Marta

A couple of weeks ago, my house-mom Maria was telling my roommate Nabilah and me about how a 17-year-old Sevillian girl disappeared, pretty much without a trace. The only thing they know is that a friend was supposed to be driving her home that night. She hasn't been seen since.

Normally, this wouldn't be something that I would think would be important enough to post. But the enormous response of the citizens of Sevilla (and even Spain) warrants mentioning. The tone in Maria's voice when she was telling us the news was something I dismissed at first. I guess it's just my "American response"-- as sad as it is, I'm used to things like this happening. But now that I think back to that afternoon, Maria sounded genuinely concerned. Every week there are more and more signs that appear in buildings, on street signs, and at every bus stop. There is one in every taxi and every bus. I have seen groups of people getting on different busses to go to different parts of the city to put up more signs. They have made "Todos somos Marta" T-shirts. (It means "We are all Marta.") Last night, there was a huge fútbol game in Sevilla between England and Spain, and when the players for Spain ran out on the field, every one of them was wearing the "Todos somos Marta" shirts.I'm kind of in awe by how the people of Sevilla have banded together to find this girl that I'm sure most of them had never met. It would obviously be expected if this had happened in a tiny town where everyone knew everyone else, but Sevilla is the 4th-largest city in Spain. Hundreds of thousands of people live here. And it seems that every one of them sincerely wants Marta to be found. Pray that she is.