Trust

Just as we were finishing dinner the girls turned on the TV to watch their soap opera. I usually clear out as I can't stand the things. Instead President Felipe Calderon was on talking about violence in Mexico.  After the US government announcement this week I thought that  some big violent event had occurred.  But Calderon was talking in general terms about not giving up hope on the battle against crime due to the violence. He spoke about the great Mexican police and military involved in the fight and the the citizens should have patience and not give in or it will get worse in the future.  He did talk a bit about police corruption and perhaps before we turned on the TV he spoke about political corruption as well but we did not hear it.  When he finished I asked the girls what they thought.  One responded very quickly, that was Aurelia our university student who has been with us for only two months.  She said quite emphatically that she did not believe Pres. Calderon at all, that the Zetas Cartel were his and that nothing could be done to change anything because all politicians were corrupt.  She said it with such anger in her body posture that I was surprised, most of my students have been pretty uninformed about the world when they first came.  It was rather sad to see a young person with so little trust in any system around her.  I must agree that after living in Mexico for eleven years I too an skeptical about the ability of any government official making any difference or even wanting too.  I suppose the work we need to do is work on trust at the community level, in our house and build from there, but there is a lot of work to be done if we want to see the values that CDC stands for move out into the community.  The first step is to help Aurelia believe that she can be a part of the change.