I was looking at a hillside covered with what were supposed to be houses, but in reality the could barely be called shacks. They were pieces of plastic, bits of cardboard and parts of wood and it seemed held together only because of some crazy glue. They reminded me of the projects that I used to make in kindergarten. I couldn’t tell whether the hill had any grass or trees or flowers because shacks and trash covered the

We exited the freeway and came to a stop at the light. A bunch of traffic in front of us rendered our car immobile. About 25 people wondered around that little exit. They were knocking on car windows, standing off to the side with signs, and sleeping on the dirt to the side of the road. Out of the 25 people roaming around, more then half of them were under the age of 10. It reminded me of a scene from a war movie, just after a bombing, with the choking smell of tragedy still in the air. People wandering aimlessly about in utter, shock. They had the look of weary, tiredness about them. I looked out my window and saw an old man of about 55 years old standing about 5 feet away from our car. He was looking at something in the car ahead of us with such longing on his face, and then he glanced down at a little child of about 7 years old. My aunt having seen this same exact scene, rolled down her window and said something I couldn’t hear. She held out a 10 dollar bill to him. He looked at it and shook his head. There was something so sad about the way he did it. He longed to have the 10 dollars, but he had a stubborn look of pride that crinkled his forehead and made him look hard as a rock. Realizing that he wasn’t going to accept charity, my aunt said something else I couldn’t hear to him and she rolled up her window. The man walked away and was back in a few seconds with a rag and

Some topics in this essay:
Beach Mexico, Beyond Border, ten dollars, 10 dollars, aunt rolled windows, aunt looked, measly ten, rolled window, it’s fair, couldn’t hear, 25 people, rolled windows, aunt rolled,