Well, I sort of met the girls yesterday at the Repatriation center where they put kids who've been caught and the parents aren't around. The dad came and picked them up later in the evening, so for a few hours we were just hanging out with the rest of the kids and talking and playing basketball. I think a lot of them were very surprised to see a girl dressed in nice black slacks and blouse playing basketball like a boy in a backyard. Lol, it was fun and they were all so cute. It just sucks that they are in that kind of situation.
One boy we talked to was 16 and his parents were in New Jersey. He has to figure out how to get back over there. I didn't catch how that whole thing happened, but man, that sucks. But yesterday was all about loving on the kids and just playing with them. I know it was more for Michael because he'd been waiting all day long for answers, for the father to get there and interview him. In the end, the dad didn't want to talk. Marizco said I didn't understand after I said I felt sorry for him, that he had to wait around all day long. Maybe I didn't, but I still have a lot of things I need to experience in life and disappointments in journalism is just one of many things to come I'm sure.
While he typed up his story on a computer in an Internet cafe, I sat down to write (after buying a strawberry paleta--mm mmm). Here's what I came up with...

Foreign, familiar J.G. 7/28/04

Abandoned, lost and afraid,
What they wouldn't give, what they wouldn't trade.
A foreign home in a familiar land,
Longing for the touch, the warmth of a hand.
To be lifted up and secure again,
Justice can't be done solely by the pen.
World shaken to the core,
Comfort insufficient as the tears begin to pour.
Alone in a foreign, familiar place,
Those who lost, those whom the water chased.