Tuesday, October 9th 2012
Dear Diary,
You ain’t gonna believe what I saw in the morning. She woke up today, at 6:45; she was still tired since she stayed up late on the computer. It’s a different computer, not the kind we can use once a week in the Community Center, it’s thin and has no wire on it. She got up after her mother woke her up in a soft voice. I remembered the way my mom wakes me up... screaming, claiming that she has to go work early because it’s already 5 o'clock in the morning. She turns on the water of the shower of her own bathroom; she does not have to share it with her siblings. I have to share the one in my two room house with my three sisters, my two older brothers, my mom and her boyfriend. The water is hot and that makes me jealous. There is smoke getting out of the shower and the mirror get’s blurry like the sky on a rainy day. I have to take cold showers in the cold mornings. My showers are fast or else, there's not enough water for the rest of the people. She stays there for 15 minutes. When she gets out of the showers, she opens her closet and there are lots of clothes that she can choose from. I have five shirts, one pants, two jackets, three shorts, one flip flops and one tennis shoes. Then, her mom calls for breakfast. The breakfast table is beautiful; there is lots of stuff there, like Santa’s bag on Christmas evening. Bread, butter, juice and milk. Her father kisses her good morning, but she does not kiss him back. If my father kissed me, I would kiss him back, it would be a miracle. My father... he is in jail. He is involved with drugs and is alcoholic. He also killed someone. I just saw him once when he came home to ask money for my mother. She said no and he hit her. I tried to protect her, he hit me too. She complains she has to go to school, but her mother says it's important for her future. My mom no, I can miss school whenever I feel like it. At my house, no one values school just work because we need money to sustain our family. My mom is a cook at a house far away from home. My brothers are gardeners. Except for one of them, he is a drug dealer. My mother does not know or she pretends she doesn’t know since she already has lots of problems to take care of. That scares me. Then, she goes to school, on a car, and it’s a big and pretty car, not the one I am used to see. On her way to school she listens to music in a language I don't really understand but it’s a cool one. Her school is awesome, I wish I could someday be able to go there and have all those friends she has. Her friends are also very pretty with expensive clothes but, a group of kids make fun of a girl because she has a small hole in her blue jeans pants. All my clothes have holes, but one that I got for my 10th birthday, now I am almost 13. It’s a T-Shirt. She goes into the class and it is so amazing the way the students respect the teacher and their classmates. At my school, the classes are a mess. Some of the boys’ even fight and most of the days, at least one of the teachers don’t come for absolutely any reason at all. They have a break in the middle of the morning and that makes me wonder if they can afford to have lunch after. They can because after several more classes, she goes down to the cantina. They have lunch and the food looks much better than the food I normally have. She has classes all day long, morning and afternoon, and when the bell rings I can see from her eyes, she had an exhausting day with lots of tests and assignments. Then, she goes home, to the place where her father kissed her good morning, to the place where her mother gently woke her up and to the place where she is encouraged to study and to be successful. She goes back to her house; she goes back to the place where she can call a home. Now, I am tired. I normally don’t have busy days like this. And so, I close my eyes and fall asleep. I wake up, it’s cold and it’s uncomfortable. I look around. I have been here before. It’s the place where I am encouraged to work. It’s the place where I am yelled at every morning. It is my house.