Dreams take you on journeys

As people begin to pursue their dreams the obstacles along the way can send them on many different journeys. For Rajdeep his dream was to grow up to be a professional soccer player. As a young boy Rajdeep grew up watching his favorite South American soccer player, Diego Maradona, who came from a similar life style as Raj. Raj’s family lived in the shady area of Sabinas Mexico just south west of San Antonio Texas. With poverty around every corner and no opportunities in his village becoming noticed would prove to be a difficult task. At the age of seven, Raj’s lack of knowledge of an outside world different from his own made him think it would be easy to achieve his dream one day, but as he grew older Raj could see there were no opportunities for him in Mexico and started asking his father to move to America.

Just before Raj’s tenth birthday Jaswinder, Raj’s father, had saved enough money for the two of them to be guided in to the United States. Wanting the best for his son, Jas waited till the boy was old enough to understand the situation. On September 13 Raj was woken up at 3:00 am “Rajdeep get up, it’s time to go.” They boy still half asleep got up clumsily “papa I wanna take my soccer ball”, “No” his father replies “only your clothes”. Raj and his father meet up with a man dressed in dark jeans and a navy blue polyester jacket his father gives the man what looks to be over $500 dollars American and begins to ask the man how they will go across. The man brings they two up to a fence about 3 meters high with barbed wire hanging off the top the man walks up to a section of the fence and unlocks a small lock which was holding the fence together not to rise suspicion when border control came through the area. The man gives Jas a hand bag and tells him to follow the compass due north all the way to Fort Stockton. When they get there they are to use a pay phone and call the number provided to them in the bag.

It was almost 8:00am and the sun had been beating down on them for hours. The desert was so bright and hot that if people were exposed to it for more than 2 hours they could die from dehydration. Luckily Jas had brought a large bottle of water with them and every so often he would pour it over Raj’s head to keep him from passing out. As they came to the payphone, Jas called the number on the card and let the person to whom he was speaking to know that they have made it. They are then told to wait to be picked up and then they will be transported to a safe location. A lady in a 1980 brown ford pulls up to Raj and Jas and tell them to hop in. “Glad to see you have made it” she says to them. “Thank you for helping us on our journey” says Jas. Raj and Jas are taken to Fort Worth, just east of Dallas, and Jas is provided with a job as a hotel grounds keeper which pays under the table and an apartment complex to live in. Raj begins school and joins the soccer team, with practice and determination he becomes the captain of his school soccer team for the next 5 years.

In his senior year Raj lead his team to the state championship and was offered a full ride scholarship to play for the University of LA. Raj has been scouted by the LA galaxy and is one of the youngest players to play in the MLS alongside David Beckham. Raj’s father is now retired and is the number 1 fan of his son’s team.