if you wanna sing out...

I recently returned from a trip to the US/Mexico border- El Paso, TX/ Juarez, Mexico. And, for me, the border itself spoke profoundly. We stood in Las Cruces, New Mexico on one side of a tall chain link fence, while on the other side- we saw a little Mexican girl, probably about 5 years old, in a little sundress walking across the desert sand to come and talk to us.

where did she live? her house was tiny by US standards, made of cardboard and discarded fence material. it had a steel roof, problematic under the _hot_ desert sun. the little girl lived just behind the fence that divides the United States from Mexico...and yet, because of it, she had no running water, her house was likely the temperature of an oven during the day (without trees for shade, the steel roofs act as conductors of heat)...

It's a site you'd see on commercials for Save the Children or some other sponsor a child-type organization. But seeing it-- well, it's a lot different, a lot more powerful...when you see it, you can't really deny it anymore. I can't.