Through Her Eyes

Looking up, the animals circled above my head. The rows of bars surrounded me like trees in a forest, or bars in a cage. Suddenly, one side lowered and a large face appeared close to mine. I was startled, and nearly screamed but I calmed down when I heard the voice. "Buenas dias, good morning, Elizabeta." It was my mama. She picked me up, and I narrowly missed getting hit by an elephant. She set me down on a blanket that felt soft and cool. Her rough, soft, warm hands worked swiftly as she changed my clothes. She continued to talk to me.

"Elizabeta, vamos. We're going to take a walk. Deseo caminar, and I am cansada, tired, of cleaning."

She lifted me again, and the yellowish stained ceiling got closer and then we were moving. She took me to the rolling bed and pushed me outside. It was suddenly very warm and very bright. The sun was right in my eyes and I couldn't see. I began to cry. My mama moved me so that I was sitting up. When the bright spots in my eyes disappeared finally, I noticed that the street looked different. There used to be lots of people and noises. The buildings used to be taller, and there used to be the smell of sweat, sewage, garbage and food. Now, what I saw were smaller buildings and different people. It smelled good, like flowers and grass, and it was quieter.

On the side of the street we were on, we passed dozens of brown and white houses. The windows were clean and shiny, but they had lines running through them. I saw kids running barefood around in the yard which seemed brown and green. The sidewalks glittered with different colors and shapes. One little girl was gathering the shapes up and arranging them into a pattern on a piece of wood. She was wearing a pale yellow dress which stopped above her knees. Her eyes were a deep brown, and she had her hair braided down her back. While my mom stopped to talk to her, I grabbed the braid. She loosened my hand from her hair, but allowed me to grab her finger. Hands are such neat things.

My mama asked the girl, " are you making a picture? Dibujas una pictura nina?" The little girl replied "Si senora, me gusta dibujar, pero no tengo papel ni lapiz. Uso vidrio porque esta gratis." ( Yes ma'am, I like to draw, but I don't have paper or pencil. I use glass because it's free.) My mama just smiled and said, "eres inteligente, you're a very smart girl." The girl smiled and thanked my mom and went back to what she was doing.

We continued walking, and passed all of this food on the other side of the road. There were people buying and selling food, and all of these stores. After a while, we crossed a street and the houses were bigger. There were posts in between the houses and the grass was really green. There weren't many children outside and the houses were further apart. Soon, we came to the house at the end of the road. It was white with lots of windows and tall bars all across the front. The ground was covered in green grass, and there was a lot of it.

There were some people cutting the grass and the bushes, and my mama called out to one of them, "Tienen sed? Are you thirsty?" The men all replied "Se, yes, si senora, gracias." My mama pulled a jar out from under me, and the workers gathered around. They were all taller than my mama, and were bigger, too. I smiled and giggled as they looked at me, and one of them said, "coqueta, litle flirt, you're so cute." My mama smiled, gave me a bottle, and asked the men how it was going. The men told my mama about the little girl who lived in the big house. "Ella esta sola siempre. Nunca puede jugar ni hablar con sus amigas." (She's always alone. She can never play or talk with her friends.) " The only thing she can do is draw, and she has all of these papers and pens and pencils. She loves to draw, but her nanny sometimes steals her supplies and she cries for hours."

My mama finished talking to the men, and we began walking back towards home. The houses got smaller after we crossed the street and the noisy market, and the groundbegan to glitter. Children were outside playing, and you could hear the sound of their laughter. The little girl was still drawing with the pieces of shiny stuff, and everyone was smiling. When we got home, my mama put me back in my bed, raised the bars again, and I fell asleep as I stared at the animals circling above my head.

Written in Spring of 2000