| Summary: | 14 The Concordlan April 11,1986 JUNIOR & SENIOR If you missed housingjj||g||j It's not too A limited in |i ii i in available^ Tir~BU^.ad manor ami Hcill.ji uiUii't^Lcd, mint; Ui Applications are now available for Student Business Office Staff • Assistant Treasurer/Payroll • Accounts Payable (Two positions) •Accounts Receivable • S.A. Executive Secretary Applications may be picked up in the Stu-dent Association Office, above the P.O.'s and are due Tuesday, April 15, at 4 p.m. For more information, contact Julie Lovin or Mark Johnson, or stop by the Student Business Office. ICEL AMIR TO EUROPE. EVERYTHING THAT ISN'T A BARBAIN ISFREE. To Luxembourg: Roundtrip Fare New York Chicago Bait/Wash. Detroit Orlando $458* $518* $488* $508* $518* $49fr $559* $52fr $549* $55fr Get in on our lowest fare to Europe in years. And with it, get a lot more than just the trip over. Because, when you fly Icelandair, you get everything you expect from a full-service airline, with no charge for meals or baggage. Every fare includes free wine with your in-flight dinner and free cognac after. Icelandair Values Continue After You Land: Free deluxe, round-trip motorcoach between Luxembourg and select cities in Germany, Belgium and Holland. Special $15 train fares to Switzerland or France. Super Saver Kemwel car rentals at just $59 per week in Luxembourg. And, if you choose, a day or two stopover in Europe's most beautifully kept secret, Iceland. •Super Bargain Fare. 6-30 day stay. tSuper Grouper Fare, 1-365 day stay. Valid 5/16-6/8/86, $3.00 departure tax applies. For information & reservations, call your travel agent or Icelandair at 1/800-223-5500. ICELANDAIR Lifestyles contrast on hill by John Hoff staff writer At the outskirts of the Arizona town called Nogales there is a hill. I don't know what it's called or if it's called anything at all, but I have named it "Contrast Hill." On this hill there is a fence. It is a ten-foot- high wire fence that rolls gently across the northern face of the hill. So the hill is divided unevenly, with most of it falling on the Mexican side rather than the American side. Nogales, you see, is a border town. The fence is no ordinary fence, but a real and symbolic barrier between two nations, two cultures and two ways of life. On the Mexican side, tiny brick houses of worn salmon pink and faded lemon yellow cluster to the very edge of the fence, seemingly built one on top of another like the dwellings of the Pueblo Indians. Backyard trails and high twisting roads run dizzily between the closely packed houses. The many clotheslines strung with brightly colored articles of laundry look like a display of the flags of all nations. Here and there a rusted T.V. antenna claws at the hot turquoise sky like a lonely desert tree. On the U.S. side of Contrast Hill there are no houses, no roads, no people. This undesirable property near the fence is oc-cupied only by brown, unkept grass. Those who live at the top of the hill have an unobstructed view of the American town below. They can see modern super-markets, beautiful Spanish-influenced houses, and that ultimate symbol of American lift' and ideals; a McDonald's, in all its instant plastic glory. Three times in the past two years, in-cluding this Christmas. I've found myself at Contrast Hill on the way into Mexico. Lach time, I never know if I will pass that way again, so I stand near McDonald's and fill my eyes with the memory of that unique hill. I've gone there with Alexandria's KEY Bus Ministry, in projects co-ordinated with 'YVVAM', Youth With A Mission to distribute food, clothing and New Testaments to people in Mexico who need them. YWAM is a non-denominational group involved in everything from refugee camps in Thailand to getting Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. The Mexico border isn't as drastic as the Iron Curtain. In fact, even the kids who live near it have little trouble getting across, or so they say. I found this out when a little boy on the Mexican side tried to hard-sell me on a terrified pigeon he had recently captured. "But how would I get it past the Customs Officials?" I pleaded. "La Aduana?" "Don't worry about the Aduana" he laughed. "I sneak it to you on the other side. You buy, yes?" "I buy NO!" I told him sternly, as the pitiful fowl flapped at the end of his string like a very short kite. Actually, I was tempted to say "yes." I didn't want the bird, of course, but I was interested in seeing if this ten-year-old champion of free enterprise could really photo by John Hoff' Border village children have a lifestyle different than typical American children. defy the laws of the U.S. as easily as he said he could. I also wanted to free that miserable pigeon. But I knew if the Border Patrol captured my little amigo he would be a lot unhappier than his feathered hostage. I decided to try another strategy. I smiled my winning smile. He smiled back. "Why don't we let the bird go?" I asked gently. "Pay me first, gringo!" he snapped. That time, as we crossed back into the U.S. I glanced upward and saw pigeons which my young friend had not yet managed to take prisoner. They were roosting and mating and doing pigeon things on top of the big double arch, which all the border traffic had to pass under. Beyond the faded pink archway I could see the infamous "golden arches" of McDonald's, and America. I looked down and saw the endless line of people passing through metal gates. Their cars were being ruthlessly searched, people were holding up their precious green cards for armed guards to scrutinize. Then I looked back up and noted the pigeons doing their pigeon things in whatever country they pleased. And I thought about how the Bible compared people to the birds of the air. "Aren't you much more valuable than they?" it says. "This is backwards," I thought. "People are created in God's image, they should be free and these dirty pigeons could be locked up." One of the birds stared at our slowly ad-vancing bus, waited a few strategic seconds, and then left his wordless reply to my thoughts on the hood before fly-ing off to seek asylum in America. "Maybe they're not so dumb after all," I thought. Or maybe it's just that human beings aren't terribly smart, I thought this Christmas. A few of us guys in the group were allow-ed to visit a Mexican prison in Her-mosillo, the town where we were work-ing. After having our hands stamped with the great eagle seal of Mexico for I.D. purposes, and walking past gates" and people with sub-machine guns, I no-ticed someone's bird feeder in one of the prison courtyards. The Bird Man of Her-mosillo, perhaps? Attending one of the open air church ser-vices conducted by a few Believers in the prison, I kept looking around to see everything possible in this once in a lifetime visit. I saw a tough looking guy with a foot-high figure of Jesus Christ tatooed on his chest, but he was not sit-ting with The Believers. He glared back at me. That was when I decided to get into the sermon and quit looking around. While some of our group played a poor game of basketball against the prisoners (Final Score 284) I stayed on the sidelines and chatted with people. One who spoke perfect English was pushing a prisoner around in a wheelchair. He told me that he was a former United States Marine and a naturalized citizen of America. His mother, he said, lived in Ohio and when he got out in September he was going there. I didn't ask what he was in for. I didn't ask how his compa-nion had ended up in a wheelchair, either. I did ask if there were other Americans in this prison. "Yeah, four from California," he told me. "For weed." "You know," I said to him after a while, "this place is a lot more decent than we expected. In fact it's kind of nice." After the stories we'd heard of Mexican prisons, we expected a hole in the ground with rats. "Yeah, but didn't you see them drag those two guys out?" he asked. "The ones that were all beat up and handcuffed?" "Wh-what guys? What did they do?" I asked. "Oh, must have broke a rule," he sighed. "But it's o.k. here if you don't break the rules." I looked at the prisoner in the wheelchair. I didn't say anything. On the hill there is a fence. If you are born two feet on one side of the fence you have the rights and privileges of an American citizen. If you are born two feet on the other side.well, you do not. I don't know what the hill is called or if it's called anything special at all. But I have named it Contrast Hill.
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