A student returns

Today I arrived on the upper campus after my class, and there waiting for me was Gerónimo Huanca, a student who finished his classes in 2007 who then promptly disappeared.

"Where have you been!" I shouted, smiling.

"Tuve algunos percances," was his answer -- I had a few problems.


Photo: Gerónimo Huanca, today at the College.

Gerónimo's mother died when he was very young, and he never knew his father. An older, childless couple in a small community a few hours from Carmen Pampa took him in and raised him as their own.

Last year, both of his adoptive parents took ill, his father probably with lung cancer ("He smoked a lot," he said), and his mother with tuberculosis. He took over the family's coca and fruit tree fields to support his parents and his wife with their 6-year-old son. His father died in December.

"How is your mother now?" I asked. She is still sick, even after the eight months of pills from the government TB program, he says, so he is taking her to the hospital next week again. But she insists, as does he wife, that Gerónimo return to school to finish his research project and graduate.

This is what is so incredible to me. Families value education so much, make so many sacrifices to get that degree, have so much hope for what it represents: a better future. He will finish, though he had to delay his dream for a while. He has what it takes. He will succeed.

I feel so fortunate to be a part of that. I hope that you do, too.