It was fascinating! There are so many things that surprised me and made me reflect yesterday. First of all, I was concerned that the teenagers would not be willing to share information with us but in reality, they were really curious about listening to our stories from people from the “outside”. Moreover, I had the preoccupation that they would not be willing to change their lifestyle, and to a large extent that is not true. On one hand, they do have a really specific lifestyle that is different than ours but that does not make it less valid or less normal. In reality, they also wanted to have more freedom like traveling, being outside, and studying but not have the same lifestyle as us, we grew up different, we have different values, and priorities in life and that is ok.

Regarding the stories that one of them shared, I was surprised how quickly they would reach serious topics in depth. One of them shared how she used to have arguments with her mother and escape the house late at night and once she got caught and run over by the police who stopped her with electric shock since she was carrying a knife. She wanted to focus on how the police were treating her, how unfair and scary it was but I kept wondering how did she end up there? Why would she have the need to fight with her mother, threatening her to leave the house and carry a knife? She also shared how she was homeless for a while, transferring from hostel to hostel and shelter to shelter and eventually, she grew up because of her siblings. She is so close with them that she would get into physical fights with other kids to protect her little brother. She also shared one attempt of kidnapping that she experienced while she was young.

One of the most surprising things was the attitude toward their sayings. The laughter was loud and constant even during serious topics like kidnapping, family abuse, fights, and policing. They would switch from laughing, to sharing something serious and then laughing again. My assumption is that this is their coping mechanism that is developed to protect themselves especially when taking into consideration how young they started being involved with crime. Overall, I was reflecting on how different life can be a few miles away from us, how privileged we are, and how context like family and environment is significant!