“I think that the parents are more than happy to send their children here, instead of keeping them at home. They don’t know me, they have never even seen me before, yet they still send them; it is not a problem, it is one less mouth to feed.”

Elizabeth, a European woman who has lived in Bolivia for over eight years, discusses the particulars of being a child guardian in South America’s poorest country. “Some children grow up in a place that really has nothing, no running water, no electricity, nothing at all,” she says. “When it rains, it rains on their beds; the beds they share by the half-dozen.”

This is one of the reasons Elizabeth brings children in from the village. She stresses that there are children living here that already lost every opportunity in life. Many can barely read and write, and the majority begin to work at an early age.

When I ask her how many children she has taken in over the years, I am surprised by her reaction. She took a length pause to count them all. “Well, eight, I think.” (She had miscalculated and later in the interview she revised her answer to eleven.) “One per year,” I joke with her.

“No,” she says. “Sometimes I had two or three at the same time for a few years.”

Elizabeth began helping children immediately upon arriving in Bolivia. In fact, she came to Bolivia to be closer to her own grandchildren after her daughter moved here nine years ago. But taking children in was something she had done back in Europe.

“I had many children come stay with me for their summer vacations from the program Feu et Joie in Paris,” Elizabeth explains. “Also, many of the poor children from Marseille through the program La Grande Arena.”

When Elizabeth arrived in a small village in Bolivia’s wealthiest department (the equivalent of a regional association of states), Santa Cruz, it was nothing new for her to witness a large population of people living on the margins of society in great poverty.

When asked what she provides these children, besides eliminating most of the hardships they encountered with everyday life in their real homes, she replies, “I think that the kids I have had have also loved me.  I wasn’t after them with a stick, a belt to hit them with, because at their house that’s how it is.  All the liberties they have are here. They can mostly do what they want, besides their education, because I am very strict about that. School first, everything else after.”

Not long ago, Elizabeth filed the papers for a legal adoption for the first child that moved in with her. “It was lots of paper work. It’s faster when you are a resident of Bolivia, but it took two years. She wanted to change her name to Sara, so on her passport her name is Sara with my last name,” Elizabeth says, with a hint of pride. “They also changed the date of birth. Being over fifty, I am not allowed to adopt a child who is younger than eight years old. They changed her age so there wouldn’t be any problems with the adoption.

“For me it was all the same, it was the little girl that counted.”

Elizabeth never plans to move back to Europe, but I ask her what would have happened if she did. “If I wanted to bring her to Europe she would need a visa. The adoption wasn’t recognized internationally, only locally,” Elizabeth explains. “It is much easier to adopt when the child will stay in Bolivia.”

Curiously, Sara no longer lives with Elizabeth.  “I had Sara for two years, adopted her, and then afterwards, her grandmother was always in the background. It wasn’t good for the little girl, being split between two families. So I decided to let go, and told her to return to her family. After that I would never see her. I don’t know what happened to her. But I’m sure she began living like before: going to work at the restaurant, helping out around the house, taking care of her siblings. Her mother has five children, all from different fathers. The mother was all in favor that I keep her, but it was the grandmother who caused problems. Sara was one of the older kids, so she could help out in many ways, and it was for this reason more than any other that the grandmother wanted her back.”