Wednesday, 22 July, 2009
I’m sitting on the sticky leather couches of the mission, biding time until José is ready to go to the Factory with me. A girl who I have met before, but whose name I have forgotten, sits down next to me. We begin to chat.
I learn, during the conversation’s course, that the girl I am speaking to is my same age. That’s always interesting to consider—the parallel life that I could have. She is at college now, at a Catholic school, studying to be a teacher. Her father pushed her to enroll and though she was resistant at first (scared about her still shaky mastery of English), she is now glad that she is there. She isn’t a rough girl, doesn’t get into trouble or gangs and the people she has met at college are good, too.
Life is scary for her. Here, her neighborhood of little brick houses is the site of gang activity. She doesn’t go out at night. She used to love to return to Mexico, to stay with her Grandmother in the north of the country. But that area is scary now, too, since the drug ring gangs have started moving in to the area.
Her eyes widen, big and fearful. Is anywhere safe to live? She asks.
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