Malnutrition

At Los Quinchos we were always caught out trying to estimate the boys ages. We always guessed a lot younger than they were. There is only one explanation for this - chronic early childhood malnutrition. So many of the boys are really small. Twelve years olds with the stature of eight year olds, ten years olds who seem to be six. Once starved at an early age they will probably never reach the same height as correctly nourished children,  in spite of the regular meals they get at Los Quinchos. Malnutrition remains a fact of life in Nicaragua, with a diet rich in saturated fats and too few vegetables. There is lots of fruit, of course, but that doesn't necessarily make up for what's missing.