In 2010 Cristofer was not quite four years old when his father, Alex, profiled earlier in The Faces of Guatemala, disappeared. Boom! Gone! Picked up by the police for heinous crimes and likely, as it has turned out, never to be free again. How does that impact a child of that age who does not have the capacity to understand much of anything other than his father is gone? What must he have done to make his father go away? Why would his father not want to stay in his life? Where did he go? Why? Why? Why?
Cristofer’s mother told her two younger children that Alex had gone away and he was working. Quite obviously that was not true and sadly, Cris had to find out the truth at his pre-school from his fellow students. The school reported that Cris had frequent apparent panic attacks. He would, for no obvious reason, just start sobbing and no one was able to console him. Was it then that the child internalized his distress, pain and feelings of being unworthy?
Some fourteen years later Cristofer does not remember his father but the pain his departure caused was, quite obviously, internalized and is now causing some problems. Being a teenager is tough enough without having been abandoned by his father as a toddler and, as it turns out, by his mother as well. Four years ago just ahead of the pandemic Cristofer’s mother decided that she could not take care of her children anymore. She told Cristofer’s brother, Diego then seventeen (also profiled earlier here), that she was putting him in charge of his two younger siblings. Diego, himself, was still a minor at the time. He asked me if the three of them could come and live with me as they had no other place to go. What could I say?
Cristofer is a lovely boy. He is polite, kind, helpful around the house and cheerful, most of the time. He is a talented soccer player, recently frustrated at the lack of opportunity to train in the Antigua area. He is passionate about soccer but also a talented artist who hopes to go to university and study graphic arts.
Cris is scheduled to graduate from the Guatemalan equivalent of high school in October but currently that is in jeopardy as he is failing three classes: Spanish, biology and physics. In other classes he has really good grades. On one online platform he did absolutely nothing for an entire school quarter. Curious. I credit his father, and perhaps also his mother, for leaving him with self-doubts and feelings of not being worthy. Often when asked to try something new Cristofer’s answer is, “No, I am fine.” He refused to play chess and I had to trick him into taking some classes. He went on to earn a number of trophies.
With Diego home from university for the summer we sat and talked to Cris and probed his school failures. In tears he admitted that he had a problem but could not verbalize what it was. I suspect bouts of depression combined with feelings of unworthiness which render him unable to function. Gladly, just around the corner there is a male psychologist with whom Cristofer seems to have a good rapport. I have talked to Cris about the difference between the subconscious and the conscious and how painful events in the past are often buried in the subconscious but cause problems on the conscious level. I further told him that the best way to deal with such problems was to talk about them with a professional who is trained to ask the right questions. And so every Friday he goes now to see Paul, with whom he is on a first name basis. Paul knows what the issues are so we are hopeful that he will be able to get Cristofer to feel better about himself.
To help him with academics we have engaged tutors for biology and physics. The biology tutor is a former teacher of Cris’s now living in New Zealand. Thanks to the pandemic these kids are very comfortable with online school. Diego, who also needs to study this summer will help his brother with Spanish. As an incentive Cris has been offered a gap year soccer camp in Spain if he is able to graduate on time.
Sadly, the soccer camp will have to be delayed because of the refusal of the Guatemalan immigration department to issue a passport for Cris while he is still a minor. (He will be eighteen in January). They are ever so concerned with the rights of his father who has contributed nothing to his life except pain and whom he wouldn’t even know if he bumped into him on a street. Lacking a copy of his father’s national identity card which doesn’t exist as he has been incarcerated since before they were issued the answer was “no passport.” This despite Diego holding a power of attorney signed by the father, a copy of the father’s birth certificate and passport and the mother being present and signing the applications.
Our hope is that, with the extra support of Paul and the tutors, Cris will graduate on time in October, obtain a passport in January after his birthday, participate in a soccer camp and go on to university to study graphic arts. And that we will see his great smile more often than not. And he really will be “fine.”
I'm very touched by your story about Cris, and the help he and his siblings receive from you. Thank you for what you do.