Hola Mynglers!

Today we have the second part of Thea’s story for you!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Its really touching I think.

“I also want to share a story with you guys that has been affecting me already since I got here.

On my second day here I met a 17 years old guy called Alex. Neatly combed, wet hair, a clean t-shirt and saying that he is looking for work. A really nice guy. Here is his story:

“I went to America when I was 13 years old and worked at my uncles company for 2 years. I was there illegally and somebody reported that.Then I had to go back to Guatemala. My father got killed. He did something in the drugs world and my mother lives in Chichicastenango. I haven’t seen her for 8 months, because I don’t have money. I live with my sister and my little brother.”

The first 4 to 5 days I saw him every day. With his clean clothes still looking for a job. He had trouble walking and told me he couldn’t find a job.Eventually, on the sixth day he arrived with a set to clean shoes. The set belonged to someone else(he wouldn’t tell me to whom) and he had to give a part of the money he earned to that person. This really reminded me of a documentary that I had once seen about people cleaning shoes who get exploited in, I think, Brazil. The only thing I could do at this point was to tell him if he had any issues that he needed help with, he could always ask me.That I might not have a solution but that I would always be willing to listen to him.

I saw Alex almost every day and he always came by to sit with me for a little while. He wanted to keep up with his English and I should practice my Spanish so we made the deal that he should correct me.
He is a smart guy and the relationship that we have is about chatting and goofing around from time to time. He quickly understood that it wouldn’t work out for him if he would keep asking me every day if I wanted to buy another thing for him.Nevertheless, he kept coming. Some days he looked better,some days he looked worse.

He told me one time when he looked very tired that he was worried about not being able to pay his rent on time. I thought he was living with his sister but It appeared that he had his own separate room in the building where his sister lived. Because there are many untrue stories being told here I have to say that I stayed cautious throughout all this time. All of the sudden his story got a different angle and I didn’t know what to think about that.

Last week, on thursday morning, I was reading a book in a park when he came to sit next to me. He looked tired and for the first time was wearing a bag pack. At his remark that he wanted to talk to me, because he had  a problem, I closed my book. The first thing he said was:” I want to come with you to Holland” My first reaction was: That is not a problem but that is a wish. He smiled with his mouth but his eyes were empty.

When I asked him what was really going on he told me that he had not been able to pay his rent and that he had been sleeping on the streets for 2 nights in a row. So during the period of 5 weeks I witness Alex becoming a homeless person sleeping on the street. How to react now and what to do? I told him that I really wanted to help him but that I didn’t know how to. I promised him to find out where he could sleep and I could already tell him that there was a place in Antigua where homeless people can eat. We agreed  that I would come back to the park at noon. That same day I wrote an email to Tesssa,who is in charge of the homeless project, and asked her for any suggestions. She replied to me the next day. I wrote everything down on a piece of paper and every morning and noon I went back to the park. The crazy thing is, since that thursday morning I never saw Alex again.”

Read more from Thea next week in the final part of her message.

Aenn

Share This

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 5:27 pm and is filed under Myngle News, Social. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.