baby vandals

I was woken up by a text at half 6 in the morning telling me to get up dressed in long trousers and to come to the youth center. I grumbled and swore dragging my self under the mosquito net and crawling to the small wardrobe like washroom readied my self for my freezing cold bath from a bucket. I left the sleeping Kuya's and trudged up to the youth center to be met by absolutely no one. I swore again and walked back down the hill carrying the same air and grace i usually have at this time of the morning. I got half way down the hill before i had a phone call explaining what was going on. This was the morning I spent in the Quezon city juvenile detention center.

I sat sweating in my long trousers longing to be in shorts as i was crammed in for two long jeepny rides. The thing about jeepnys is they take the amount of people you should have as a limit and then throw in an extra four so you get the pleasure of sitting on some old dears lap for part of the journey or stuck under someones arm pit. Though this didn't bother me too much my mind was busy panicking that i was going to be eaten alive by 15 year old murders. I was absolutely terrified this made that trip to the fair seem harmless i had never been to a prison let alone a prison in a city where poverty and over population is at phenomenal as is the rate of crime. I walked silently down a long road after we jumped off the jeep and followed the group nervously.

We arrived at a building amongst others the downstairs was some kind of child welfare office and then there was a set of stairs with bars over them i presumed this was the place unless the child welfare office had a lot of problems with people stealing there staplers. The stairs took us to a narrow corridor where we were instantly frisked and had our personal belongings taken (by the guards not the inmates.) then one by one were sent through another barred door Into a large room full of youths the walls where made up of communal cells which looked unbelievably over crowded. The room we were in was kind of a multi purpose it had nothing in it but a black board and some wooden benches although it felt cluttered by the presence of young toothless tattooed faces through bars. There were 25 young men who had been allowed to take part in the workshop. I felt guilty as we met them and i nervously shook there hands constantly being watched by the faces behind the bars.

Once i started to relax i started to realize that behind the missing teeth scarred faces and gang tattoo's these were lost 15 year old boys who had no other escape but gang lifestyle. during our sharing they spoke of there love for there mothers and how they were given no other options when it came to gang life. There family's would be starving and often they had no real father figure so they fell into the trap of gangs as a way to make money and have an escape. We played games with them and i wished i could of had one of those outer body experiences when you step out and look at what our doing . Playing silly games with young convicts who in some cases had killed people.

Once the games and the sharing had finished the time had passed and our visiting time was up. I shook nearly every hand as it eagerly flew in my direction. I learnt a lot form these boys but i felt sorry for them they had no chance at life and most of them were lost and scared. I was glad at least they would be safe there but my thoughts will always go to there families as there struggles continue but now without a son.