A segment

Here's a piece from my honors thesis that I wrote this morning. To give some context, I have just found out that I am going to design a recycling program for the school.


Lorna sighs her ‘the school is underfunded sigh.’ I wonder briefly how am I going to design and implement a recycling program in a school that doesn’t have enough money to pay for a counselor or soap in the bathrooms. I think of the expensive shiny recycling bins back at the few green conscious businesses and schools in Lubbock. They used grant money to build their programs. I have the equivalent of twenty dollars from my study abroad center.
But how much would their security increase if they had these things? I wonder. Not recycling bins, but more modern computers and televisions in every room? If their classrooms looked like the elementary classrooms back in Lubbock, how many extra rows of barbed wire would they need to keep out those who cannot afford such luxuries? Rely on policeman? No. The barbed wire surrounding the campus is there because the police do not protect it. The homes around the school are shrouded in metal gates and barbed wire because we do not feel safe. Not being able to trust the government or the police, we take safety into our own hands. We do not go out alone at night. We take taxis during the day. We leave with only house keys in our pockets, an umbrella around our wrists, and enough money for the taxi ride there and back. When we are attacked, we call the police. They do not come. We go to them. We file our reports. We hear nothing back. We return to our barbed wire, metals gates, and cages, and wait. Wait, because we don’t know what else to do. Wait, because we know that crime is increasing in urban Latin America, and Costa Rica is part of it. Blame it on the Nicaraguans, the Colombians, as Mama Tica does, but they are not at fault. Blame it on the economy and poverty and loss of jobs, but they are not at fault. Violence is bigger than any one issue.
Cardboard, I think. I can use cardboard boxes for recycling bins. I plan out how many the teachers would need as I follow Lorna into a classroom of fifth graders. We enter and the students shout a chorus of “hello teacher.”
“Hello, hello,” I say back, finding my seat at the back of the classroom.
Lorna takes out her markers and starts to write the names of various diseases on the board. The students watch her, eagerly waiting for their lesson to begin before the final bell rings and they can go home to their barbed wire houses around the school.