The Third World City

Detroit. What does that make you think of? Greed? Corruption? Loss of Jobs? Well, you probably don't think of something pretty.

You probably know what happened. All the cars being made out of the country, people losing jobs and being cut off. That made a whole lot of trouble.

Now, don't get me wrong, Detroit has it's up parts. Like the baseball and football stadiums or the 5 G.M. Skyscrapers.

Now, don't get just a picture of that. It has it's down sides too. And that's what we saw on the night of when we left Greenfield Village, on Sept 18, 2011.

We rode away from the nice suburbs of Dearborn and Greenfield, and rode into the city of Detroit. It was one of the saddest sights I've seen. But I was prepared for it.

Boarded up businesses, no windowed houses (all the windows were punched out) and homeless people picking up trash in the abandoned car washes. It was grieving to realize these people didn't have food on their plates every night. It made me want to help. Want to do something. Something more than just pray for them. Something more than just having sympathy or pity. Something More. Something where I could take action.

In the heart of the city, we saw 5 fabulous skyscrapers, the G.M. headquarters. One in the middle was cylinder, the other four towering over it on different sides.

We also saw two stadiums, the Detroit Lions (football) and the Detroit Tigers (baseball). The Lions play inside, and the baseball stadium made sort of a tilted sides.

They were nice too and we went by the river that separates America with Windsor, Canada.

Then we saw all of these green lots, and Dad pointed out that there used to be a house at every place. We saw a lot of Graffiti and vandalism. On schools. In Parks. Just about everywhere.

Rebecca remembered what we saw on a miniseries on the day we went to the Detroit area. It was called Detroit in Overdrive and in one of the episodes, they show you an INTERESTING street, called Heidelberg Street.

I'm telling you, that was a street! It was such an interesting blend of heart and creativeness. It had huge surf boards with guitars and paintbrushes! It had polka dot houses and millions of stuffed animals on a burned up tree! It had a whole block full of shoes! It turned home depot tools and made a figure out of them! There were doggy food bags on people's heads. It was the most creative and artsy street I've ever seen. It was so cool! These are just a few of the things we saw.

After that cool time, we left Detroit. It made me think about what's really going on in the world, and that there are hurting places. It also taught me to hold on and keep striving. Even with all this bad stuff, people were still making art and singing songs. It isn't REALLY a third world city. It's an example of the American Dream. Even if they knock us down, we can stand back up. Detroit is a work in progress.

After leaving, we went back home, and went to sleep.

Changing Scenery,

Andrew