“See all the shotgun blasts? That’s why people don’t like to have windows.” While the rest of the group continued their teaching, I ventured “al otro lado,” to the other side. There is no fence separating the two sides; the gangs decide the perimeters.

The other side starts a couple 100 yards from the school where the BuildaBridge team, comprised mostly of Eastern University Graduate students, are teaching the children. With Tita Evertsz, Founder and Principal of the two schools in La Limonada, I crossed the invisible border.

Immediately, there was a change in the appearance and general feel of the place. There were children walking around everywhere; flies dominated the air due to excessive animal waste, house runoff and proximity to a creek of sewage. There was graffiti on the side of houses, and, as she had pointed out, a great deal of bullet holes. There was a man sitting on a stoop, pouring glue into his already glue-covered hands.

“I don’t talk to him when he’s doing that,” Evertsz said. He was one of the few with whom she would not speak. All along the way, she greeted women cooking, kissed children and conversed with gang members. The latter was the most difficult for me.

There is a street of sorts created out of the narrow space separating the houses, about six to eight feet, with even narrower alleys running alongside.

Walking through knowing that gang members will be around, it was not difficult to pick out the associates. In the alleys or across from one another on the street, there were young men loitering. I saw them up ahead and began to tense up a little bit, walking a few steps behind my guide.

As we passed the first group, she stopped to chat. There were three guys. One is twenty-four. The other two are 16 or 17. On our way back, there was a child about eight years old hanging out with them.

There was a large pile of burnt debris beside the gang members. As we walked away, she explained to me that one said that they had burned a mattress. Another joked that they had burned someone alive. Hearing stories before heading in, I told her that I was surprised that they didn’t have out their guns. She explained that they were being nice today, but the guns were under their shirts. They stood there in case a rival gang member approaches their territory.

After the first meeting, I didn’t feel as worried. I just gave them the “buenos dias,” and kept moving. They would smile and return the sentiment. I was as safe as I could possibly be while in her company. It’s the same principal that protected us on our prison visit. The guys respect her, so they treat those with her with respect.

We reached the school Evertsz had set up two weeks ago and headed inside. There was a boy shooting a slingshot outside. After stopping to see a classroom filled with about 25 kids, we headed upstairs. Standing on a balcony, we looked out on the area. Another child leaned against her, and she explained the sides to me, drawing a map of the different gang sections. A sewage canal separated one area, a road separated another. She kept saying, “there are more.”  

For now, Evertsz is renting the community building for her new school. The leader of the gang for that area had given her permission to use the space.  She explained that the man of about 35 is referred to as “Don,” a title of respect often given to the elderly, and he is effectively the President of that side. He believes that it is fair to give the children another option.    

Apparently, the gangs currently occupying the area are less experienced and organized than the gangs that used to be there. The men that used to occupy the areas killed each other off.  

Another time we passed, Evertsz and Joel Van Dyke, Director of Strategies for Transformation, stopped to joke with several men because they were smoking a joint out of an apple.  

That time, as we arrived at the school there were two men standing outside. One of them was a gang member with whom Van Dyke and Evertsz had been working. The man he was with was shirtless and had a large scar on his shoulder. It could have been from a bicycle accident. Probably not. As they were speaking to the men, loud popping noises were going off in the immediate vicinity. I was paranoid, but it turned out the children were popping balloons inside the school.