Sad eyes to laughing faces

Andrew Glazer

TECOLOTE, MEXICO -- Rotten teeth. Tiny, wet, shivering bodies. Big, sad,

brown eyes.

These images bombarded Dave Rockness as he stood at the bottom of a muddy

hill here more than a year ago.

“I just remember being horrified about how bad the conditions were,” said

Rockness, 29, a youth group director at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

in Newport Beach.

But on a recent sunny Saturday -- a little more than a year after their

first visit -- Rockness, 22 junior high students and seven youth group

leaders were met by smiling faces, cleaner clothes and the laughter that

should come naturally to children.

o7 LOS OLVIDADOSf7

Most of the children are the breathing, starving products of Tijuana’s

notorious night life -- unwanted and abandoned by their prostitute and

drug-addicted mothers.

In 1990, the population of Tijuana was more than 700,000, with at least

700 discarded children living on its streets, according to Mexican census

data.

Sixty o7 los olvidadosf7 , or forgotten ones, have found a home at El

Centro Cristiano, an orphanage built from particle board and corrugated

metal, fenced in by a wall of cut-up tires. It’s high on a grassy

hilltop, with flurries of trash whirling and dropping like confetti on

the surrounding slopes.

Pastor Marcos Zavaleta -- the orphanage’s founder and patriarch -- said

the situation of these youngsters is even sadder than if their parents

were dead.

“You can tell children whose parents are dead that they have little stars

watching over them,” said Zavaleta, looking at the ground and then gazing

at a pile of garbage burning in the distance. “But with these little

ones, whose mothers sometimes stop by, you have to tell them, ‘Your momma

loves you, but she’s getting high or prostituting.”’

Each Friday, Zavaleta’s wife, Marta, drives around Tijuana’s red-light

district, searching for more children wandering the streets, alone.

The orphanage’s kids, most who are 4 to 12 years old, sleep stacked in

triple-decker bunk beds. They squeeze into a cramped dining room for

meals, eating mainly rice and beans cooked on a four-burner stove. They

pray each morning in a modest chapel. And except for last Saturday --

when they ran, jumped and rolled around the vast hillsides -- the

children play in the orphanage buildings’ narrow passageways and on a

wooden jungle gym in the yard.

The land around the orphanage belongs to a Tijuana attorney and is

off-limits to the children.

ACCIDENTAL ORPHANAGE

Zavaleta never planned to run an orphanage.

He led a mission for prostitutes and addicts. But on a rainy evening in

1994, he discovered Julio De Los Santos, sleeping in the rain under a

blue tarp.

“It was ugly,” said Julio, now 17 and going to classes, studying computer

science.

He also helps take care of the younger children.

Zavaleta brought Julio home to live at his house, eventually welcoming

the boy’s friends and cousins from the street, as well. It wasn’t long

before Zavaleta’s landlord kicked them all out.

The pastor searched the hills outside Tijuana for a piece of land that

could hold his expanding “family.”

Something about the hilltop site drew Zavaleta there, but he couldn’t

figure out what it was.

“I asked God why he chose a location so far away, in the middle of

nowhere,” he said. “It was July. And I looked into the sky and saw the

moon -- a beautiful full moon. Then I looked to the sea and saw the

sunset. And I could see the sun rise over the hills.

“And then I knew why. So I said, ‘Thank you, God.”’

Zavaleta paid a $20 down payment for the land. A local group of

missionaries helped him build separate boys’ and girls’ dormitories, plus

a chapel, kitchen and playground -- all functional, but far from ideal.

When it rained, the kids couldn’t climb to the dining room from their

dormitories, which were sunken into the slope about 20 feet below.

Caretakers had to toss food and packets of hot chocolate down to them

from the bluff above.

Food became scarce as Marta Zavaleta brought more and more children to

the orphanage.

“My wife picked through Dumpsters in town to find food for everybody,”

said Zavaleta, as tears welled in his eyes and ran down his cheeks. “We

became very desperate.”

So desperate that, in December 1998, the two planned to shut down the

orphanage.

‘LIKE ANGELS’

Just two days before the children would have been forced back onto the

streets, the pastor received a phone call. The group from St. Andrew’s

wanted to deliver a steak dinner to share.

The church’s youth mission had planned to take the meal to another

orphanage that day. Like most people, they knew nothing about the hungry

children living in the hills. But heavy rains made the roads to their

first destination impassable.

Mark Wilson -- a plump man who serves as a liaison between U.S.

church-based volunteer groups and struggling orphanages in the

Tijuana/Rosarito Beach area -- had just found out about Zavaleta’s clan

and told Rockness about them.

Wilson used his mobile phone to call Zavaleta, telling him the St.

Andrew’s group was eager to share their meal. Zavaleta immediately passed

the news to his children.

“They went sliding down the hills, in the mud, to meet the group,” said

Wilson, who runs Rosarito Beach Christian Lighthouse.

“When they met us, Pastor Marcos told us, ‘You’re just like angels,”

Rockness recalled.

Since then, the folks from St. Andrew’s and other groups have helped

construct new walls and buildings, played with the youngsters and raised

money for school pencils and paper, uniforms, toys, food and some medical

supplies for a very basic infirmary.

While life still isn’t ideal for the children -- their greatest source of

protein is the weekly glass of milk or slice of meat -- their basic needs

are met.

“Before, they got just one piece of meat a month. This is much better,”

Zavaleta said.And this year, for the first time, every child there was

outfitted with the books, uniforms and shoes required to enter a

classroom.

“I was so proud,” Zavaleta said, smiling and hugging the air. “They all

went to school with clean hair and new uniforms.”

FREEDOM TO HAVE FUN

To celebrate the achievement of each child having a full stomach and

being enrolled in school, the St. Andrew’s group presented the children

with more than two dozen pizzas, as well as toys and teenage playmates

last weekend.

“We thought it would be nice for them to forget about everything and just

have fun,” Rockness explained.

Some children Hula-Hooped and played baseball with bright pink balls and

plastic bats. Several girls colored with new magic markers on bright

orange, yellow and blue construction paper.

One 9-year-old girl sketched a red-roofed home with windows, a bird, a

shining yellow sun and green grass. Wilson said the child used to sit at

the foot of her prostitute mother’s bed, in their shantytown home, while

the mom turned tricks.

When the skinny girl arrived at the orphanage, she was silent for days.

Now she has the freedom to imagine, play and smile.

KNOWING HUNGER

After the children sang “Happy Birthday” to Wilson, who turned 41 last

week, leaders from the St. Andrew’s contingent dished out slices of

pineapple and pepperoni pizzas, along with pieces of jalapeno pepper, to

each child. They also gave each boy and girl an 18-ounce bottle of Coke

to wash it all down.

Before attacking their pizza, several kids stared silently at their

slices, savoring and memorizing the treat, knowing there wouldn’t be many

other feasts like it in the future.

“Delicioso,” sighed Daniel Saltellan Parmejilla, 6, whose stomach peeked

out from under a tight T-shirt.

Wilson stood watching the children, smiling.

“Alma only ate four slices and drank two sodas this time,” he said. “It’s

a miracle, because the first time she had pizza, she ate nine slices and

drank four sodas.”

He paused. “Why? Because she really knows what hunger is.”

SOARING SPIRITS

Just minutes after guzzling the last drops of Coke and chewing the

remaining fragments of pizza crust, the children were fanning out across

the hillsides. They flung giant paper airplanes, scrambled on volunteers’

backs and chased each other around the dusty lot.

Jason Sentas, 22, a lanky group leader from St. Andrew’s, spent much of

the day with kids perched on his shoulders.

“You know, they appreciate the toys, but don’t really care that much

about them,” Sentas said, his Boston accent drawing occasional giggles

from fellow volunteers. “They kick the balls and roll the Hula-Hoops down

the hills. But sitting on your back is the world to them.”

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FYI

Donations of clothing, school items, toys and medical supplies may be

arranged by contacting Dave Rockness at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church,

600 St. Andrews Road, Newport Beach 92663; or by calling (949) 574-2217.