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Los Olvidados
The forgotten street children of Mexico City
- Written & Photographed by Les Merson
- 2022
It was a little late to be having second thoughts. At 31,000 feet. I would arrive in Mexico City in less than an hour and, what had seemed like a good idea a couple of months ago, suddenly wasn’t. I had planned to walk around one of the largest cities in the world and, with the aid of an interpreter, interview the street children of Mexico City. However, I don’t speak the language, have few contacts in Mexico City, and forgot to pack my bravado. Like others before me–Buñuel, Lowry and Kerouac to name a few–I came to this place to write.
MEXICO IS NOT A POOR COUNTRY BUT OVER 50% OF CHILDREN IN MEXICO LIVE IN POVERTY
I do not belong here. I am a privileged white male who has consistently put my ambitions, desires, and comforts ahead of others. But as I look out the window and the blur below comes into focus, I realize I have come, not to assuage my guilt, but to confront it.
The next morning, I accompany José and Maria, two outreach workers from a local non-governmental organization (NGO), as they walk the streets of Mexico City, checking in on some of the 15,000 homeless children living on the street. As we walk, José explains that “Mexico is not a poor country but over 50% of children in Mexico live in poverty. These children desperately need our help, but our resources are extremely limited.” He sounds apologetic. For most of the kids they encounter on the street, they can do little more than provide some friendly conversation, play a game of cards, or put a jigsaw puzzle together. They endeavor to offer some hope to Mexico’s forgotten children.
The gang with no name
It takes us almost two hours to reach our first destination, an encampment occupied by a group of males ranging in age from 14 to 22. It is located under the Taxqueña Bridge overpass, hidden behind a chain-link fence boarded up with graffiti-covered plywood and blankets. They have accumulated the rudimentary comforts of home in their living space: electric power “borrowed” from an adjacent building, several large couches, and a television set they have hidden under blankets and asked me not to photograph. Judging from what they are eating and the garbage strewn around, they survive on junk food and don’t require cooking facilities. The only thing missing is a washroom and a shower, but they make do. They have few rules but one is paramount: “No se caga donde se duerme.” “You don’t shit where you sleep.”
“I also do drugs to avoid some memories. I want to forget my mom’s death. It is still painful for me.”
The entrance to their living space is obscured by a gigantic vinyl advertisement for Universal Studios Orlando. Arms outstretched, Bugs Bunny welcomes all who enter. I hesitate for a moment before I step inside. The room is dark and it takes my eyes a moment to adjust. Looking more like a garbage dump than a home, couches, beds, mattresses, blankets, piles of clothing and garbage litter the concrete floor. Unintelligible graffiti decorates the concrete pillars. The open air helps to reduce the stink.
I interview six of the boys huddled together on the couch. I tell them they remind me of brothers. “Somos mas que hermanos. Nosotros somos familia,” Alberto replies. I speak no Spanish, and it takes a moment for the interpreter to translate. “We are more than brothers,” the interpreter translates. “We are family.” Alberto has lived on the street for 11 years and explains that “we are happier here because we didn’t receive any love at home.” Most of the boys nod their head in agreement. “We take care of each other and love each other.” They survive by begging for money and food, as well as selling lollipops on the street. I wonder what else they do to survive.
The first boy I interview is Javier. I interview him away from the others on a grassy patch between the overpass and the Taxqueña Highway. Faceless drivers rush by on their way to and from their vacation retreats in Cuernavaca. Occasionally they hurl coins or scream obscenities, but mostly they are consumed by their own lives.
“They call me Obama, like the President of the USA,” Javier says with a big grin. Looking like a younger version of the 44th president, he appears comfortable sitting in a tufted blue wingback chair. In the hot Mexican sun, the stylish fur hat he is wearing seems out of place. In another time, he could have been a rock star or a pimp. He is 17 years old and has been on the street for seven years.
Javier grew up in extreme poverty, raised by a loving single mother. “She spoilt me,” he brags. He left home at ten because he dreamed of seeing the beaches of Acapulco, almost 400 kilmetres away. To survive on the street, Javier started using drugs and selling himself to both male and female tourists in Acapulco. “I was smoking crack and I needed to pay for the drugs. I realized I was attractive to both men and women and I thought it would be easy money. It wasn’t. They would pay me around six or 700 pesos ($35 USD) and buy me clothes.” Javier avoids eye contact and looks down at the ground as he speaks. “I stopped doing it when an outreach worker told me it could lead to infections, like HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases. I didn’t want that for me. I stopped smoking crack and haven’t prostituted myself in four or five years.” As surprised as I am by his candor, I am even more surprised at how articulate he is. At best, he has a grade four education.
All narratives are constructed and many of the narratives have been nuanced and rehearsed over many years
Javier has got clean and returned home twice in the past five years. The first time, like a Carlos V chocolate bar to a child, the street lured him back. The second time, he had come home to care for his dying mother. He winces at the memory. Right after her funeral, he was back on the street again. That was two years ago.
Javier’s drug of choice is PVC glue, an industrial solvent used to soften plastic pipes and weld them together. He craves the euphoric high it gives him. “But to be honest,” he explains, “I also do drugs to avoid some memories. I want to forget my mom’s death. It is still painful for me.” Nonetheless, Javier remains hopeful. “In five years, God willing, I will be clean and off the street, working and living with my [extended] family.”
After the interview, I offer to treat Javier to some ice cream. “I prefer Sabritas potato chips, if that is possible,” he asks politely.
As dusk approaches, we have not completed all the interviews, and I suggest we return the following day to finish. The outreach workers, José and Maria, are not able to accompany us and urge us not to return without them. They are concerned for our safety.
Disregarding their advice, the interpreter and I return the next day. We offer to pay the boys 2,000 pesos ($100 USD) to finish the interviews. I have exercised some caution and do not have any cash on me. I explain that I will have to go to a bank machine in a nearby mall to withdraw the cash afterwards. They agree and invite us in.
I interview the eldest, Ricardo, who looks much older than 22. It’s not the burgundy cardigan he’s wearing, sleeves rolled up, it’s the crevices carved in his face from living rough on the street. He reminds me of a Hollywood gangster. He adjusts a well-worn but surprisingly clean ball cap with a Krispy Kreme logo. “This is the hat I wore when I worked at the Krispy Kreme in Plaza Juárez near the centre of the city,” he says proudly. It is his talisman. He seems anxious to tell his story and shoos the others away. Hands comfortably resting on the arms of the chair and legs casually crossed, he starts at the beginning. He chooses his words carefully. He was abandoned by his parents when he was six months old–“I never knew them”– and placed in the custody of DIF, a government agency that provides some social assistance to Mexican families. He says he has been beaten and mistreated for most of his life. “Once I was even beaten by doctors and DIF staff.”
After primary school, Ricardo was confined to a psychiatric hospital and forced to take psychiatric drugs. “I had a lot of anger,” he explains, “and didn’t know how to control it.” He describes the incredible loneliness he experienced as a child in the institutional care of the DIF. “I am here today because of the way I was treated by the DIF,” he says angrily. There is something in his eyes that makes me feel uncomfortable. When Ricardo turned 18, he aged out of the system and received no further support. Shortly after he left the DIF, he was incarcerated for six months for robbery.
When he got out of prison, he met a woman, they fell in love, and, in less than two years, they had two children. Sadly, there was to be no happily ever after. Even after finding love, he could not give up his criminal lifestyle and associations. He says that the guilt of abandoning his children fuels an addiction that has worsened in the past year. “That’s why I’m addicted to drugs,” he explains, because I have neglected my family.” His wife is supportive of Ricardo but says he must stop using drugs and find an honest job before she’ll allow him back in their home. He contributes what he can to his family from the meagre income he makes stealing, robbing, and selling lollipops. He says he has a plan to get clean in the next year. “God willing…I don’t want to spend all my life here. I want to be a salesperson.”
As I gaze on the chaos surrounding me, garbage strewn everywhere, a dozen males getting high, I wonder who’s in charge. I ask Alberto, who spoke so eloquently about love and family earlier. “Nobody,” he says shaking his head. “We all have something to do here. I sell lollipops, for example. The only problems we have are with other gangs … We get in fights with them, sometimes.” He assures me that they don’t fight amongst themselves. “We look after each other here,” he says with evangelical fervor, tugging at the large fabric icon of St. Jude hanging from his neck. I’m imagining Lord of the Flies and he’s describing Peter Pan (the animated version). It defies common sense to me, but to be fair, in the two days I’ve spent with them, I’ve witnessed no conflicts and no sign of an alpha male. Sensing that I won’t get anything more from Alberto, I end the interview. I am reminded that all narratives are constructed and that many of the gang members’ narratives have been nuanced and rehearsed over many years of interactions with parents, teachers, the DIF, police, and the courts.
I interview Giovanni last. He is a good-looking kid with perfect hair and a ready smile. Except for his drug-weary eyes, you wouldn’t know he was homeless. At 14, he is the youngest of the group. He has been living on the street since he was seven years old and is still little more than a child. When he was seven, his father forced him to earn money by cleaning windshields for five hours a day, every day, “even Sundays.” While traffic was stopped at a traffic light, the young boy would walk between the stopped cars, offering to wash their windows. When he didn’t earn enough, his father would beat him.
Perhaps it is the glue, but Giovanni has a difficult time sitting still, and I ask him to take the interview more seriously. He brings out the parent in both the interpreter and me. He straightens up and tells us that he has been addicted to glue for the past two years. He has thought about getting clean but “I just don’t feel like I want to stop.” Perhaps the street hasn’t been hard enough on him yet. It has to be better than the beatings he got from the man who was supposed to love and protect him. One thing Giovanni hates about the street is how people treat him when he asks for money for something to eat. “People are really rude,” he complains. He looks small and vulnerable in the moment, and I wished I could rewrite his story.
When all the interviews are finished, I suggest we go to the bank machine to get the money I owe them and offer to bring back pizza for everyone. A couple of the boys accompany us, including Javier and Giovanni. A few blocks from the mall, Javier and Giovanni tell us that the gang is planning to rob us of our money, valuables, and equipment when we return. “You aren’t safe. You can’t go back,” they warn. Although I have no right to be, I am surprised, saddened, and even a little hurt. The shock and fear I should be feeling don’t register until later.
The interpreter and I decide to leave right away. We thank Javier and Giovanni for putting themselves at risk, pay them, and give them big hugs as we make promises we do not keep, and say goodbye. Just before we leave, I treat Giovanni to a kiddie car ride. As we’re exiting the mall, I look back to see 14-year-old Giovanni sitting in a ride meant for someone half his age. The adults around him are scowling but Giovanni doesn’t notice. He’s roaring down the Taxqueña Highway with the top-down singing “Sale el Sol” by Shakira. “Cuando menos piensas, sale el sol,” he sings.
A Father’s love
Just like Javier and Giovanni, Sergio Gutiérrez Benitez was a street kid in Mexico City. Sergio grew up in the sixties, when one in 10 children in Mexico would not live past their fifth birthday. The sixteenth of seventeen children, the only escape for the extreme poverty he grew up in was crime or death. When he was nine years old, he joined a gang and started using drugs.
“They see me as the father they never had, giving them the love that was never given to them.” – Fray Tormenta
By the time he was 16, he was a heroin addict and career criminal. When he turned 22, exhausted by life on the street, Sergio sought the help of a Catholic priest. Rather than helping the young man, the priest told him that gang members and drug addicts weren’t welcome in his church and kicked him out. This not only strengthened Sergio’s resolve to change his life, but also to help others change theirs. “If there were sensible priests who understood us,” Sergio rebuked the priest, “many of us would change.”
Change didn’t come easy for Sergio, even after getting clean. He was kicked out of a seminary after only 15 days because, in his words, “change doesn’t happen overnight.” However, he persevered and completed seven years of theological study in Rome and Spain, eventually teaching philosophy and history at universities throughout Mexico. His is a story of resilience and redemption, how a former drug addicted street kid who dropped out of school and joined a gang, turned his life around, graduated university and became a university lecturer. But it doesn’t stop there.
In 1973, Padre Sergio was ordained and became a priest, ministering to his flock of “drogadictos, prostitutas, y delincuentes.” And then he met a young street kid who would change the course of his life. “I told this boy that the street is no place for a child and urged him to go home,” he recalls. “He told me that he didn’t have a home.” From that day forward, Padre Sergio dedicated his life to helping los niños de la calle,” the children of the street.
“I immediately began fostering homeless kids and orphans,” he says. His own experiences allow him to understand and empathize with the street children he helps. “I do not tell them not to do drugs, rather I tell them about who I was before and who I am now. They don’t have to imitate me, they have to be the best version of themselves … They see me as the father they never had, giving them the love that was never given to them.”
He quickly discovered that building and maintaining an orphanage was expensive. To fund the orphanage, which desperately needed money, Padre Sergio became a Lucha Libre wrestler (the Mexican version of the WWF/WWE). He figured that every time he wrestled, he could earn the equivalent of a month’s wages for a couple of hours’ work. Like most luchadores, he kept his identity secret behind the anonymity of a mask. If priest by day, luchador by night sounds like the plot to a comic book, a cartoon, or a movie, it has been all three. It is also the true-life story of Fray Tormenta (Friar Storm), and the subject of two major motion pictures, L’Homme au masque d’or (The Man in the Golden Mask) starring Jean Reno and Nacho Libre starring Jack Black. Over the past 45 years, his orphanage has helped thousands of street kids and provided a home to over 250 of them. It was necessity, not ego, ambition or greed, that drove the priest to become a wrestler, literally fighting for the orphanage and the children in his care. “I thought I could make a lot of money for the orphanage by wrestling,” he explains, “but the reality was quite different. My first pay cheque was only 20 dollars.” In a career spanning almost 40 years, he has wrestled in more than 4,000 matches.
Padre Sergio was able to keep his alter ego secret for a couple of years until the Bishop of Texcoco found out and told him to put an end to “the sacrilege.” Padre Sergio threatened to come to the bishop’s office every month to demand “what I would have made as a wrestler” to support the orphanage. The bishop relented and the wrestling priest known as Fray Tormenta became an international sensation, wrestling throughout Mexico and in Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada and the USA. Sadly, neither the church nor the state has ever contributed to the orphanage.
Although short and squat with the body of a wrestler, Padre Sergio/Fray Tormenta casts a long shadow. However, it is not until I see him with the children from his orphanage that his full stature is revealed. Wearing his trademark shiny gold mask with thick red-trimmed lips and eyes, a bull ring under the nose and rising flames on either side, he is training nineteen boys and girls in a ring behind the Universidad Politécnica de Texcoco stadium. Aside from the mask, there is none of the theatrics or macho excess that usually accompanies lucha libre. As the children practice their rolls, flips and take-downs, he is more parent than priest. He remembers each of their names, speaks in reassuring tones, is patient and always concerned for their safety. “You have to take care of each other,” he tells the children. “Lucha libre is not about hurting anybody. It is about taking care of each other.” He builds confidence, telling them their moves look “good, cool, … sensational, and perfect!” “You are great,” he praises. He never pushes too hard, nor embarrasses anyone. “Don’t be afraid, dear. Do what you can.” The children are having fun and he brings out the best in each of them. This is his legacy. Not the prestige of the priesthood nor the fame of Lucha Libre, but his commitment to improving the lives of the forgotten children of Mexico City. When asked what he is proudest of, he says it is how his children have turned out, including 3 doctors, 16 teachers, 1 public accountant, 1 private accountant, 20 computer technicians, 7 lawyers, 1 priest and a couple of luchadores. He is one proud papa.
Canyon of the dead
As we approach the Barranca del Muerto Bus Station, we see a group of street kids hanging around the entrance. I have been told that street children congregate near bus and subway stations because the begging is more lucrative. The interpreter tells me that “Barranca del Muerto” means Canyon of the Dead. According to legend, during the Mexican Revolution, the dead were buried in this location and to this day their souls can be heard wailing in the wind. I listen but only hear laughter.
“I feel so lonely. I miss my family. I miss everything. That is why I do drugs, so that I don’t feel lonely.”
We are drawn to two of the street kids who appear especially friendly, laughing as they wrestle with their equally friendly dogs. After ensuring that she will be compensated, one of them agrees to tell her story, but requests privacy. She doesn’t want the others to listen and asks them to go away. Her smile masks the truths she is about to share.
Natalia seems to have taken some care in how she is dressed, but I imagine that she hasn’t taken the outfit she’s wearing off for at least a month. Her face, hands and clothing are filthy and her teeth haven’t been brushed for a very long time. She reminds me of every poor, unfortunate soul Charles Dickens wrote about 180 years ago. But by the end of the interview, it is her resilience and the dignity and grace with which she carries herself that I remember.
Natalia is 18 and has lived on the street for eight years, almost half of her life. The memories of her Mama and her Papa are her happiest, she says with a big smile. She remembers her mom braiding her and her sister’s hair and working long hours to provide for the family. “I loved my mom. She gave us everything.” Natalia breaks down as she shares that her mother died of AIDS when she was only seven years old.
Natalia puts her hand to her face to inhale from a rag soaked with solvent. It dulls the sharp edges of her memories and helps her escape the loneliness. “I feel so lonely. I miss my family. I miss everything. That is why I do drugs, so that I don’t feel lonely,” she explains. She used to smoke crack and inject heroin but doesn’t anymore. The things she was forced to do to pay for the drugs cost her too much.
When Natalia was eight, her uncle raped her. This continued until she was 10 and she fled to the street. There is no hint of emotion as she remembers. The street has not been any kinder to her. On the street she has been beaten, robbed, stabbed, and raped. She was even forced into prostitution for a short time.
By the time she was 15, she had given birth to two daughters by two different men. Her eldest daughter, Joseline, was murdered by her ex. He drowned their baby. Natalia inhales deeply.
Her second daughter was killed in a car accident. The little girl wasn’t wearing a seat belt. I don’t know what to say. “You’ve had a really hard life, Natalia,” is all I can utter. She forces a smile and says, “My boyfriend says that shit attracts flies.” The interpreter doesn’t wait for my response and tells Natalia that it isn’t true.
I ask Natalia why she doesn’t leave the street? She says that she is scared that her boyfriend might beat her if she tries to leave. “He beats me sometimes.”
Before I can ask another stupid question, the interviewer interrupts. “Lo siento, Natalia,” she says. “I am sorry, Natalia.” Both women have tears in their eyes but nothing more is said.
Later, the interviewer explains. “Mexicans know this problem exists. We’ve all heard these stories before and yet we do nothing. I do nothing.”
Clowning for cash
As traffic comes to a stop at the busy intersection at Insurgentes Sur and Barranca del Muerto Avenida, a fully made-up clown with a sleeping baby strapped to her chest steps out in front of traffic. She begins juggling three balls, expertly. Walking between the stopped cars, she whistles like a bird to draw attention to herself. She attempts eye contact with each driver and waves but never asks for spare change.
“I want the best for my children. But as a woman, it is very difficult. You never get ahead even if you want to.”
I wonder if she is too embarrassed or too polite to ask. She is followed by a parade of three children with painted faces wearing animal costumes. They are juggling and doing cartwheels.
Dulce is a 30-year-old single mother with four children aged 12, 10, 5 and 1. She is made-up to be a happy clown but her eyes tell a different story. When her husband abandoned the family, Dulce, who receives no support from the government, was forced to get a job. However, without any skills or vocational training, finding a job while also looking after her children was impossible. She says she earns as much being a clown as she would with a regular job where she would also have to pay someone to babysit her kids. “I make enough money on the street,” she says, “and I’m with my kids.” Her three oldest attend school and only accompany her on the street after school, on weekends and on holidays.
They lost their home after her husband abandoned them and now the five of them live in a small single room measuring three metres by two metres. “It has a double bunk bed with one single and one double bed,” Dulce says. “I sleep on the double bed with my two youngest children, and the two eldest sleep on the top bed.” She is a good mother, ever mindful of her children during the interview.
Life has a habit of repeating itself and Dulce is back on the streets she worked as a child. Her father was an alcoholic who went to prison, leaving her pregnant mom to support eight children. She explains that her mom was “a village girl,” without much education so they “had to work the street” to survive. According to Dulce, “People say that everyone gets off the street eventually but unfortunately women don’t because we have to take care of our children and end up coming back to the street … I wish the government offered workshops or training so women can get off the street for good, but it doesn’t.”
“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a lawyer, but women cannot study because of our economic situation.” She starts to cry as she continues, “I feel bad because I want the best for my children. But as a woman, it is very difficult. You never get ahead even if you want to … You have to get by and do the best you can, so that your children can go to school and you can get them off the street.”
The light turns red and Dulce walks out in front of the cars and begins juggling. Her children follow closely behind.
In the name of God
Hair cropped short and hidden under a baseball cap and dirty pink hoodie, Elisabeth is gaunt, almost skeletal. Her eyes are sunken, and she is clearly undernourished. Slightly androgynous, she has the face of a child and a toothy smile that hides a lifetime of trauma. She is nineteen years old.
Elisabeth was raised in the hillside slum of Los Bordos in Ecatepec, on the outskirts of Mexico City. She has no happy memories of her childhood, not surprising given Ecatepec’s reputation as the murder capital of Mexico and its most dangerous city. The slum she grew up in does not have running water, electricity, or a police presence (the gangs scared them away). Her father was a violent man who regularly beat her and her mother. She shifts slightly, inhales deeply, and then explains that her father murdered her mother in front of her when she was 12 years old. Like a punch to the gut, her words leave me speechless. I learn later that her story is not an isolated one. The United Nations rates Mexico as one of the most violent countries for women in the world.
After losing both her parents, the young girl was placed in an institution run by nuns, but she didn’t like their rules and ran away. The violence that Elisabeth experienced at home followed her to the street where she has been raped, beaten, and abused. To help her forget, she sniffs Limpiador Dismex, a highly toxic industrial solvent. The bright yellow 250 ml bottle will keep her high all day and is cheap, less than $2 USD. It is readily available at local hardware stores which stock up to sell to inhalant-addicted street kids.
Elisabeth spends her days begging and getting high and says that most people demean and humiliate her. “They swear at me, tell me to get a job, or get out of here.” However, there are a few good people like Momma Rosa on Toluca Avenue. “She is a Christian who comes here to give us food and invites us to her house to have a shower when we need one. Susana helps us too,” she adds. Elisabeth is genuinely grateful.
She doesn’t like to think about her future but “would like to show my dad that I’m not like him.” She is speaking metaphorically as she hasn’t had contact with him since she was 12. Blinking back tears, she says that remembering her past is making her sad, and inhales deeply from the solvent-soaked rag she is clenching in her fist. For my final question I ask if she is hopeful about her future. She smiles the smile she has worn throughout the interview and probably for most of her life. I imagine she uses that smile so her abusers won’t know how much pain they have caused her. She doesn’t answer my question and politely ends the interview.
After the interview, the outreach workers take me aside and confide that Elisabeth is dying. She has AIDS and is not expected to live another three months. She is receiving no drugs or medical attention for her condition. They suspect that she has infected the dozen or so street boys we have met today. I ask if they distribute condoms to the street kids as part of their outreach. They do not. They explain that their organization, like most of Mexico, embraces conservative Catholic values and is opposed to all forms of contraception. I look over at Elisabeth, who frankly never had a chance, and want to scream at the top of my lungs. Instead, I ask, passive aggressively, if they feel culpable for Elisabeth’s and the boy’s impending deaths? The interpreter refuses to translate my question and the conversation ends. Later, she explains that the outreach workers are not to blame.
We’re all to blame. The Catholic Church is to blame. The Mexican government is to blame. The outreach workers who blindly follow the tenets of their religion are to blame. I’m astonished to learn that even American foreign policy is to blame. In 1985, the Reagan administration instituted the Mexico City policy, which prohibited NGOs from “perform[ing] or actively promot[ing] abortion as a method of family planning” as a condition of receiving U.S. government aid. In practice, this inhibited women worldwide from access to AIDS prevention and treatment, and contraceptive options. It also halted the shipment of condoms and contraceptives to more than 20 countries. Not surprisingly, all Democratic Presidents—Clinton, Obama and Biden—rescinded the policy while all Republican Presidents, with obvious pressure from the religious right—George H. and George W. Bush and Trump–reinstated it. Sadly, none of this will bring Elisabeth back.
