Andrea Choque
Unfortunately, we have been unable to get a picture of Andrea. She is a 12 year old girl who was born in La Paz, but came to Santa Cruz about 7 years ago. Her father, Edgar is a school bus driver and makes 600 bolivianos (about $80) a month and her mother, Josefina has a small store that sells a few things out of their house. She makes between 720 bolivianos (about $95) a month. Her disease manifestad for the first time when she was 4 years old. She gets extremely fatigued and often cannot sleep because of the congestion in her lungs.
Her father told the interviewer this:
"This life we are living is not living. We have to fight so hard because we have no money to have my daughter operated. The poor like us are dying from the lack of funds. Please help to save my daughter's life. She complains of pain in her chest and of not being able to sleep at night. Everyday I see her getting worse. For the love of God, help us."
Andrea was operated on May 14th and should live a long and healthy life.