He was almost seven years old. I first saw him in "Campo Cielo" (Heaven's Country) where the poverty reaches the heavens. In his left hand he carried a lighter and behind his right ear he had stuck a cigarette. He was Gumercindo; orphaned, barefoot, shirtless, tanned by the sun and the soil he was always exposed to. He became known as "Toothless" after losing his teeth.

Gumercindo was enjoying the moment because we had brought him some toys to celebrate the "Day of the Children". The one day among the 365 of the year in which he was not suffering from his general state of abandonment. He had a profound impact on me. Despite the starkness of his conditions, this day he was also happy because for the first time in his life he had a whole cigarette to smoke. He was accustomed to smoking the butts he found on the street.

I don't know who taught him to stick cigarettes behind his ear, but in Honduras this is a long standing custom of those who have busy hands: carpenters, mechanics, tailors, venders and seamstresses. In Venezuela, some of the washerwomen even put the lit end of the cigarette in their mouths for which there are many cases of oral cancer.

Gumercindo did not have a house as a home in "Campo Cielo". He passed his days in the garbage dumps occupying his hands with the search for something to eat. His nights were spent sleeping on the streets with only the starry sky to cover him up..

One day the smoke in the garbage dump was heavier than usual and put Gumercindo into a deep sleep. In the heat of the day he began to dream...

He came upon an endless amount of cigarettes in a huge pile, and every time he lit one, he could not smoke it because it turned into a smoking ear that as it was filled with smoke became a giant, sleeping fetus that floated in space. For every cigarette he lit, another giant floating fetus appeared and as they covered the skies his senses became dull. He could not hear the birds singing or the music of silence. The light of the sun, the colors of the rainbow, the green of the plants were all also disappearing. Joy was being trapped in the turbulence of the contaminated winds that were poisoning the community of innocence.

Waking from the dreamy torment, Gumercindo touched his ears and in the sliver of a mirror he had found in the dump he looked at them. Startled, he yelled and begged for help from his deceased mother for the smoke that appeared to be pouring from his ears. Upon closer examination, he realized the he was surrounded by smoking garbage.

The dream was decisive for Gumercindo. He quit smoking, and he shared the experience with his friends that also live in the loneliness of injustice. Gumercindo´s imagination had not strayed far from reality; cigarette smoke can be emitted from different parts of the body even the "ingenuous ears of nonsmokers".

These images and the dream experiences of Gumercindo are very alive in my spirit. Every time I encounter a consumer of tobacco, I tell them about the dream of "smoking ears" that represent the dignified effort of a child to quit smoking.