Waking Up in Mexico: The morning after Elections

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​I've lived in a country with strong anti-American sentiment. 
It's like stepping on a prickly pear cactus.  
Barefoot.
With sunburnt feet.
It sucks!

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Chavez encouraged his supporters to claim their land...and they did.  They quickly surrounded the high walls of the electrical compound, we called home.  A shanty town was erected on the empty dirt fields and daily we would climb up the rickety steps of the water tower, to observe how it had grown.  Sleeping was near impossible and leaving the compound ran the risk of harassment from Chavez supporters.  We flew out of the country unannounced and called our families from the Miami airport to tell them we had returned.

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This past Wednesday morning the world awoke to the results of America's presidential elections.  I felt the stares at work and in the grocery store.  My anguish, my bewilderment was glaringly obvious.  An unwelcome dweller who inhabits a space deep within my head and only comes around at the most inconvenient of times; released the memories of what had occurred many years prior in Venezuela.  A pain deep in my heart speculated if Mexicans would be upset with me for what had happened in my own country.  Would there be a backlash on the expat community residing here?  

A late night text from a Mexican co-worker hushed the voice and settled the fear: "Today I saw you very sad.  But let me tell you that I love you and care for you!" The creep living inside my head; telling me lies was evicted and with a clearer perspective, I better understood the eyes which were upon me in the morning.  The leers were not of anger but curiosity attempting to gauge the state of my well being; an acknowledgment of the pain and uncertainty, we all share.
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Later that night
I held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.

​-Warsan Shire

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