hogar del Nino Adalberto Guirola in Santa Tecla, outside of San Salvador.

Like the vieja before her, she wept when she handed the child over to the woman at the home. Unlike the vieja, she knew she had won. Death had lost. The child would live.

Through her tears, she watched other children peek around the corner of the building. They were clean. They were well fed. Yes, the baby would live. But for how long? And, what would her future be?

She turned back as the door to the home shut. The child was no longer hers. She was a child of the beautiful green countryside, a child of the war, the killing, the poverty and the disease. She was a child of El Salvador.

Chapter Two

Diane lay back against the pillows in the recovery room. A lone tear spilled from her right eye, and she wiped at it with the back of her hand, scratching her cheek with the sharp edge of the plastic band on her wrist. She gripped the rail of the bed with her long fingers and clutched tightly, as a feeling of unreality swept over her.

Can this be real? she asked aloud. There was no one to answer, but a sharp pain shot through her abdomen, and she remembered. Yes, it was real. She had lost another child. Gazing at her flat stomach, the tears that had been waiting just beneath the surface poured out. She let them flow, let the pain and grief come again and take over.

Diane was used to being on the other side of the cold steel rails. She was a hospital chaplain, a Lutheran deaconess, who spent her professional time helping others who felt shock and pain. She had heard so many ask, Why? that she felt it ironic to be asking herself. Deep inside she knew that God was not punishing her. She had tried many times over to explain to a family that it did not please God for their child to die, for their father to be in a coma, for their mother to be taken away. It was not punishment for their sins; it was the way the world, with its imperfections, worked. Asking Why me? began the spiritual healing that was so important.

When the tears stopped, Diane wiped her face with a tissue and leaned back. What now? The child she had hoped and prayed for was stillborn. The doctor said it was caused by a rare thing, but it had happened. They named her Gigi, Grandpa's Girl, for the only grandparent Diane had ever known and who had died the week before. Take care of each other, she whispered.

The curtain around her bed was swept to one side. Glen appeared. His boyishly open face was easy for her to read. How are you? he asked, then he kissed her forehead.

She knew there was more in his question than concern about how she felt. He needed to know if she would be depressed, if this one had taken the fight out of her. After so many disappointments, was she willing to risk another pregnancy? She let a half smile cross her face. Of course. What would she not do to have a child? Having a child would be worth the pain, worth the grief and shattered hopes that came with a womb that bore only death.

I'm recovering, she said simply. Then tears flowed again, onto the front of his shirt as they held each other in their grief. She was my baby. I wanted her so badly! How can she be dead?

The Remer-Thamert dining area fit into the end of the living room of their pueblo style house, built in the 1950's as part of Albuquerque's expanding heights. The walls contained objects collected from their travels in South America, Mexico, and Central America.

Sitting across from Glen at the table, Diane noticed an unusual smile beneath his light beard. She imagined him as a little boy, smiling just like that when he'd picked a neighbor's roses and brought them to his mother. He was terribly pleased with himself, terribly excited about something, and maybe just a little bit concerned that everyone else might not be as happy as he about the roses.

What is it? she asked, unable to wait any longer. What do you have to tell me?

His blue eyes widened in surprise. How did you know I had something to tell you?

Diane just laughed. A grin spread across Glen's face and he nodded. I have an idea.

Oh no! she said.

He smiled, but continued. Let's adopt a child.

Glen, we've already tried to adopt a baby. There’s such a long wait. What more can we do? There just aren't enough babies for all the people who want to adopt them. She tried not to let disappointment creep into her voice.

I know. But there are hundreds of babies who need to be adopted. He paused.

Thoughts of difficult to place older children ran through her mind. Did he mean to adopt an older child? Hadn't they talked about it and decided they didn't have the experience necessary to offer older children what they needed? She wrung her hands together beneath the table. She started to speak, but the word 'babies' stuck in her mind. Did you say 'babies' or did I hear wrong?

He nodded.

She shook her head. I don't understand. We've tried to get a baby.

We've tried to adopt an American baby.

She sat back and took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. And?

We haven't tried to adopt a baby from Central America. He rushed ahead before she could stop him. We've said we would take any baby, regardless of ethnic background. He looked at her and she nodded her agreement. So why shouldn't we try foreign adoption? Diane, do you realize there are fifteen orphanages in El Salvador alone?

But they've stopped foreign adoptions of Salvadoran babies.

I know. But I think we can work around that. We'll register with Rainbow House International. They can help us.

Diane's hope began to fade. She loved Glen for his enthusiasm; she had married him for his strong faith and even stronger determination to live by that faith. His commitment to what he believed was almost childlike, something she often had trouble understanding herself. But she had seen this faith in action and knew its power.

I know there is a baby for us in Central America.

It was a simple statement, but it rocked Diane, and, for a moment, she couldn't answer.

Chapter Three

Glen leaned back in the wooden chair at the kitchen table. He sipped his decaf coffee from Nicaragua and read THE LUTHERAN magazine. Youth Rally to be Held in Denver. Among the guests was to be Ana Maria Rivas from El Salvador. His blood started to pulse a little faster. He reread the article more carefully. The young woman was visiting the United States, staying with a congregation in California.

Would it be possible to contact her? Would she know of an attorney that could help them? Perhaps she could visit in Albuquerque on her way back to California.

Glen made some phone calls and got in touch with her. I would love to come to Albuquerque. Her voice was soft and held the familiar Central American accent. If you can arrange it.

I'll arrange it. There are many people who would like to hear you speak, many who are concerned about El Salvador. He nodded, though he knew she couldn't see it. My wife and I have registered with Rainbow House International. Have you heard of them?

Yes. You want to adopt a baby?

Yes. From El Salvador. Would you know of an attorney who could help us?

Laughter like tinkling bells came through the receiver. Oh, yes. My father is an attorney. I will be one as well, very soon.

Your father? Could he help us? He tried to keep his voice calm.

I'm sure he would. His name is Luis Ventura Rivas. He is a prosecutor for the government of El Salvador.

Glen frowned a little, but said nothing.

He is a Lutheran, as well. A member of Bishop Medardo Gomez' Resurrection Lutheran Church. Did you know Bishop Gomez is in the United States now?

No, I didn't.

Yes. He is in Houston, Texas. Then she gave him the address of her father's law office. Write to him. He will help you.

Glen agreed to make the necessary calls to arrange a change in her itinerary so she could visit Albuquerque. When he hung up he grinned. What luck! A Lutheran attorney's daughter! He hurried to make the phone calls to set up a visit in Albuquerque. Surely his congregation, St Paul Lutheran Church, would want to host such an event.

As the time for the visit grew near Glen grew more and more excited about having Ana Maria in Albuquerque. She could tell him more about El Salvador, more about her father and the process of adoption.

The phone rang. It was the organizer of Ana Maria'svisit, Mavis Anderson.

Hello! Glen called into the phone cheerfully. Is everything set?

I'm afraid we'll have to change our plans.

Glen's heart sank.

Bishop Gomez has been detained in Houston by U.S. officials. So far, we don't know very much. No charges have been brought against him. But we're afraid to alter Ana Maria's original travel plans. We can't risk having her detained as well."

"Why? Why

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