Swamped by Poverty

Photo: Josefina and her daughter, Dayana, gaze out the doorway of their humble home in the Swamp of the Virgin.

There’s nothing easy about a life of poverty. But for people like Josefina Masa Julio, who lives in the Ciénaga de la Virgen (Swamp of the Virgin) in Cartagena, Colombia, the difficulties are compounded. Winter here is warm and rainy – a fearsome time for these swamp dwellers, most of whom are people who have been displaced from their former homes in other areas of the country due to violence; now they find themselves living in flimsy shacks of cardboard and plastic sheeting, surrounded by the stagnant waters of one of Cartagena’s poorest – and wettest – neighborhoods.

Dangers abound in the Swamp. Each winter rain brings horrors with it: snakes and other creatures are driven out by the rising waters, diseases are rampant and homeowners spend sleepless nights watching over their household goods for fear of losing their meager possessions to nature in an unguarded moment. But the greatest tragedy is counted in human lives. Just a few years ago, Josefina lost her four-year-old son to the floodwaters.

This photo was snapped shortly after I visited Cartagena some months ago. Marelvis Campo, the Children International Communication Coordinator in Cartagena who took the picture, tells me that not much has changed for Josefina and her remaining three children, except that her oldest son has now moved out and is living on his own. She still depends on the few odd jobs she manages to round up each week. But by helping Josefina’s family with school supplies, providing free medical care for the children and helping them obtain a nutritionally balanced diet, Children International is bringing stability and hope to their otherwise precarious lives.