The Bridge

There's this bridge in my town that eats cars and people.  Lots of them. So, the community decided to get together and clean it up, and build a pedestrian walkway on the side.  My youth group kids participated in the cleanup effort, hiking up their pants and picking up trash in the river, whacking away at overgrowth with machetes, and removing layer after layer of plastic bags from the gutters. I got there late… oops… but they were already at work!
It turns out that some people didn’t think we were working hard enough (and disparaged the group), which is kinda silly.  I was amazed that so many kids turned out to pick up trash on a Saturday morning! They rocked, and did it all on their own accord—I had extremely little to do with any of the planning or coercion. 
They also all came to Escojo mi Vida (the youth group meeting) today!  I gave a charla on discrimination, and we played a game where they all sit in a circle, and the person in the middle tells everyone with X to change seats, and then tries to sit down, leaving someone else standing up (calling out people for different color hair, eyes, shoes, etc).  They explained why I have pelo bueno (good hair), in a very matter-of-fact way.  I told them about the kids committing suicide in the States after being bullied and teased over their (perceived) sexual orientation.  That shocked them. We talked about how each and every one of us makes a decision about how we interact with others, and those actions affect other people.  They talked a lot about how rich people are treated differently than poor people, not just in general, but also in the schools (student-student, and also teacher-student).  Quite a few participated in the discussion, but a few stayed silent.  I think it was a good charla, but there is so much more I wish I could get them to understand.  I’ll have to figure out how to do that.

Picking trash out of the river.

La comunidad trabajando- the community at work.

Si se puede!

Sharpening a machete.

Making green hats look gooood.

Guy building puente peatonal.

The bridge.