Last Sunday i went to Valparaiso to see Lulo, which i'll post about tomorrow, but first i wanted to just mention something that happened to me on the journey there.
While on the bus on the 2 hour journey, a man who was with his wife and son's girlfriend broke his sweet in half and offered it to me.
I took it and said thank you.
He started talking to me and eventually swapped seats so he could be next to me.
He told me about his children, particularly his daughter who was around my age, that she was so brave, like me, for being abroad so young.
He told me she was 22 years old and studying in Miami to improve her English with her boyfriend. He showed me pictures of her and told me how clever she was. He then took my hand and said how happy it made him that i would wnat to talk to him because i reminded him so much of his beautiful daughter who he loved and missed so much.
He then told me that 2 years ago, almost to the day, she was shot, along with her boyfriend and 2 other chillean students, in a town outside of Miami and that they were contesting the release of her murderer later this year.
When we parted ways at Valparaiso, his family waved me goodbye and he helped me off the bus and carried my bags and hugged me, telling me to always be safe and to never to be too trusting because, like his daughter, i was very special.
He thanked me again, for letting him spend some time with what felt like his little girl.
I then mentioned it to my friend Lore, who said she remembered the case.
I looked it up online and saw that two years ago, just like he said, a Chillean girl and her boyfriend had been killed in Miami in a racist attack, along with 3 others.
Im not sure whether i should be blogging about this or not.
I don't want to make it seem any less important than it felt at the time or it does now.
This was honestly something that really deeply moved me, almost to tears, and was obviously a very important moment to Dagoberto.
He was such a lovely man and obviously so happy to talk about his children. Throughout the whole journey he took care of me, obviously enjoying the feeling of being a parent for a young girl again, but what what most moved me was how happy he was.
Not once did he seem sad or angry at what had happened. He spoke of his daughter with such pride and love that i truly felt honoured to hear him talk about her.
Im not sure what anyone will make of this, i'm not really sure how i feel about it either.
I just thought it was important, especially for those of you who are away from home, just to be careful.
When you read about cases like this in the news, it feels so distant and unlikely somehow.
I think we forget that these things actually happened to real people, and think ourselves invincible.
We are most certainly not.
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