When our kids were young we spent a fair amount of time at zoos around the world. It was always with mixed emotions for me. Are animals supposed to be caged in? I also remember seeing high security prisons in different counties. Uninviting and foreboding they loom on the horizon making one decide there and then never to become a criminal deserving a life behind those walls. Rarely did I imagine normal moms, dads, kids, teens, uncles, aunts or grandparents having to live behind barbed wires of the same quality as the wires used to protect humans from Grizzlies in the zoo. I never thought that rice farmers, shop keepers, fishermen, teachers and lawyers needed to be kept enclosed the same way serial killers were enclosed on Alcatraz.
We went to spend time with people behind barbed wires today. I knew I was not a criminal, just a simple woman wanting to help starving people. Yet, I needed to brake several rules in order to get to them. Mr. Z is our trusted aid and picked us up fifteen minutes early. His baseball hat was on his head as usual, his sarong was tied tightly around his waist. He smiled a smile stained with red beetle nut juice and let me know not to worry about a thing. We just had to duck when passing check points and only get out of the vehicle when he said so. (Courtesy of oddnygumaer.com)
