Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Apathy Jack writes:

Saw on the news tonight, a special report on the good things about Manurewa.

Now, far from calling the news liars (although if the suburb that housed Hewligan for almost two decades wasn’t poisoned before he lived there...), it does remind me of last week, after the school's big drama thing...

I’m waiting with the last student to be picked up. It’s around quarter past midnight, and quite cold, so when headlights pull into the street, we’re both hopeful it’s her mother. It turns out, instead, to be a carload of young men offering to sell us drugs. We politely turn them down, and they drive off. My kid looks at me.
“This neighborhood’s no good, man,” she says.
“Ah, there are worse places than this,” I reply pleasantly.
“’Rewa.” We say simultaneously.
“Where I live,” my girl continues sadly, looking at the ground.


It's just sort of depressing sometimes...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a teacher, aren't you told to never be alone with a student?

Apathy Jack said...

Yeah, because it would have been much better for her to deal with a carload of drunken drug dealers by herself on the side of the road at half-past midnight...