Shootings, gangs and drugs…

I actually really like this island I live on. It is a beautiful place with beautiful people and a very easygoing culture in so many ways. The geography of the place is just incredible hence it being called “Paradise.” But lately the underbelly of the place has been surfacing a lot in my life. It isn’t any worse than most major cities on the mainland. It just happens that I am closer to it here.

If I lived on the mainland it would be easy for me to have the choice to move to a different neighborhood, build my huge picket fence keeping the so called riff raff out etc. But here only the really rich have that option and it still doesn’t truly change what is happening around us.

Last night was the scariest for me so far. My house is set on the side of the mountain with an awesome view. The valley below though is pretty poverty stricken like most of the island. A lot of section 8 housing and so forth which goes along with a lot of drug dealing and gangs. Fortunately we are literally above it all on the mountain. So we are safe as if we had the white picket fence or security guard standing outside of our subdivision. Or so we think.

Last night the electricity went out for over an hour. During that time the gunshots started. Usually the person shooting does about three shots and is done right in a row. But last night it was five shots in a row. This happened five times as well during that hour. My first thought when I hear them is about how sad this is for the family of whoever was shot. And how do people get to this point in life that taking a life sounds so easy for them at least from where I sit listening. Then the next set of shooting happens and I start to think about bringing up my kids on the island. How will I keep them out of this craziness? How will I keep them away from the drugs and violence? I think about this more for my boy than my girl. As there are more boys out there doing the shooting than girls. Then the next rounds happen. And I start wondering how the people I know who have grown children or older children have kept them out of all of this. Especially those who have kids that have grown up in these areas with the same kind of poverty that is still present today. I put my list together in my head of whom I will call tomorrow or in the next week to talk about this to get the advice. The next rounds and the next rounds and I am hoping this all stops soon. I am crying due to fear and sadness for all those who are being hurt out there. I am planning in my head to get a newspaper tomorrow and the next day to read the obituaries and police records.

I finally fall asleep and the next morning I wake up to the green parrots chattering away and I go to use the shower and see hummingbirds in the flowers outside my window. Now last night doesn’t have the same impact anymore. But as I write this I am reminding myself of to keep it on my mind so that I can keep my children safe, so that maybe I can find others working to keep their children safe and find out how they are doing it. But in the end the ideal would be to find a way to stop all of the violence completely. To figure out how to deal the complexities of why this happens to begin with. I wonder who on the island is already doing this and could they use my help?