Daniel's Story: "I love what I do"

Last week I wrote about a trip to the Managua Municipal dump, called La Chureca, with the delegation from Lopez Island, and our visit to the Los Quinchos Project, which works with the children of the dump, feeding them, teaching them, and giving them affection. When we arrived at Los Quinchos last Tuesday morning, there were already twenty children there. Several boys were bathing themselves in the small pool, laughing and splashing together. Older children are seated at wooden tables making woven bracelets and showing off the jewelry they make to the group. Younger children crowd around the visitors, hopping up onto laps and throwing their arms around our necks. One young boy is learning to weave hammocks sitting at a table. Looking out from the shelter of the Quinchos porch, I can see mountains of burning trash on three sides of us, literally as far as the eye can see. On the fourth side, below us, is a contaminated lagoon with floating with trash and algae.After a few minutes to look around, Daniel comes to speak to our group. A stocky young man with a brilliant and constant smile, Daniel was one of the first eight boys rehabilitated by the fledgling Quinchos organization 18 years ago. As children shout and call in the background, he tells us his story.

Daniel lived in a plastic tent with his family until Hurricane Juana in 1988. After Hurricane Juana his family had nowhere to live and no food, so he had to leave home. Daniel was six years old when he began living on the street. When the Quinchos project found him, he was living with a dozen other boys on the streets of the Mercado Oriental, Managua’s main market. Daniel was sniffing glue out of a baby food jar – “to make me feel strong, like the world was mine” – sniffing glue to give him the courage to rob people of jewelry and watches in order to survive…and also to ease the hunger pains. Zelinda Roccia, the Italian founder of the Quinchos Organization, met Daniel one day when he was getting high off glue in the market, and asked him and his group of boys if they wanted to leave with her. He went – to a farm the organization runs in the countryside. There he learned to play with the other boys, to plant food, to be with nature. “It was a paradise,” Daniel says with his constant smile. Later he went to school, learned pottery, carpentry, weaving, dancing. It was the dancing that most caught Daniel’s attention. In a few years he had formed a pop and hip hop dance troupe with other boys from Los Quinchos. They called themselves Enigma Junior, and what began as rehabilitation for Daniel soon brought them fame – they danced all over Nicaragua, on television, and ended up on a tour of Italian cities.

Today Daniel is 24 years old. He is the vice president of Los Quinchos – 40% of the organization’s staff are former street children. Daniel now works at La Chureca with the children there, teaching them, helping them with homework, and doing home visits. He lives with his own two children – a seven year old daughter and one year old son. “I’m so grateful for all the help I’ve received,” Daniel says, “and when I see children on the street I feel horrible inside. I know what it’s like to be where they are. I love what I do.”

-- Becca