First, I should inform everyone that Lindsey resigned from the program recently. She appreciated NCCC, she just had to leave. She's a very family oriented person and she had a lot of exciting events happening back home! Our team certainly doesn't blame her for leaving but we miss her dearly! Still, we've functioned surprisingly well since she left, in my opinion.
Here are some pictures from our project with Camp Coast Care in Mississippi:
Above: Me with my Bowser House crew from Kent State.
Above: Me with my Fournier House crew from Lafayette (and assorted other locations).
Above: Me with my city crew from Southwestern Minnesota and the Mayor of Pass Christian.
Above: Letter from the Lafayette kids. Nice, right?
Above: Letter continued.And then here are some pictures of the Grand Canyon, which we visited on our trip back from Mississippi:
Above: Katie L. and Sarah walking.
Above: Ryan and Lawrence.Once we got back to Sacramento, we had some days off and a few debriefings and such. Also, Life After AmeriCorps Day was nice. It's a day where our staff prepares speakers and presentations about our options for life after our term of service. It was a bit disorganized, which resulted in my inability to see in on some of the presentations that I wanted to see, but that's ok. My favorite presentation that I saw was probably by Bike and Build:
http://bikeandbuild.org/cms/
This is a really cool program that I'm seriously considering for the summer of 2010. I'd be biking across the entire country, stopping to help building homes (usually with Habitat for Humanity). It would require that I raise $4,000 beforehand, which pays for my bike and other expenses, and then the rest of it (most of it) gets donated to non-profits (which is where the main point of the program - to donate to non-profits, primarily ones that concentrate on affordable housing).
Right after LAA Day, I left for Lake Tahoe with nine friends. The trip was great. I went snowboarding, hiking and took a lot of pictures. Ryan (not to be confused with the Ryan on my team) found an amazing place for us to stay, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that. It was just a private loft that the owner rented out. It was really well-decorated, well-maintained and, especially when ten people are chipping in, it was inexpensive. Also, I stopped at a casino for about a half hour, got lucky and won enough to pay for my share of the car rental, gas and lodging for the whole trip! To the pictures...
Above: Lisa, Sarah and Jen jumping off of rocks.
Above: Me and Sarah. I know, I'm scruffy. I've since shaved. It took a while.
Above: Jen, Sarah and Lisa.
Above: Lisa, Jen and Sarah in front of the mountain and Lake Tahoe.
Above: Stuff.
Above: I think houses on extreme slopes are really cool.
Above: Lake Tahoe.Now I'm in Los Angeles, which is obviously entirely different from everywhere else I've been in AmeriCorps! We arrived in the afternoon and found our house. It's kind of run down, but I'll take it. There's plenty of space and it's secure, so those are the most important things, right? We didn't have electricity for the first night, but by next day we had it up and running. We have a refrigerator, we brought a microwave and if we want a stove we can use the one in the church next door. There's a preschool that runs at the church, so during the day we get to look out of our windows and watch the kids run around and play! We were thinking about volunteering for them, but it won't fit into our schedule once we start work.
It's a bit of culture shock to be living here, but I definitely don't mind it at all. It's a common occurrence to see a car peel out in the supermarket parking lot with its bass blaring. There's a ton of graffiti all over the place, but it's actually really artistic and amazing stuff (LA is known for its graffiti). There are also probably at least two burger shops on every block. We're not talking McDonalds or Burger King (but those are around too), I mean really random ones with funny names, sketchy-looking buildings and C grades from the Department of Sanitation proudly displayed on their windows. On a side note, there are Vegan restaurants within driving distance (but definitely not in our neighborhood) and the one I went to so far was amazing.
It's also really interesting to see the differences in neighborhoods here. We've done quite a bit of driving around LA and I'm surprised to see how neighborhoods change from bad to good so quickly. I pay a lot of attention to the windows of buildings - it's the primary way that I can tell a good neighborhood from a bad one. In our neighborhood (which is bad, though it definitely isn't even close to being the worst), every home and business has cast iron bars of every single first-floor window, with almost zero exceptions. Drive several miles out in certain directions, and the bars are almost non-existent. So it seems like there is a lot of segregation here, which is typical of any very large city. Our sponsors were talking about how the LA Unified School District is one of largest (if not the largest) school district in the nation, with 168,915 students just in high school! They said that certain local school districts have very distinct advantages over others depending on their location and reputation, and I look forward to learning more about that while I'm here.
I guess we live in a bad neighborhood. It's hard to tell. It's called the "Blood Triangle" and we've been warned by AmeriCorps staff, our CYFC sponsors and even the Dorsey High School kids that we live in a very bad place. Yet, there are plenty of nice-looking houses and cars around, too. It's just confusing because it had some indicators of a "bad neighborhood" but not others. Still, I'll take the advice of the people who have lived here their whole lives and be careful.
Aside from those first impressions, people here are really friendly when you speak to them. The school systems here really need help and our sponsoring organization, The Child, Youth and Family Collaborative, has already done absolutely incredible work here. We've just met our staff and they are really funny and interesting. Our main assignment will be to work at Dorsey High School, providing assistance to teachers during the day and tutoring in and conducting their after-school program in the evening. The team that had this project last worked at Dorsey, and they said that they were really appreciated there.
So far, things have been going well. Dorsey High School isn't the high school for the area that we're living in, but its area has similar demographics. The graduation rate at the school is less than 50%. The area is called "The Jungle" and it's not considered a great neighborhood either. In fact, last week, before we got here, one of the students was stabbed and killed about five blocks from the school. She was apparently one of the stars of the girl's basketball team. It's definitely sad to hear.
The kids at Dorsey are obviously very different from what I'm used to, but they're not terrible at all. Most of them respect me and other staff a lot, they just have a lot of trouble keeping attention. They often say "I'm done with this for now, my head hurts." I, personally, find it difficult to believe that the incidence of headaches is so much higher with inner-city kids compared to kids from other areas! I supposed teachers just haven't dealt with excuses like that correctly in the past, so they're used more often... Anyway, the students I'm working with are really nice, especially when you get their undivided attention and I think things are only going to get better once they get used to having me around.
That's all I've got so far. I'd like to remind any new readers that if you e-mail me, I'll put you on my update list so that you'll always know when I make a new post. Additionally, if anyone wants off the list, please just let me know!
Thanks for reading,
Scott
Posts
