Talking Politics Late at Night

just kidding, but now we have your attention...
The "Ghetto"
It wasn't the first thing I noticed, but the lasting image I will have is of how tight-knit the community was. ALthough conditions were bad, it was easy for the residents to contact each other, as they all knew everyone. While walking, it wasn't necessarily the rundown buildings I noticed, but it was the desolate schools and playgrounds. Or I should say school, singular. The playground was almost all concrete, with a half-broken rusty playplace, and pieces of concrete cylinders. The rest was gravel, with almost no grass.
The people were friendly to us, and the kids were extremely cool. They were hyper, and enjoyed running around and screaming maniaclly. Of what we saw, only one person was white, the rest black. Our guides, Jamie and Lelo, told us of how the richer developers are gradually buying out the land, which is already surrounded by nice condos and apartments, to build more. Soon there will be no place left for the poorer people to live.
Our guides spoke also of corruption among the government. In principal, they explained, the mayor controls all the city. One-third of the city council has been sent to prison on corruption, and the mayor is the one able to appoint a replacement. He can do almost whatever he wants now, and has only been opposed on a couple issues in the last decade.
US Cellular Field
To take a break from the harsh realities of the world, Elizabeth later took us to a White Sox-Yankees game. Randy Johnson had a no-hitter through 7, but then later gave up 2 more runs before being pulled. It started to get exciting when the White Sox scored 3 more to make it 7-5, and then in the bottom of the 8th pulled within 1 run on a homerun. Unfortunately the Sox lost 7-6, but we still had a great time. The fans are so much more different then the fans on the East Coast, exemplified by how they booed the Yankees. As we left the stadium to get on the train back to the South Side, a cop sprinted onto the train to make sure we were, in fact, going the right direction. Presumably this was because we were white, since almost no one else was who was on the train. We got back after telling him that we knew where we were going, and went to bed.

As a side note, yes mom, I'm drinking at least 3 bottles of water a day, but thanks for the suggestion.

-Brian K