City of Joy

     Camerista. Photographer. The children crowded around us, eagerly grasping our hands, showing us around the courtyard. New visitors are always welcome in an orphanage. It had been a long day, and the desert sun was beating angrily down upon us. Grabbing a giggling child, I swung her around and around, while she cheerfully shrieked. The time came for us to leave. The children once more gathered around us, begging for one more minute of attention. Camerista. Photographer.
     Arriving back at the mission base, we crawled out of the back of our van. Stray dogs roamed the unpaved roads, anxiously looking around. While we observed the ramshackle homes built around us, an ancient Ford came around the corner, with a decrepit loudspeaker blaring in Spanish. Neighborhood children played in the yard of the base, enthusiastically engaging in a game of soccer. Occasionally, they would help us with the tasks we had been assigned.
     "Language barriers made no difference at all,
When you're truly cared for, there's no purpose for walls."
      Hastily, I grabbed my camera. We were going for a walk. In the huts built of various materials, including cardboard, plywood, and insulating boards, people lived out their daily activities. Attached to the tops of some of the houses a satellite dish jutted out. An airplane, made of scrap metal, brought an element of art to this destitute place.
     Gunfire was heard in the distance. Explosions occurred every few minutes. It was New Years Eve. Shouts of joy were called around the city. Feliz Ano Nuevo! People poured around the streets, embracing one another.
     We were back in the United States. The first thing seen when crossing the border is a McDonald's, followed by a Walmart. A few miles south, people starved in cardboard houses. Nothing separates one world from another, except a graffiti covered fence. Driving along a paved six lane freeway, the LA Metro zoomed past us. We were back to suburbia, back to our own individual problems.

     "Where am I?"
     "You're in the City of Joy."
     "Is that geographical, or spiritual?"    
     "Depends on your perspective."