Café Chavalos

For street kids in Nicaragua—the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere—sniffing glue provides a cheap way to help alleviate their myriad troubles. Sadly, inhaling solvents only worsens the situation (making them too drowsy to attend school, too dizzy to work, etc.). According to the statistics interspersed throughout filmmaker Alberto Chamorro's Café Chavalos, unemployment ranges between 60-65% in this country of 5.6 million people, while 70% of Latin America's 40 million street kids sniff glue. Café Chavalos focuses on a nonprofit Building New Hope (BNH) program in Granada (Nicaragua's oldest city), which offers high-risk young men a way out of the vicious cycle by teaching them how to run a restaurant—participants take classes, wash dishes, and serve customers at the titular café, eventually working their way up to cooking, keeping the books, and training new recruits. Chamorro turns his camera on four participants: Orlando, Juan Carlos, Moises, and Oscar, all of whom started huffing at a young age before moving on to alcohol, gasoline, marijuana, and crack—substances which provided temporary relief from the pain of poverty, abuse, and gang warfare. Chamorro also speaks with relatives, addicts, and Donna Tabor, the former Peace Corps volunteer who oversees the restaurant operation. Grim numbers aside, Café Chavalos is more uplifting than downbeat, as viewers watch the boys learn a trade, earn a living, and gain confidence in themselves. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)