Giros y Vueltas

So many thoughts flitting through my mind, this will be a bits and pieces sort of entry. First, Spinning this morning astounded me - people just CHEAT. They really do. One woman in front of me EVERY TIME the instructor said "carga" (i.e. make it harder) did nothing or appeared to turn it the wrong way ("descarga") - so probably ended up with less resistance than at the beginning. People, what is the point of that? You're only cheating yourselves! But then, we all do it, all day, every day. When shopping and spending, eating, sitting in front of the tv, whatever, there are all those little white lies we tell ourselves to make life easier, to get us out of doing something we don't want to and to salve our consciences. And how quickly we forget them too - no handwringing in anguish. The brain is a truly wonderful thing.

Second, an observation on what I'm doing. I'm investigating the new immigration law which appears to be fuelled by xenophobia and... not much more. Anyway, it turns out that one of the more extreme instances is before the court in the Hague. Nicaragua has accused Costa Rica of violating the human rights of its citizens by failing to investigate speedily and charge the people responsible for the death of Natividad Canda, a young Nicaraguan who, while trying to commit a robbery, was mauled to death by two rottweilers with, apparently, lots of onlookers during the 90 minutes it took him to die, possibly including police officers. 90 minutes - that's a whole football match. Maybe the next game in the Mundial you watch, we should all think that from the start to the end, that was how long it took for that man to receive help. Further to this is the case where a Nicaraguan died in a fight with Ticos after they joked about how amusing this all was - apparently the popularity of Rottweilers has increased exponentially here, and there were a great many "chistes" about it all. For an international perspective - the only English one I've found thus far, go to the entry 4/3/2006 on this blog, which reprints the LA Times article. The blog also highlights the problems of Ticaragua, which doesn't seem to exist except in conflict at the moment. It's very, very... awful, basically.

On yet another downer, I saw something on Saturday which horrified and chilled my soul. I saw a 15 year old girl, walking down the street with her family, heavily pregnant. This always slightly distresses me, but what was really disturbing, however, was that she was wearing a t-shirt that said "I (picture of lips) sixty nine". Are you kidding me? I'm not for parents controlling the messages their children put out with their clothing, but there has to be a limit, seriously, or the possibility that you raise your daughter with enough self-respect that she doesn't want to wear anything like that. The sad thing is, I doubt she knows what it means, and it wasn't that position that got her six months pregnant before the age of sixteen.

Am I a bad person for reacting so strongly? I don't have a problem with her being sexually active, so I suppose I shouldn't have a problem with one of the possible consequences of that. What makes me sad is that she will, in all probability, never get out of here and have a chance to explore her life. That decision has been made (by her - I'm not disputing that, necessarily), and she has someone else to think about. Having children is a wonderful gift, but I think you're entitled to be a bit selfish and live a little before you start having to live for another being. Who, when they're sixteen, chances are won't be thinking about just what you've sacrificed for them...

Sorry to sound so grumpy. On the brighter side, there is a sweet new intern here, who speaks way less more Spanish than I do so, rather meanly of me, that makes me realise just how far I've come and how much I do understand - it's made me see the glass half full rather than empty. Plus, it was gloriously sunny this morning after some bollox weather, I now know where the InterAmerican Court for Human Rights is, so I can walk there to use the library if I need to, and I have my bearings a little better after walking around this morning. So not all bad, really.