The Story of María de los Ángeles and the                                             Cloud Forest

 

 

                                                 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before I went looking for her family in the Ecuadorian cloud forest, I fell in love with a baby girl named María de los Angeles. This was during my first   summer working in a government run shelter for young children in Quito, Ecuador in 2008. The police had brought María to the shelter because neighbors had found her crawling in the street unattended while her father was out drinking with his buddies. She was 13 months old.                                                                                                                               

Within a week’s time, her parents came looking for her. Her father showed obvious signs of alcoholism and her mother was mentally disabled. After visiting María’s uncle’s house where her parents said they lived (they were actually homeless), the shelter’s social worker, Margoth, encouraged the aunt and uncle to visit Maria so she could have contact with relatives. A week later I was devastated when María’s aunt and uncle came to visit and, after spending a half an hour with her, decided to take her home with them for a week. I had taken care of her for five weeks and had become very attached. I taught her to wave bye-bye and play pat-a-cake. She was just about ready to start walking. The following week they came back to the shelter and asked permission to keep her indefinitely. I never saw her again that summer.

 

When a child is brought to the shelter it is the social worker’s job to investigate the family. Although the aunt and uncle’s home was perfect for her, the maternal grandparents are legally the first in line for custody. Through interviews with the parents Margoth  learned that the maternal grandmother lived in a little farming community near Pucará in the cloud forest. The only directions we had were to follow the road towards Mindo and stop when we came across a statue of the Virgen. From there we were to follow a footpath up the hills to the community.

 

It was a cloudy, misty day as we headed towards Mindo. When we came across the statue of the Virgin we pulled over at a grassy area beside a stream. Margoth and her daughter stayed behind while the shelter psychologist, the driver and I headed up a muddy trail that was only about a foot and a half wide. After climbing the road for a half an hour, we were sure that we would find the little community around the next curve, but continued to see no signs of civilization.

 

The clouds became ominous as we climbed higher and higher along the winding trail. Finally we turned a curve and came upon a beautiful community of little white adobe houses tucked along the mountainside. Unfortunately, however, we had only come as far as where María’s great-grandmother lived. She wandered out barefoot to greet us, but was deaf and unable to speak. She offered us gooseberries in a cracked porcelain bowl as the neighbor explained that her daughter lived about another hour’s walk on the other side of the mountain. We could walk or go back down the mountain and drive on the road to Nono to find the place where the grandmother lived. It was raining hard as we headed down the mountainside.

 

The little trail was so steep and muddy that every five or ten minutes one of us would fall and slide a little down the trail. We finally reached the bottom of the trail; we were muddy, wet and cold, but also entertained and laughing. One of the things I enjoy most about Ecuadorians is their wonderful sense of humor and their ability to laugh at themselves. Soaking wet we headed out on the road to Nono.

 

We were told that after passing Nono we needed to turn at a big tree with an arrow painted on it. You can imagine our chuckling at the directions, but indeed we found it. We drove up a small, curvy, two-way road hardly big enough for one car. As we passed several trucks, we were literally on the edge of the mountainside. We finally came to the village of Pucará. Margoth had the driver stop when we saw a lone woman on the road. She knew where María’s grandmother lived and hopped in the car to help guide us there. After talking with her it was obvious she did not have the means to provide for María. This meant the baby would be left in the care of her aunt and uncle. We had been searching for six hours. Although wet, muddy and tired with nightfall approaching, we headed down the winding road. I was headed back to the U. S. the next morning. I had no way of drying my clothes and shoes, so I stuck them in a plastic bag and shoved them in my suitcase and started my twelve-hour journey back to the United States.

 

I thought about María all year long; I even dreamed about her occasionally. The following summer Margoth and I tried to see her several times, but never found her at home. Two years later, in the summer of 2010, while I was working with a new group of babies, Margoth came and told me to come with her because she had a surprise for me. There stood three-year old María. Her uncle had come to the shelter to talk to Margoth about legally adopting her. While he talked with Margoth I held María by the hand and took her to play. She was adorable and talked to me without hesitation. Although I hadn’t wanted to see her leave two years before, she was doing great. She was living with her uncle who adored her and called him papá.

 

During subsequent summers working in the same shelter, I would always have Margoth go with me to see if we could find María and her uncle. We never had any luck finding them. It wasn’t until 7 years later that Margoth told me she heard they were living in a town on the way to the Amazon Basin called Baños. Margoth knew the town well; she grew up there. We planned a trip and arrived on a Friday afternoon.

 

Margoth knew there was an aunt that sold arts and crafts in the market there that could tell us where she lived. We found the aunt and followed her directions to the house. We found the uncle who was delighted to see us and remembered me well. María was at an afterschool program so we went to see her. I showed her pictures of herself when she was a baby from my phone. She had grown into a lovely ten year old girl.

 

I had hoped to see her in the following summers, but didn’t make it the next year and then the pandemic hit. We traveled to Baños the summer of 2020 when I finally made it back to Ecuador only to find out that she and her uncle had moved to Quito so he could find work. We got their phone number from the aunt and set up a meeting in Quito the following Sunday.

 

She was a beautiful, shy 14 year old. She barely talked and covered her mouth when smiling. The Ecuadorian foundation was starting a school on Saturdays to help kids from poor families catch up from the deficits caused by the pandemic. They were also going to provide counseling for these kids who had all had trauma in their lives. Los Jóvenes in the United States would provide funding for the teacher and meals for the kids. María and her uncle were all in. María’s shyness was caused by a mouthful of crooked teeth. She used her hair and her hands to cover her mouth when talking or smiling. I went back to the United States and found two generous donors to fund her dental work. She had never been to the dentist. After 13 fillings, 5 extractions and upper and lower brackets, María is on her way to having a beautiful smile. The cost: $1800 for all the work and two years of treatment.