Month: September 2015

After being robbed in la Plaza San Martín

~ knomadic ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know how to wrap my mind around all of this. I keep thinking about the what ifs. I keep thinking about the situation, where I was, where I was standing, the look in the kids’ eyes. There are so many different perspectives, so many different emotions I feel. I’m furious. I think it’s hilarious. Incredibly ironic. I’m sick to my stomach. I’m scared. I’m sad. But when they’re kids…where do they learn this? What adults in their lives have showed them that stealing is okay, that others’ lives are not worth more? Who is buying what they steal, or sending them out to rob people? What happens if they come back empty handed?

Where did they go after they robbed me? Those kids, nine or ten, maybe, where did they sleep? Did their mom or dad read to them before bed?

We want to be safe. We want our friends to be safe. I don’t know that we really care that much about people in tough situations. We tend to think they deserve to be where they’re at, no? I mean, usually we don’t care enough to act until it seeps into “our” neighborhood. Right? I don’t know. I feel like we’re hypocrites. I feel like a hypocrite.

I think it would have been different if it had been adults that had threatened me. At some point, it’s their responsibility? They should know between right and wrong. However fucked up their childhood was, where they grew up, they should know better, right? But kids? Teenagers? Where did they get that? And…those little ones…what are they going to be doing in 5 years? In 10?

I lost my phone, my camera, some money, and what pisses me off most, my notebook and Rayuela with all of my notes. Funny that what I miss most was worthless to them. Or, scratch that, what pisses me off most is the pistol, the threat, the idea that my life is worth a phone. That anyone could think that. I wish they’d talked to me. I guarantee you we’d have a lot in common. I have no doubt I could make them laugh. That we could have a good time.

I’m trying to process it. I’m trying to find that balance between anger and empathy and hope, and not just give up. I’d like to make a difference. I’d like to do something so that kids have an opportunity to do something different, have a safe space to be and grow where they aren’t pushed into a life like that. I also feel defeated. I feel exhausted. I feel like it’s hopeless.