Letter from Jeff Castaneda

If i asked you where Peru was on a world map would be able to find? What language do they speak there? Is it a first world or a third world country? I am a proud dual citizen of Peru and the United states. I was born state side but within a couple months i was moved to Peru. Lima, the capital which is probably the only city known to the outside world is a robust city much like New York but PALES in comparison of diversity. I am not from Lima, i am 10 hours away in a small providence town on next to the pacific ocean. there are no road, there no sidewalk, there are no tall building, there is no super market. you have no hot water to shower with and you not many places to buy clothes. girls are only allowed to be out with the sun but some boys can stay out. there are gangs that run the town but no type of legislation. i ask you would you be happy living here? if you asked me where i would prefer to live where do you think i would choose? what if you had no choice? this use to be my reality but like all things in life, even reality can change. my grandmother went to church every Sunday and my grandfather made me a holy cross out of metal, he said it would protect me. so from that day i thought i was religious, i thought. everything in life has a price even when they shouldn't, education is no difference. you fail a child when you deprive them of knowledge, this was made apparent to me way to late. as we grow up we stop listening to understand but rather reply with "i know". i did many terrible things and used faith as justification. my cousin and i made the best combination, she was as dark as a shadow and i was white like snow, i loved her like my mother and she loved me like her son, this tends to happen when you raise a child at 16. i was told that if god willed it i could do it. so i did what my friends did because i believed god had my aspirations in his best interest. i aspired to get out of poverty with the help of my friends by whatever means necessary. but the absence of knowledge is truly a dangerous thing, a child that only knows pain and has nothing to loss is enveloped in darkness and takes his resentment out on the world. i was once that child, ask where are my parents! ALL OF MY FRIENDS PARENTS LOOK LIKE THEM, WHY DON'T I LOOK LIKE YOU! i turned to god, prayer after prayer and i couldn't here nothing. i felt denied the right of happiness because i could not accept the reality i was given and sought to change it no matter the cost. i learned a concept that can depict the cause and effect of my resentment to this manner of living and that would be, equivalent exchange. i was told that all you needed in life to be happy was money and to obtain money you don't need to work hard but smart. to the average person this is true but i indeed was not. i walk  down the hallway that leads to the outside world. one. two , three and four locks keep the malice of the life from enter where i stay. today is the day i achieve happiness, we meet up at the only streetlight that is lit up, ironic because in order to have a street light you need a street right? we each bring the most monetarily valuable item in our household. i have my grandmothers gold necklace. 5 kilometers feel like 100 and we finally arrive. a chill running down your spine and cuts on your face from the coldness of an ocean breeze, the saltiness of the air stings your cuts, a place all two familiar. we present our belongings and them the money. i hear my friend screaming in the back, we turn and look and freeze as he is covered in a pool of blood. now we scream, as we get beat to a pulp, we fall to the dirt and they steal our belongings. they leave the case where the money was suppose to be in, it has a note inside. it reads, happiness. why i asked god, all i wanted was happiness, why did you do this to me, why did you take my friend away from me. he had no family abandoned like most of us, all we wanted was to be happy, we couldn't understand any of it. we were chewed up by reality and spit to the floor and step on. we carry his body to ocean and put him on a piece of wood. some of my friends began to pray, i lost it, WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW AHHHH? WHY DID HE PROTECT US! WHAT DOES FUCKING CHAIN MEAN AWAY! ANSWER ME! as we are about to let him be carried away by the ocean but i stop them and take off my chain and put in around his neck. he believed to the very end, he deserved to live more than any of us so let him rest believe in god as well. we set him off and watched as the waves took him away, he drift away far far away never to return along with my faith.