La Emme

Monday, September 19, 2011

I am not sure why but the trips to and from seeing my grandmothers are emotionally and physically tiring.  It’s a four hour bus ride with a few transfers but when I arrive at my destination I am hungry and ready for a nap.  Grandma in Valparaiso (La Emme) is always so happy to see me and has dinner waiting for me and more food than both of us could possibly eat together.  We sit, eat, laugh and I tell her about all the latest with my family back home and in Ojocaliente.  I tell her about the series of events that brought the federal police to Ojo and she is not shocked to hear what took place.  She tells me that violence is an everyday occurrence there and that soldiers were keeping things peaceful there in Valpa for a while but since they left a few days ago the bad guys have come back into town to take their place at the head of the violence.  I ask myself how things could get this out of had?  How could a government allow their people to live in such fear?  How could people allow themselves to see violence as a normal everyday occurrence?  I know back in the U.S. I don’t live in the best of neighborhoods and that we have our own share of violence but we don’t have to worry the way people do here, or am I just naïve?