Baby Trade

SUZANNE LIPPS, slim and striking in a strapless blue swimsuit, raises her new baby high in joy against a fiery opal sky. In the distance, dry hills cry out for the rainy season to begin. But here, alongside a shimmering hotel pool, a waiter named Francisco serves a river of iced tea to Suzanne and her friends, parched from hours of talking among themselves and cooing to the dark-eyed infants they hold and rock and watch.

When Maria Lourdes, mother of five malnourished children, was asked by her wealthy patroa if she could "borrow" Maria's 4-year-old, she readily agreed. The woman, for whom Maria washes clothes, said she wanted the galega (fair-haired, fair-skinned child) strictly for amusement. Maria sent her daughter just as she was: untidy, barefoot, without a change of clothes or her little pink comb with its missing teeth. The patroa promised to return the child the following morning.