Laura Ingalls: the Money Lender

As a blond haired, blue-eyed, white girl, I stick out.  My Bolivian boyfriend told me I look like Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie.  Or Heidi.  I think it's just because I wear my hair in pigtails, and unlike the Quechua women at my church whose thick braids cascade down their back, my pigtails don't make me look a bit more indigenous.  Just more pioneer.  Or Swiss?!?

Being a foreigner has so many layers to it.  My blond hair doesn't just make me stick out; it stands for money in most Bolivians' eyes.  Seems like half the time my phone rings or my door bell sounds, it's someone needing a favor.  I like to help people.  I like to use the resources God has blessed me with.  I don't like to ask for lent money back.  I don't like feeling used.  I don't like being lied to.

That's inevitably what sharing my resources leads to.  There's never an end to emergencies, friends who are desperate.  When I first moved into my house, my little neighbor kids frequently came over asking to borrow 5 bolivianos here, 10 bolivianos there with empty promises to pay me back tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow...  It was always something: an empty gas can in the middle of cooking, a sick kid, short on the month's rent.  Finally, I said I couldn't lend any more money until they were able to pay me back what they owed.  It was hard when the littlest ones would show up asking for just a few bolivianos for some important need.  But I held my ground.

 Then, Christmas Eve, they showed up at my door, persistent, asking for 50Bs loan ($7) for Willy, the littlest one, who had badly burned his arm.  His arm was wrapped in bandages.  I felt the need to stick to my principles, repeating that I couldn't lend them money until they were able to pay me back.  But Willy's face haunted me the rest of the day, and I felt sick to my stomach.  It wasn't his fault his mom wasn't responsible, that his family wasted available money on alcohol.  But how could I lend them the money now without setting a precedent that I'd be their health insurance any time there was an emergency?

Willy

We have a fund at church for emergency needs like little Willy.  I talked to the pastor and she agreed we should help, giving me 50Bs from the fund.  The neighbor kids all came to the midnight service Christmas Eve, including little Willy, sporting his bandages.  I handed Mayra (the oldest) the money, telling her we cared about her, and this wasn't a loan, it was a gift from the church to get little Willy better.

 Then last week, my Compassion child's abuela called me, her voice quivering with suppressed tears.  In the last 3 years of sponsoring Fatima, Abuela Julia has never called me.  She told me her husband (a retired policeman) had been coming home drunk much more than usual and had taken to beating Fatima and her 11 year old cousin, Jhonatan.

The abuelo has a history of abuse, having beaten two of his daughters (Fatima's mother and Jhonatan's mother) so badly that both of them are severely mentally disabled and have been in and out of mental hospitals since their teenage years).  This is the first time I was aware of physical abuse towards his grandkids.

Fatima's home

As I tried to process what she was saying, Abuela Julia continued.  "With the rainy season," she said, "the walls of our home have begun to crack and one of the rooms has opened up to the sky.  We were barely able to move everything out."  The muddy hillside their house is built on often causes adobe houses to fall down during the rainy season.  This year it's Fatima's house.

Abuela Julia, Fatima & me

I felt paralyzed, unable to do anything.  We prayed over the phone together, both our voices breaking with tears.  I promised to call Compassion headquarters in Cochabamba and send some money through their Family Gift program, but I couldn't give her money directly, something she desperately needed to remedy the looming threat to Fatima's safety.

I still don't know the answer.  I don't know how to respond to the request for a couple dollars, a small loan, and the unending need for resources.  The world is a broken, needy place. That, I do know.