Fidela Pinzon

(A-82) Status: Not Sponsored
Needs: sponsorship for meals, diapers, insulin, medicine for high blood pressure, vitamins
To help: www.mayanfamilies.org/donatenow "A-## [write needs, sponsorship etc.]"
To sponsor her for meals at $35 a month, visit: http://mayanfamilies.org/DonateMonthly.aspx
For more stories and photos of the ancianos in the Feeding Program, please consider purchasing a book compiled of our participants. All profits go to the Elderly. You can preview the book here.

A girl who is wiping dishes answers Fidela's door and leads us through an empty hall to Fidela's room, where we are greeted first by the smell and then Fidela. She tears up, says she is happy someone came to see her. "I want to walk, but I can't," she shakes her head, "I want to eat but I can't." She yells for the girl-- Angela! Bring me a chair?-- and waits for a response, then yells again. Silence. "She must have gone. I need to get out, but who is there to help me?"

Angela comes a few times a week to clean. Fildela had 10 children; one comes to visit when she can, bringing her mother diapers or other small necessities.

"I can't do anything for myself. I want to get up, I get up, I fall down. What can I do?"

She's seen a doctor for her sight, her high blood pressure, her bed sores and other pains, and her diabetes. She also has a wheelchair, but this, the meds and diagnoses "don't do much if there's no one here to help me with them."

We are sitting a foot away from here, and our faces are like ghosts, she says. Everyone looks like a ghost. "I sit here sola sola sola-- alone alone alone. I'm afraid of going blind."

Mayan Families brings her food each day, and when there are funds, diapers or medicines. While her daughter helps with the expenses of the house, Fidela needs more regular care from someone like Angela or someone else to help bathe, clothe and feed her.

However, providing regular sponsorship for necessary meals, diapers, and medicines would help out Felipa immensely. It costs her daughter $62 a month for diapers and medicines. This is an additional cost to the $35 for her meal sponsorship. This amount of money is huge to families making $3-$5 a day, and more often the family will ignore illness if they can't afford its treatment. If there is any way you or someone you know can help with these costs, please visit the links at the top of the page, or email familyaid@mayanfamilies.org with questions.

Thank you so much!