Stories from the Field: Yasser and His Mouse
Mexico
Stories from the Field: Yasser and His Mouse
Journal by Gretchen Smith, Friday May 3, 2013
Obrera, Rosarito Mexico, JK Hacienda
If you are interested to know more about Jesus or accept him as your Lord and Savior please review this printable document https://tinyurl.com/SalvationRomanRoad
A month or so ago a chubby 10 year old boy with a sweet smile and mischievous glint in his eye showed up at my house with a mouse in a small plastic container. The mouse was white with beady red eyes. His father was working on my gate and I silently prayed for the mouse to go away before it got loose and made its home in my roof but clearly Yasser had other ideas. We made a little nest for it in its box and got some tortilla chips to feed it which made Yasser squeal with glee. Later the mouse was the subject of a drawing lesson we did together. It was rather comical because I speak very little Spanish and Yasser speaks no English. Yasser was passionately babbling in Spanish and simply could not get across what he was trying to say. In frustration he jumped up, came over and kissed me on the cheek. Apparently he wanted me to be his girlfriend. He kept pointing to his lips and motioning for me to kiss him there. It took quite a bit of work to explain that I could not be his girlfriend. I felt terrible for breaking his heart but consoled myself that he had the little white mouse with beady red eyes to keep him company.
This morning I decided to go get a coca cola from around the corner. I noticed right away that there were lots of unfamiliar men around but I know that 1400 people are deported to Mexico each week through our border so I just figured it was due to that. I also made a mental note to be careful. Anyway, as I came back around the corner I nearly ran straight into a man that was standing motionless in the middle of the street. He was not moving and his head drooped but what really freaked me out is that Yassers mouse was on top of the man's head. This was all too creepy for that early in the morning so I hurried home wondering how the man got Yassers mouse. I decided this was something worth informing the landlord of so I stopped and let him know. I went quickly into my gated area, made sure it was locked, went into the house and locked the door.
An hour later I decided to go run errands and as I went to turn down the only street that gives access to the main road I nearly turned into at least 10 police cars and a lady with a machine gun standing just down the way from where the man with Yassers mouse on his head had stood earlier that day. I drove past, parked the car and shook my head in disbelief. I didn't hear any gunshots and there were two uniformed policeman walking towards me. I prayed. I prayed. And I prayed again. They asked me some questions such as where do I live and they asked me if I knew the men who were standing with their hands on the hoods of cars. There were about 10 of them and I had no idea which ones they were pointing to. I glanced up but most were too far away to see the faces so I simply said I don't think so. The man then said don't worry, we are just doing routine surveillance or something to that affect and they would be out of my way soon. I found out later he was the captain of the police force here and there was nothing routine about what was happening. He said to me that they heard someone was being held hostage in a house here and maybe kidnapped. The neighbor had been kidnapped in February so I pointed to his house. The captain only spoke some English and my Spanish was quite horrible and truth be told all I could think about was Yasser's mouse.
Finally the streets were clear and I was eager to get out of there. The drug house was quiet and it was as if nothing had happened but clearly there was a round up of some of the men who had been hanging around early because my usually lively neighborhood had only one soul out and about. There on the steps of the drug house was Yasser and I may be wrong but I think he had his little white mouse with beady red eyes.
I met Yasser when he helped me with a community mural project. Here are some pics from our hood.
You can see pics from the rest of the mural project here: