Ancianos in Need!

 

Below are just some of our ancianos either in need of sponsorship, medical care, or other necessities.
We had the chance to visit them recently and update their situations, needs and stories.

Please consider sponsorship at just $35 a month, which will provide meals for them 5 days a week, or helping with a one-time donation for some of their medical costs.

Isabela Rangel 
Needs medicine.

Paula Sahon & Tereso Ajocon
Need Ensure, housing, and meals.

 

 

Manuel Matzar 

Needs medical sponsorship. 

 

Margarita Can Cosme & Ricardo González 

Need meals and a water filter.

Petrona Pablo  

Needs medical care!

Maria Germana and Lucia Chumil need meals!

 

 

Miguel Matzar

Needs medical sponsorship. 

Santiago Bocel

Needs diapers, wheelchair or walker, a water filter and more.

 

Fidela Pinzon

Needs diapers, insulin, and high blood pressure meds.

If you would like to help any of these people with their needs, please visit www.mayanfamilies.org/donatenow "A-19 [write needs, sponsorship etc.]" or to start a sponsorship at $35 a month, please visit: http://mayanfamilies.org/DonateMonthly.aspx

Josefa Queche

(A-18) Status: Sponsored for meals, diapers, home necessities
Previous stories about Josefa can be found here.

Josefa is another of our sponsored ancianas, lucky and grateful to have benefited from generous sponsorship the past couple of years. Josefa's sponsor is also largely responsible for giving an education to her grandson, who works in the Family Aid department at Mayan Families. He works full-time and goes to University on the weekends, studying Business Administration. Part of his salary goes to help his family.

Josefa has also been blessed to receive help from her children: three of her six children who have families of their own take turns making her food each day, and care for her as she is unable to walk or bathe herself.

Due to an injury suffered from falling in the middle of the night two years ago, Josefa has been bedridden. She has a wheelchair that her daughter or grandson uses to take her out.

Josefa has her own room now, as her grandson built his own small room apart from the rest of the house so she could have more space.

Like most of our sponsored ancianos, Josefa is lucky to be receiving this help, as she has no recourse to help herself. The stories of those who are benefiting from meal, medical or home expense sponsorship are those of lives that have been changed for the better.

Thank you to all those currently donating to the program or sponsoring this demographic, which desperately needs it!

If you would like to sponsor an elderly person's meals at $35 a month, please visit here. Write "A-## [sponsorship, needs etc.]" in the Other box.

If you would like to make a one-time donation to medical expenses, home needs, or the Feeding Program itself, please visit here. Thank you!

A letter from Rosita A-1's sponsor

Last week, we posted a story about A-1 Rosita and the help that she has been receiving. This is a note written from her sponsor. Thank you so much for providing a way for Rosita to hear the music she loves, in addition to provision of her basic needs!

"I have to tell you [Rosita's story] brought tears to my eyes, also. When I have asked you in the past what Rosita needed, I have thought about a radio, but I never mentioned it.

God definitely had a hand in the pairing of Rosita and myself. 

I started to sponsor her in memory of my Dad who passed away. He was a multi-talented musician and played in a band for many years. He played his mandolin in his hospice bed only a few days before he died.

I also am a singer, not so much opera, but play a few instruments,  and write music mostly in the gospel genre.

To hear that Rosita always wanted to be a singer warms my heart so. Music is one of God's blessings that can be such a healer for the heart and soul. 

I also love Pavorotti and Bocelli. I want Rosita to experience this wonderful music which hopefully can bring her some peace while she is homebound.

...Please pass on some of the above on to Rosita. Tell her that I send this gift to her with much love, in Honor of our God, Rosita and my Dad. I hope she can enjoy this music until she takes her last breath, and goes home to the final opera in Heaven, which will be forever."

Paula Sahon & Tereso Ajocon

(A-2, A-23) Status: Not Sponsored
(A-2 Tereso) Needs: meal sponsorship, room to rent, Ensure, medicines for nervous attacks and pain
(A-23 Paula) Needs: meal sponsorship, running water. room to rent, food assistance
To help: www.mayanfamilies.org/donatenow "A-2, or A-23 [write needs, sponsorship etc.]"
To sponsor one for meals at $35 a month, or both at $70 a month, visit: http://mayanfamilies.org/DonateMonthly.aspx

They've been separated now by 50 years, but circumstance has brought them--unwillingly--together again.

Paula was Tereso's first wife. For most of her life, She's been living with her daughter and two grandkids, but when the father left them for another woman, the daughter became very depressed. Faced with the responsibility of caring for both her mother and children by herself, she has become increasingly unstable. She works small jobs here and there, and never has enough to feed both her children and her mother. They live in a house without potable water, do not have a bathroom or anywhere to wash themselves, dishes or clothes.

Paula says that her daughter blames her, and this is why she hits her.

To help the anciana, Paula's daughter-in-law took her in. This is the house where Paula's estranged husband lives; the daughter-in-law took him in too after his own kids abandoned him. She is caring for the parents of her ex-husband, who left her for her sister, in addition to her five adolescent children. She makes $8 a week washing clothes and dishes. In the house, there are two beds and a small dresser propped up against the end of one to keep the bed from falling; there is hardly space for them all.

Tereso had a stroke five years ago, and now suffers nervous attacks, severe memory loss, loss of mobility in his limbs, muscle cramps and headaches. He can barely speak, walk, or hear. Some medicines and at least a fortified dietary supplement like Ensure, and vitamins help the cramping and general strength.

To make room for them all, the household are weighing their options: the daughter-in-law inherited a piece of land where they might build, though it is situated next to her sister and her ex. They may also add onto their current home to make a room for Tereso and allow Paula to live in the house with the others.  However, the land it is on is rented, and they would have to pay each month in addition to construction costs: then, when Tereso dies and is no longer living there, they would have to turn the room over to the landowner.

Another option is adding a second floor to their current home. Mayan Families construction is looking into this cost and what can be done to make costs as efficient as possible-- this would solve many problems for them.

If you would like to help with the household's food situation, which is a huge burden on the daughter-in-law's small salary, or with meal sponsorship, construction or medicines, please visit the links beneath the photos. Thank you!

one room of the small house, where Tereso currently sleeps

Margarita Can Cosme & Ricardo González

(A-21, A-22) Status: Not Sponsored
Needs: Eye care, electricity, water filter
To help: www.mayanfamilies.org/donatenow "A-21, or A-22 [write needs, sponsorship etc.]"
To sponsor one for meals at $35 a month, or both at $70 a month, visit: http://mayanfamilies.org/DonateMonthly.aspx
To watch a video which features Margarita and Ricardo, click here. 

"It was a broken bottle to my face, that I lost my eyes," Margarita feels her way around the foyer to her home. She chats amiably about things that would leave others devastated. "One must leave it to God, who takes care of it."

Ricardo, her spouse, putters around the area making lunch with bad eyes too. Theirs is a life based on faith, putting their hands out into the empty air for help. Ricardo's problem is more recent, within the past couple of months-- "he had some drops, but not anymore." Margarita speaks for the two of them.

While she tells us of their children-- one who lives with them and helps with the expenses of the house, two other sons without wives and a married daughter-- Ricardo finishes preparing his lunch. There are flies everywhere, the dishes he's using are dirty. He brings the food to just outside the foyer and sits on some cardboard boxes. Margarita tells us he goes everyday bring a stack of wood for their stove-- it is clear from the curve of his spine that he's been doing this all his life.

Her tone is impressively optimistic as she tells us, "some time ago, we had our stove stolen, so my son spent all his money on another. We never had mattresses before, then Mayan Families got us three. I spent my life doing other people's laundry, till I lost my eyes." When they were interviewed for the video made a couple of years ago, they had been scavenging the trash for food.

But Margarita insists that "things are good lately." They could use basic necessities like a water filter and electricity, and especially sponsorship to receive their meals each day, as without this food they would be eating "just herbs and vegetables," or whatever they might find in the mountains or the trash.

This Sunday, Mayan Families will be hosting an optometrist/ophthalmologist medical group, and we plan to send Ricardo to have his eyes checked, as they are probably infected. If you would like to sponsor or donate one-time to this couple, please follow the links at the top of the page. Thank you!

Rosa Citalan

(A-1) Status: Sponsored for meals, medicines, home expenses, Mayan Families holiday baskets
Needs: Medical exam to discover the reason behind her tachycardia and cardiac arrest.
To help: www.mayanfamilies.org/donatenow  "A-1 [write needs]"
A link to a previous story about Rosita can be found here. 
Read a note from Rosita's sponsor here.
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. 


UPDATE: August 26, 2013
Rosa became very ill last week and was transported to the local hospital where she was diagnosed with pneumonia and tachycardia. While at the hospital, Rosa had a cardiac arrest but was able to be revived. She is in need of further medical exams $50.00 (US) at a hospital in Guatemala City to discover the source of the problem and come up with a treatment plan. In the meantime, Rosa has been prescribed Ensure milk to keep her nourished.

UPDATE: We are so sorry to share that on September 1, 2013 Rosa passed away.

                                                                         ****

Rosa speaks as if each breath she takes will run out before the story's finished, gasping like a fish out of water. Her stories span her whole life in that breath, recalling her childhood and offering its later-learned lessons: hay que hablar de lo que es cierto y no es cierto--one must talk about what is true and what is not true.

"I used to walk," she says, "all the way up to Solola just to talk to people. My mother called me a little horse, always running. She also used to call me a monkey, because I love fruit. She said I'd grow a tail. But, I also don't have teeth anymore, so I eat fruit because I can't eat much else. And these days me arden las patas: my paws burn. I don't go out much anymore."

Her daughter and granddaughter nod through the stories they've heard before, letting Rosita gasp through her life and the proverb she wants them to know: "times have changed, there used to be respect-- we waited for the day of the Lord."

Rosita expresses her love of opera and the symphony, explains that she sang opera, "How I used to sing! But--" she gasps a few times-- "I can't sing a note anymore. I met an American once, at the conservatory in the city, where my mother took me to see the opera. I sang for him, and he told me my throat, my throat was magnificent. He said he would get me into a school in the US to sing, but my mother started to cry. She didn't want me to leave my home."

Her favorite, she said, was Pavarotti, and she can't stand traditional Guatemalan marimba music. I remembered that I had Bocelli on my iPod and asked if she wanted to listen-- she has no radio nor another way to listen to music. I put the headphones in her ears and the man began to sing-- and Rosita began to weep, which made all the rest of us cry.

Many of the elderly we visit are incredibly lonely and have very little to make their lives easier-- many cry out of the frustration of having no one to speak to, having no one to help them-- that when we visit and offer a hand the moment is overwhelming. Rosita, while she has a caring daughter and granddaughter and a generous sponsorship that gave the women a sturdy home, guarantees Rosita's meals, and helped with medical emergencies and many other necessities, she is still lonely for this connection to the things she loves: music, chatting with people in the market, otherwise running around.

When asked what she wanted or needed, she said, "a coffee thermos, I have nothing to keep it hot. And a way to listen to Pavarotti." For Mother's Day, her sponsor gave her a thermos. These are atypical requests, as usually people are in need of food, medicine or other very basic things-- but Rosita says "she is so well taken care-of" in the past couple of years with her sponsorship that all she is missing is music and company.

Rosita is an exception in our program, lucky to be the beneficiary of a reliable donor. If you would like to sponsor an elderly person even just for their meals once a day at $35 a month, please visit http://mayanfamilies.org/DonateMonthly.aspx  and put "A-## [needs, sponsorship etc.]" in the Notes section. Thank you so much for your support!

Petrona Pablo

(A-88) Status: Not Sponsored
Needs: Medical attention at $120, meal sponsorship, caretaker
To help: www.mayanfamilies.org/donatenow "A-88 [write needs, sponsorship etc.]"
To sponsor her for meals at $35 a month, visit: http://mayanfamilies.org/DonateMonthly.aspx
UPDATE May 24, 2013: Petrona received one month of food!
UPDATE May 27, 2013: Petrona's medicines and appointments cost $115 US. If you can help her with this huge cost, it will be so helpful!
UPDATE June 17, 2013: Petrona received a mattress, help with gas for her stove and $115 for her medical needs! 
UPDATE August 13, 2013: Petrona received a water filter and table for the filter as well as sponsorship for two months of food! Thank you so much!
UPDATE September 12, 2013: Petrona has a problem with nerves in her neck which cause her pain. We are looking for $120 US for her doctors appointments and injections to help with her neck.

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. 

We knock on Petrona's door loudly and call her name several times before she comes to the door, opens it, then falls into my arms weeping. "The pain, the pain!" Her muscles are so cramped that even walking to the door is too much.  "I can't leave, I'm so afraid of falling."

She's the only one home; her kids-- one son drinks, the other works early and late, the other leaves food once in a while but "comes tired from work, she can't care for me. They are all so far from me--" do not have the means to help their aging mother.

She used to walk to the Mayan Families office to receive her meals, but for the last month and a half, her muscle cramps have been so bad that she cannot get out of bed. She has lost a lot of weight, and cannot cook for herself. She has had no gas for her stove for over a week, and has no water filter, so drinks the dirty water from the tap even without boiling it. Her bed does not offer much comfort, as a thin piece of sponge sits over the wooden boards.

Until recently, she also washed dishes for $0.60 US a day "when there were people."

Yesterday, she tried to walk from her home to Mayan Families to eat, since she didn't want to be at home anymore by herself. She didn't make it-- she had trouble walking the few short blocks, got very dizzy, and had to be taken to a clinic.

She was given an injection to calm her nerves and tendons, whose tension was causing the painful cramps. She was prescribed pills for pain and tension. She had another follow-up appointment today and will again tomorrow to see what kind of medicines they can give long-term. Each consult costs her $10, and with the medicines she has already incurred almost $80. She does not have the money to cover these costs. If you can help Petrona with medical costs, sponsorship or any of the needs stated above, please visit the links under the photo.

Thank you so much for your support!