With Martha at the opening of our new Consulate gym
I went to the juvenile detention center this week to visit our Americans detained there. The group of 6 included two kids in for homicide. I just never thought that I’d have a job where I’m chatting it up across a small desk with folks who have killed other people. Very odd.
On the feel good side of the coin, I also met a young kid there who has been given a chance to turn his life around. I guess that the authorities in charge of the detention center recognized his athletic talent, and got him hooked up with the professional soccer team here in Juarez. Now he’s training with them and has an offer to play for their divison two league when he is released. I asked him if he realized how lucky he was and he just grinned and said “This is my dream and I’m going to take advantage of it.”
John got a new toy this week: a new carbon bike – he loves it! We went over to El Paso on Wednesday night to pick it up, then went for a nice dinner at Geske’s. He took it out for a long ride Saturday morning while I was at work. He just got in today (Sunday) from another ride.
The work week was pretty busy. I was happy to get a recycling program approved and funds committed, so I spent a lot of time picking out trash cans to put around the Consulate.
We had a great speaker at work this week, a woman named Perla Bustamante, who won a gold medal in running (and set a world record) at the Beijing Paralympics in 2008 (and at the age of 44!). She’s from Juarez and was a very dynamic and inspirational speaker. After her talk, she stayed to cut the ribbon on our new Consulate gym.
Friday night, John and I went to a baseball game in El Paso with a bunch of folks from work – it was a beautiful night and reminded me of many evenings spent in Little Rock watching the Travs.