May 2007

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I Cannot Go To School Today, Said Little Peggy Ann McKay

May 3, 2007 in AmeriCorps, Uncategorized by d-roll | No comments

When I was in elementary school, I loved Shel Silverstein. I still do. My favorite poem is ‘Sick.’ I think I’ve had it completely memorized since third grade. Well, I was sick last week. Not just sick. SICK. I pretty much had everything described therein. Only the last line didn’t apply to me. So I was gone from the hood for an entire week.

I hadn’t had an appetite throughout, and still didn’t, really. I was also still tired all the time. With this in mind I came back hoping for a light day. I am such an idiot.

Soup had grad school class and meetings and whatever else, leaving just Co-Workerette and me. I also got word that our new Photography contractor would be holding his first real class tonight. Which meant I’d have to essentially be the bouncer/security team/facilitator/lesson plan off the top of my head-er/Photoshop consultant/IT support/person who takes care of all technicalities. This is the problem with having a contractor come in and run the class. I could do it — but we don’t have the equipment since Co-Worker left. I can teach them anything they want to know about graphic design but that’s hard to do without media to work with in the first place. So he comes in with all his fancypants (literally — this guy had Gucci shoes) equipment and I end up running the class because he doesn’t know anything about working with kids. And he gets paid.

ANYWAY.

Oh, I’m leaving someone out — Co-Workerette brought her new dog. It’s one of those little yappy ugly things. Apparently though, if I were a dog connoisseur, I would have gasped at what an expensive breed was currently traipsing around our Center. Or so she told me.

So it was me, Co-Workerette, the new clueless guy, Yappy, and about 300% more kids than we usually have — the beautiful spring weather brought them out in droves. This is exactly how I wanted to ease back in!

The afternoon and evening were just the sort of chaotic nightmare I didn’t want. I’m not a math person by nature, but this is the equation I came up with: hoodlings + dog x sunny spring weather / me being stuck in a room x no one else stopping them + sugar = *(%*(&%^*%)(@1.

Photo class was running over its allotted time and I was trying to get the guy to wrap up, but he seemed shellshocked by the chaotic atmosphere. All the sudden there was a scream from the other room. I ran in there and found Co-Workerette freaking out like Spielberg’s wife in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Yappy was uncharacteristically un-yappy and just kind of lying on the floor.

“What’s wrong with him?” she cried.

It seemed obvious to me.

“He’s been running around nonstop with the kids for the last 5 hours, he’s probably tired,” I reasoned.

“But he’s not MOVING!”

A few kids gathered around to see what the commotion was.

“Oh– was I not supposed to give him Oreoes?” Bug actually looked guilty.

“YOU GAVE A DOG CHOCOLATE?! He’s DYING!”

She looked down at the dog in horror as Bug ran away.

“So– call your vet,” I suggested. “Don’t panic, just take him home tonight and if he’s still like that you can decide what to do then.”

She scooped him up in her arms.

“I’ve gotta get him to the hospital!” Dramatic pause. “NOW!”

She headed for the door, cradling the scruffy thing that honestly just looked like needed a nap.

“Wait!” I ran after her. Thinking about it now, I’m sure my face was pretty comical. “You’re just leaving me here with all these kids?”

First of all, it’s illegal. Since I’m with AmeriCorps, I’m not technically an employee and can’t be liable blah blah blah legalese. Second, it’s not safe. Even if I wasn’t a puny little white girl I’d still want to be in a large group of adults who watch each other’s backs. Third, it’s just inconsiderate. We usually close up shop between 7:30 and 8, and it was about 7:15 at the time. Why not just say “sorry kids, emergency, we’re closing now” and leave together? Because that would make way too much sense.

I knew she’d never go for the first two reasons, so I plead the third. I suggested we just close, and she whined that we had a whole 15 minutes left. WOW, MY BAD. Alright then. She was out the door with her not-really-dying dog before I could convince her otherwise.

Having been locked in with the 10 or so kids and the contractor the last 90 minutes, I didn’t know what exactly had been going on in other rooms. I looked around the place, taking in some disturbing sights: a glomp of kids with sundae material all over a table, squirting chocolate sauce and whipped cream into each others’ mouths; an open window that people were climbing in and out of at will; the photography contractor still reeling from the aftereffects of a spring-fevered class that wouldn’t sit still or pay attention; and general mass chaos.

Hmm.

Basking in the power of my deputization, I announced that we’re closing “right now.”

I turned to start telling people to pack up when I saw something that ramped up my stress level 10000000x. Before I could get around to shutting said open window, in climbed the last two people I wanted to see — Darth Vader and Michael Vick. The long-dismissed, long-lamented, long-still-not-arrested-for-trashing-the-joint-what-the-HELL Darth and Michael.

Six months ago I probably would have run from the room crying. Only not. Because I don’t do that — except on the inside. Hah. Who knows what kind of crap they would start? When has Darth ever listened to anything I’ve told him? Oy. But I know I wouldn’t have handled it back then as well as I did this time. Something like this only comes from 8 months of experience and understanding how things work around here.

Remember Goofus and Gallant? Yeah. There’s always two courses of action from which to choose. Anyone who’s picked through the 4-year-old Highlights magazine sitting under a chair in the doctor’s office waiting room knows THAT. Luckily upon seeing these two foes, I chose the Gallant route:

[insert picture of Darth and Michael Vick having just climbed through the window]

Goofus overreacts, flips out and allows his fear to be used against him.
“YOU GUYS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE IN HERE. GET OUT NOW!”

Gallant remains calm and presents an authoritative, yet amiable front.
“Hey Darth, hey Michael. What’s up?”

oOoOo

Goofus mocks Darth’s team’s draft picks to cover his fear.
“The Broncos suck! What losers did you draft, anyway? Jake Plummer is worse than Tony Romo! Also GET THE HELL OUT NOW.”

Gallant disarms his opponent with some well-timed self-deprecation.
“The Bengals had a crappy draft day. No amount of new people can make up for all the suckiness on defense. They’ll probably all get arrested anyway.”

oOoOo

Goofus panics when unable to get the offenders to leave the building.
“GET OUT. I’m calling security if you’re not gone in 5 minutes. AND DON’T GET NEAR MY CAR!”

Gallant basks in his impending survival following the friendly exchange.
“Alright guys I’m closing up for the night. See ya later.”

Crisis averted. Crises, even. Even Yappy survived — having ‘officially’ been plagued by fatigue, not Oreoitis.

It was good to be back.

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The Why Album

May 9, 2007 in AmeriCorps, Uncategorized by d-roll | 1 comment

I’ve learned that my drive to and from work each day provides just as much chew on this fodder as my time spent there. This particular day was no different.

Before taking a right into the lot, I noticed what appeared to be a yard sale over on the curb. There was furniture, clothing, toys – all strewn about in a puzzlingly haphazard manner. A small crowd milled about picking through things, and a few items even spilled into the street. It seemed like an odd place to hold one, but I’m not exactly Susie Citypants, so maybe this is how yard sales happen around here.

Leaving those thoughts back at the curb, I pulled into a spot and went inside. Normally I don’t get to work this early – it was around 10 am. But Soup said he had something we all needed to take care of — always a promising precursor.

It ended up being a call for manual labor. I had designed a recruitment flier for our program’s upcoming summer camp. Soup suggested that we should hand-deliver them to every apartment door in the complex. I assumed that by “we” he meant recruit a couple of the more responsible kids who live here to do it for us. Maybe bribe them with pizza or one of those McDonalds gift cards lying around the office.

Not so much. I guess he didn’t want to wait around for them to show up later, or maybe he didn’t trust that it would be done properly. Because before I could locate my body armor, the four of us (Soup, Co-Workerette, the man who runs our music program and me) were outfitted with respective armfuls of fliers and headed upstairs. Not “Upstairs,” but to the 11 floors above us in our building, plus the 11 in the next building, plus the 8 in the other building… and I think that was it. We only covered the “highrises” (in DC, 10-11 floors really is a highrise because of the building height limit downtown) and left the garden-style buildings to their own devices.

I’ve written that our domain is on the bottom floor of one of said highrises. Technically, it’s only accessible from the two outside doors, but there is an emergency door that opens into an inner hallway by the apartment’s laundry room. The door doesn’t have an alarm, so the kids who live in this building often use it to go home at night. I’ve been through that door. I’ve also been in the main lobby. But that’s it. Never around the actual living spaces – not until now.

I don’t know what I was expecting, because my thought process on the living conditions has been rather schizophrenic throughout my time here:

Before arriving, I imagined it to be typical horrible ghetto. Broken elevator shafts, deteriorating walls, lead paint, vermin – the works.

When I finally saw it from the outside, with its cheerfully accented exterior – bright colored paint will do wonders on the psyche — I figured, wow, this corporation did a great job cleaning up and making it nice for residents.

Then I heard stories from the kids about gunshots in adjacent rooms while they sleep, rats running across the floor, and upwards of ten people living in one bedroom units. Sometime later I learned of the crackhouses in operation throughout all the buildings and in various apartments. Perhaps the “cheerful exterior” is exactly that. Only that.

In reality, it’s probably somewhere between the two. For a lot of these residents, it’s better than anything they could dream of living in. The elevators are in good operation, the place seems pretty clean, considering — at least in the common areas. It’s all structurally sound, from what I can tell. I’ve never seen the actual inside of an apartment here, so I can’t vouch for those conditions.

But it wasn’t what I’d hoped — that these great people I’ve gotten to know can have a safe and welcoming place to live. That the inside would be better than the neighborhood. Away from the dilapidated schools and the dangerous streets. But it wasn’t, not really.

Delivering these papers was a sobering experience. The stench in the stairwells was overwhelming — a mixture of urine and pot. The hallways were so dank and dark and depressing I felt like it was a personification of Yer Blues. I wished some of that cheerful yellow paint used on the outside could be spared for the actual living space of the residents. Stains on the hallway carpets were more prevalent than any dorm or seedy hotel I’ve ever had the displeasure of walking through. It was also stiflingly hot, despite the mild temperatures outside. For some reason, after all I’ve seen this year, it never occurred to me until now that maybe this is why so many of the kids don’t want to leave at night.

Then there was the other part. At 11:00 in the morning on a weekday, the majority of the building(s) was at home. Bass music pumped from behind the doors and voices from inside were loud and insistent — that’s just another way of saying there was a lot of yelling. It seemed like nobody was at work or school. This, of course, wasn’t exactly comforting for me. With all the violence plaguing the community lately, how was I supposed to know someone wasn’t going to hear me putting something between their door handle and open it? And then what? Shoot the unfamiliar white girl in the face? It’s not totally out of the realm of possibility, here. Not to mention the fact that I was putting summer camp fliers on doors of crackhouses. Hmm, I wonder if this is one? Or this one? Or this one? When Soup suggested that we split up on the floors to cover more ground faster, I was especially thrilled. Nothing like going at it alone.

And I don’t think I was being paranoid. Not after all that’s happened this year.

After finishing up, we decided to have our staff meeting over lunch. We all piled in Co-Workerette’s car and left the property. On the way out, I noticed the yard sale seemed to have less items out there now. But even more people were milling about. I was about to say something but Soup beat me to it, and I’m glad he did.

“Look at that. Someone got evicted.”

“Yeah, I saw that when I came in,” our music specialist answered, “but there was a lot more stuff out here, then.”

Oh.

That’s how you get evicted around here? I understand the meaning of the word to be banished, expelled, forced out, and whatever — but geeze!

I voiced something close to the above comment in response, and Soup basically said “yeah, that’s the way it is.”

Maybe this is my perpetual hood ignorance talking, but I don’t see why there isn’t another option. I don’t know the circumstances; maybe they hadn’t paid their rent for 5 straight months and had been giving warnings or maybe something illegal was happening inside the apartment or… I have no idea. But surely there’s a better way of dismissing what looked to be a family than dumping the entirety of their measly possessions of the side of the road to be looted and scavenged by a bunch of raccoon-impersonating neighbors. Isn’t there some HUD program that can take in families while they look for alternative means? Isn’t there ANYTHING better than literally treating them like garbage?

When we came back from lunch, the pile of stuff had dwindled further. It was on my mind the rest of the evening, even as I talked with Pixel and Red about how we’d delivered the camp fliers today. Pixel asked if I saw any rats or mice on her floor — she “hates walking around at night because she’s afraid to step on one.”

It took a great deal of restraint not to invite her to sleep on my couch.

I spent a good portion of the day inside this place, wishing there were better ways for these people to live. But then I left that night, noticing that only the last remnants of strewn-about clothing remained on the curb, and hoped that everyone will be able to stay in those dungy, pee-smelling hallways for as long as they need to.

I won’t even pretend I understand why.

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Magical Moronity Tour (Or: If Hell Has A 7-Eleven, I Went To It — Twice.)

May 12, 2007 in AmeriCorps, Uncategorized by d-roll | 2 comments

I don’t like to talk about the people I work with. I may mention them in passing if they were part of a particular situation. But I purposefully don’t REALLY talk about them on here. The point of this blog is to reflect on my interactions and experiences with these kids. Not to dwell on or illustrate whatever issues may or may not exist with the three-ish other adults mentioned in these entries. I find it a bit unprofessional. Maybe it’s just me. Whatever. Point is, this time, it’s unavoidable.

So I apologize in advance… only not really. See, I’m tired of this kind of stuff happening.

I’ve mentioned on previous entries about field trips that Co-Workerette has, shall we say, a poor sense of direction. Well, maybe not so much that as it is her complete lack of common sense when it comes to planning an outing. One who is responsible for the children of others must take into account things like, oh I don’t know, SAFETY. I come from the school of “not winging” that kind of responsibility. I’ll wing a paper. I’ll wing a presentation, even. I’ll wing things that have outcomes and consequences only affecting ME.

I will not wing a group of hoodlings on a field trip.

But it’s not my job to plan these things. It’s hers. And holy hell, I’ve been here how many months? So I should have seen this coming. I accept that spectacular failure.

It started out innocently enough. Doesn’t it always? We were taking the kids go-kart racing as they’ve begged for it since January.

It was supposed to be a quick one. Hour and a half, tops. Because they only go around the track six times and it’s over. Most of the time would be spent getting over there. Wasn’t that the truth. Here’s how it went down – Jack Bauer style.

2:01: I arrive at work after a morning of meetings at the main office. I am informed Dimples has been arrested again. Something about a knife and his father overreacting and trying to get him out of the house forever. I take it in, am disappointed, and decide that at least the worst part of the day’s over.

2:07: I remember Co-Workerette’s travel difficulties in the past, so I ask her where this go-kart track is located. She tells me she has it covered. I want the address anyway. I look up our bus route at the DC Metro Area Transit’s website and make note of the bus number. I shoot an email to my roommate telling her I’ll be back earlier than usual so we can probably go see a 7:30 or 8:00 Spiderman 3.

3:07: Damn, the Reds lost again.

4:30: Our posted leave time. No one’s ready to go. Red wants to know what time we are getting back. “6:00… 6:30, at the latest,” Co-Workerette promises. I have been feeling narcoleptic all day, so I am thankful this will be quick and painless. Maybe I can even get in a nap before the movie.

4:55: I ask Soup if I can lock my laptop bag in his office while we go. He suggests I just take it with me because “we won’t be gone long, and you won’t have to come back in here to get it.” I agree, and lug the monstrosity over my shoulder.

5:03: Our actual leave time.

5:05: Most of the brood, followed by Soup and Co-Workerette, head for “the shortcut.” Remember those good times? I’m wearing platformish- yet-comfortable-sandals and decide I’m not making the jump. Predictably and hilariously, Red and Cupcake want no part of the jump either. We decide to walk around.

5:18: We reach the Metro station, and I notice that Soup and Co-Workerette are not with everyone else. Tyson says they walked back around instead of jumping. Co-Workerette then emerges from the bridge, sans Soup. She says Soup had to get to Philly, and it’s just us now. Lovely. I confirm the bus number with her, and then ask if she knows where we’re supposed to get off. Because this bus won’t drop us right off at the place. She doesn’t respond, and instead passes out fare for the kids.

5:21: We board the bus. I’m annoyed already.

5:23: My bud from Ohio calls me. We chat amiably and then I blithely tell her I’m just going on a quick trip to the go-kart track.

5:34: I ask Co-Workerette which road I should be watching for — she’s busy reading Cape Cod Living — so we know when to get off. She brushes me off again.

5:40: A woman in a wheelchair boards the bus, so we literally sit for 15 minutes while she gets properly “strapped in.” I listen to Bug complain in my ear the entire time.

5:57: We’re still stuck in Friday night gridlock going out to Maryland from DC. I ask Co-Workerette how far we have to walk once we get off. She tells me she doesn’t know exactly where we get off. I stare at her with suppressed rage. She repeats the address to me, and I suggest she go ask the bus driver about where to get off. I mentally slit my throat for not printing out a copy of the itinerary.

5:59: Co-Workerette returns from the front of the bus lacking any additional information as she had to start with. The brood is blissfully ignorant, as they should be. I warily watch for our destination road.

6:10: I inform Co-Workerette that we’re now on the same road as the go-kart track. She thinks we should wait to see if we’ll pass it. I tell her the route of the bus did not go past the tracks – it must be in the opposite direction. Sure enough, the numbers on the street signs are going the wrong way. We hastily pile off the bus.

6:12: The 8 of us stand on a curb in the middle of El Salvador, Maryland. I look around and immediately feel like this is the worst place we could possibly be. Shadiness aside, these kids have probably never seen an entirely Hispanic community and now was not the time for a diversity lesson. Glancing at the street sign above us, I tell Co-Workerette that the address of this place is at least 14 blocks in the other direction. But we’re not in the city anymore, so who knows how far a “block” is. It’s hot. It’s humid. There’s no way we can walk down this road — it even lacks a sidewalk. Someone complains about being thirsty. Someone else complains about not being there yet. Someone else complains about not liking go-karts in the first place. We’re with a bunch of teenagers on a road like Beechmont Avenue. Only I don’t know anything about THIS Beechmont Ave. Neither does she. And it seems to bother only one of us. I start mentally calculating the odds of my surviving the night. Right now it’s a very generous 5:1 shot.

6:13: I wait for Co-Workerette to say something indicative of one who is in charge and in control. Like someone responsible for the 6 minors standing next to us. She doesn’t. She thinks it’s amusing, our predicament. I concede the fact that there’s only one adult on this trip. Someone spots a 7-Eleven down the street.

6:15: We walk to the 7-Eleven and Tyson, in typical fashion, antagonizes the angry-looking group of Latino men loitering by the garbage dumpster. My current odds for surviving the night: 10:1.

6:17: Co-Workerette instructs everyone they may buy a “drink with a lid” so it can be taken on the bus. She then goes off to read the tabloids. Predictably, the brood starts buying slurpees, pizza, chicken wings, hot dogs, candy, and all types of other non-travel-friendly items. I call my roommate to tell her to do something without me tonight. I stand by the Big Gulp station and take deep cleansing breaths.

6:24: We, and by that, I mean “I”, finally get everyone outside the door. Tyson, mouth full of chicken, antagonizes the Latino men again. I mean, really, has the kid not heard of MS-13? My current odds for surviving the night: 50:1.

6:27: We seem to be at a standstill as far as action plans go, but anything is better than pissing off the locals, so without waiting for Co-Workerette to do something, I urge everyone to cross the street and get by the bus stop. I am thankful there’s only 6 of them and not 16.

6:29: I notice the bus stop is in front of a trifecta of seedy liquor stores. Lord.

6:31: Co-Workerette thinks we should just get on the next bus that comes by and “maybe we’ll find the go-karts.” I counter with logic — “isn’t that how we ended up here in the first place?” She ponders this for a beat. Meanwhile I remember that she apparently doesn’t consider “here” to be that bad, anyway. She wonders aloud if we should just go to the movies, instead. We were already supposed to be back by now. I resist the urge to kick the pole.

6:32: I check the bus schedule and note that one should be along in a few minutes. I suggest that we re-board the same bus we came here on and ride it back to our “home” Metro station. Go to the movies. Or go home. The brood seems to want to do that, anyway. Whatever. I don’t care at this point. Anything is better than getting even more lost than we already are. Or sticking around this area. She agrees. Not because it makes sense. She just wants to see Lucky You.

6:36: Some guy walks by with a paper bag-covered 40 and offers our group some. We all decline, except Bug. I decline for him. Said man eyes my laptop bag. I squirm. My current odds for surviving the night: 100:1.

6:39: The bus that was supposed to show up 7 minutes ago never does. Co-Workerette reads the schedule again and shrieks, “IT DOESN’T EVEN COME HERE!” I quickly inform her that yes, in fact, it does, all the while Bug flips out behind me. She counters by pointing out the stop’s non-existence on the printed schedule. I counter her counter with more logic — “It doesn’t list every stop. There’s not enough room on the paper.” Then I tell her to stop panicking in front of the kids because it will only upset them. She tells me I’m uptight.

6:42: Bug convinces himself and anyone within a 50 yard radius that a bus is never coming. Tyson drinks the rest of my Dr. Pepper. Red dances like someone’s filming a Snoop Dogg video over in front of the far liquor store. Cupcake huffs and sighs. Cupcake’s brother continues his uncanny Curious George impersonation. Pixel closes her eyes and leans on me.

6:47: Tyson makes up a new game to pass the time called “yell at all the cars that drive by.” My current odds for surviving the night: 250:1.

6:51: Cupcake and Red and Tyson and Cupcake’s brother start play-fighting. I get them to stop, but only after Tyson nearly gets shellacked by a Dodge Durango.

6:53: The locals start whistling at us from their semi-permanent fixtures next to the booze shops. My butt is sore.

6:58: Co-Workerette says, and I quote, “This is fun!”

7:01: I stand up and call the DC Metro 800 number on the side of the schedule. After touch-toning through 174 menu options, I am informed that the bus will be arriving at 7:08.

7:05: Co-Workerette, having noticed what I just did, deems me “proactive.”

7:06: Tyson’s game now centers on yelling at passengers pulling out of the liquor stores. My current odds for surviving the night: 500:1.

7:09: Co-Workerette blames me for the bus not showing up at 7:08.

7:20: Like a glimmering mirage, a bus appears in the distance. But it’s not our bus. The marquee indicates its eventual stop is another Metro station. A way-way-out-there Metro station, I notice, but then realize that we’re ALREADY way-way-out-there. Co-Workerette decides we should just go there and Metro back home. It’s late. She’ll give the kids movie money to go on their own which means my duties are blessedly through for the evening.

7:21: We board the bus and my tension begins draining away in waves. Sure, it’ll take us forever to get back from this Metro station, but I KNOW EXACTLY WHERE TO GO. Everyone will get their children back! And then I can just go home and sleep! Maybe even by 8! Ahhhh.

7:24: “LOOK! OVER THERE! THE GO-KART TRACKS!” someone yells. “QUICK, LET’S GET OFF!” Co-Workerette responds. “YOU’VE GOT TO BE SHITTING ME!” I don’t say. It’s not a stop, but the driver lets us off anyway. Smart man. I watch our only guaranteed ride back to civilization disappear into the decidedly un-romantic horizon. We walk through knee-high grass to the most kracker jack, piddly-looking track I’ve ever seen.

7:28: I wearily lower myself onto the measly pile of old bleachers. Co-Workerette is down buying their tickets. She gleefully interacts with the hoodlings while I worry about the small problem of getting the hell out of here. When the time finally comes. If ever. The setting sun and lack of bus stop provide quite the ambiance.

7:30: The hoodlings begin their completely unexciting trips around the track. No, really. Pixel is going to be the first person to ever fall asleep at the wheel of a go-kart. Red smiles and waves at me. I wish I could enjoy this. Co-Workerette comes up and sits by me. I casually, and by casually of course I mean with barely restrained acerbity, ask how we’d be getting back. She looks at me, and, I shit you not, says “ooooh, we’ll just go as the wind takes us.” My current odds for surviving the night: 1,000,000:1

7:35: Tyson crashes into Bug.

7:37: I have a Eureka! moment. I grab my laptop bag and pull out Old Faithful. Thanking myself for being too lazy to shut down my computer, I open it — the system is only sleeping — all of its whatevers still in tact. One of those whatevers is my Firefox browser. The one that I didn’t “X” out of. The one that still displays the page from the DC Metro website with the bus route directions. I pull it up. Willing my brain to operate, I reverse the directions in my head and find where our original bus departure point is. According to my calculations, a bus stop will materialize — down a block or two, over a block or two, down a block. However far blocks are in El Salvador.

7:39: Bug crashes into Tyson.

7:41: A random woman sits next to me and asks where we’re from. I resist saying we’re part of the Typewriter Maintenance Division of the Rocko Club School For Women.

7:43: Bug and Tyson crash into each other. I wonder when go-karts became bumper cars.

7:44: Literally 14 minutes after it began, the actual go-karting is over. The sun is almost completely set. Knowing the buses aren’t exactly plentiful this late in the evening, I attempt to hustle the hoodlings from the track. Co-Workerette encourages them to stop at the vending machines.

7:46: Exactly half the group thinks [go-karting] was “really stupid.”

7:47: Co-Workerette walks over to me and admits she doesn’t know how to get us home. I have no words.

7:48: I find the words. They sound a lot more sarcastic in my head. “I was able to pull up the route on my computer blah blah blah just walk this way.” She responds — “They have the Internet out here?”

7:50: We trek at an impossibly slow pace back through the knee-high grass along the side of a poorly-lit road.

7:56: We manage to cross half the busy road and wait on the island in the middle to cross the second part. Tyson stands down on the road and actually moves closer to the semi truck currently barreling towards us at what has to be more than 60 mph. He proceeds to taunt the truck and yell at it after it passes by. I lose my patience and ream him for being a total moron. He rationalizes being able to sue the truck driver if he got hit. I tell him that would be difficult with his body parts all over the road.

7:59: Instead of walking past the dimly-lit-imitation-for-a-one-pump-gas-station like normal people, Tyson and Cupcake’s brother decide to walk through it and yell at the people working there to “go back to their own country.” My current odds for surviving the night: 5,000,000:1

8:03: After a few minutes, we miraculously find the bus stop, thanks to the 30 pound bag I’ve been lugging around all night. I am about ready to weep of happiness when Bug complains that he has to pee. This is Bug. He’s the biggest drama queen in 6 states. I tell him to hold it. Co-Workerette overrules me. “BUT HE HAS TO GO!” Great. I point to a bush. She looks at me like I just gestured at a bomb and says we’ll all have to go back to the (different) 7-Eleven we passed five minutes ago. I remind her that at this time of night and this far out, there’s probably one bus an hour — if that. She ignores me and starts walking everyone back down the street.

8:09: I am beginning to hate 7-Elevens.

8:10: The jolly cashier “can’t seem to find” the bathroom key. Bug is prancing around the store in a full-bladder, Oscar-winning performance. He and Tyson go outside. Everyone else – wait for it… wait for it — starts lining up to buy chicken wings, pizza, slurpees, and whatever else. I wonder if our fickle ticket to civilization has passed by yet. No, I really hate 7-Elevens. My current odds for surviving the night: 1,000,000,000,000:1

8:11: I realize I have a better chance of winning the lottery than surviving this trip. I consider playing the Maryland Powerball.

8:12: I venture outside where a couple cops are milling around. I consider the poetic nature of Bug and Tyson getting arrested for indecent exposure and peeing on a public bush to top off my night.

8:21: Bladders drained and empty carbohydrates purchased, everyone congregates outside and eventually we all start walking back up the road. I wish I had a flashlight.

8:27: The bus stop is on a residential road. Whoever’s front yard we’re all standing in comes outside and glowers at us. I don’t bother looking at the bus schedule.

8:36: Mercifully, miraculously, and other words that begin with M, a bus picks us up. The correct bus. It has gas and everything. We’ll get back to the station much faster this time around. I slide bonelessly into a seat and count to 30.

8:39: We get stuck behind a train crossing. In the 8 minutes it takes for the blasted thing to fully pass by, I think about how I didn’t learn my lesson from Toby about tempting fate.

8:52: We arrive back at our neighborhood Metro station, and no one wants to take another bus back to the complex. We start walking. Normally one may be fooled into complacency by the familiar surroundings. Especially after being lost half the night. But it’s dark and it’s the hood and being adult enough for two at the moment, I know — My current odds for surviving the night: 20:1.

8:55: We try the reverse shortcut but a train is sitting on the tracks. My 30 pound bag and I hop a fence and clamber down an inclined side of a bridge overpass. Over rocks and broken bottles and dirty needles and… yeah. In sandals. Somehow.

8:59: By now the brood is all scattered, but I don’t care. They probably don’t want to go inside yet anyway. We approach the dark and scary alley that passes for our route back. I pull out my pepper spray keychain. Co-Workerette is confused. I don’t bother explaining. I resist spraying her.

9:07: We finally enter the parking lot. It’s still a long way up to our section. But I have never been so happy to see this dump. My current odds for surviving the night: Even.

9:10: After listening to Co-Workerette talk the last few minutes about how she’s “never felt unsafe” around here, I quash the urge to kick her in the face. I bid her a polite goodnight and get in my car. My sweet, sweet beloved car. Of which I am in total control. On my own. Just me.

9:37: I repeat the above story to mom via speakerphone on my drive home. I don’t even get to 7:30 before I’m on my street. Finished dealing with what was probably 20 adults-worth of pressure and anxiety in my system, I have a total adrenaline meltdown. I turn the car around and go to Wendy’s. I decide I need bacon. And fast.

I never did get to see Spiderman 3.

Odds are it sucked anyway.

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Prose Before Hos

May 14, 2007 in AmeriCorps, Uncategorized by d-roll | No comments

It had been a seemingly typical low-key Tuesday until two little words sent me running from the room screaming like Uncle Jesse threatened with a crewcut.

Field. Trip.

Obviously I was still nursing my blisters from last Friday’s Magical Moronity Tour.

But once the rushing air stopped clogging my ears, I discovered this trip might actually be a good time. A great time, even.

Tuesday’s only evening class is Upstairs Woman doing X-Treme Teens. I can’t for the life of me remember if I’ve ever talked about this. I must have mentioned it at some point. But it’s basically an “anything goes” class. Whatever she feels is a timely topic, she covers. This week, taking the hoodlings to a teen-acted, teen-produced, teen-everythinged presentation of MacBeth was apparently appropriate. And Co-Workerette decided that I should be the second adult chaperone, not her.

Not that I’d ever complain at the prospect of seeing my absolute favorite work of Billy S.

Hark!

The best part about the trip was how I didn’t have to worry whether she could get us there in a timely fashion. Upstairs Woman has special insurance that allows her to be liable for hoodlings riding in the Hoodwagon, which is essentially the most stereotypical, gigantic, rusting, pollutant-emitting, nasty football pads-smelling, one-of-four-doors-working, Shamu-of-a-van this side of the Continental Divide. She also has access to MapQuest and a printer, along with a rudimentary knowledge of traffic laws. Whee!

Only about eight kids ended up going. I wasn’t around for the previous week’s class, so I’m not sure if she prepared them for this. She certainly didn’t before we left. Which was kind of puzzling. Because if they’re going to get something out of this, it’s probably not best to assume their crap schools have somehow fit “Understanding Shakespeare” in between crossword puzzles and mathless math. So I did my best to quiz the people sitting around me in the Hoodwagon on their Shakespearian knowhow. You can imagine how this went.

Me: So… do you study Shakespeare at school?

Pixel: *shrug*

Me: You think he’s hard to understand?

Pixel: *shrug*

Me: Do you have any idea what you’re going to see?

Pixel: *shrug* I just wanted to go somewhere.

The rest of the van was much too engrossed in belting out rounds of “Um-barrr-ella (ELLA!) (ELLA!) (EH!) (EH!)” so I resigned to at least being able to enjoy it for myself.

We piled out of the whale van at some little arts center across the city just as the play was starting. I still have no idea how Upstairs Woman managed to find a space, let alone parallel park that monstrosity. Anyway. The kids all filed into the back row of the tiny theater until we urged them all to sit closer. I sat next to Pixel and Red a couple rows behind everyone else. This worked well for me because I was just as interested in surreptitiously observing their reactions as the performance itself. Probably more so. It’s what I do.

Shakespeare, as most people probably discovered during bouts of Curricula Force Feedus, is HARD. Hard to really grasp and analyze and relate and ENJOY because it simply does not make any sense. Or rather, does not make sense without effort on the reader’s part. So my expectations hovered slightly above zero for my peeps to comprehend any semblance of plot or story. For most people it’s like trying to understand a second language. For them, I’d imagine it’s like trying to understand a second language while standing on their heads and humming O Dem Golden Slippers.

Everyone seemed oddly fascinated throughout the three witches spiel in the opening scene. But after the sixth “… um… line?…” in 30 seconds from the poor, stage-phobic/amnesiac MacBeth, the brood began collectively nodding off.

Pixel and Red seemed to at least be watching the stage with open eyes, but I couldn’t say for sure about those in front of us. A shame, too, because I was thrilled that a MacBrotha was playing MacBeth. The cast consisted of all teenagers, probably averaging around the same 15ish age as ours. It was also a very racially-mixed group, which would have been great exposure, had any of ours been paying attention.

I want to say that the “teenage production” hook was both the best and worst part of it. The best, of course, because it opened up more doors of opportunity for our kids regarding ways to spend their time and talents to explore. Certainly we have more than enough drama queens who need an outlet. But because this was a teen Shakespeare club, practice time was probably next to nil, epidemic procrastination syndrome did not equate to remembering lines, and general performance anxiety for at least half the cast translated into a mind-numbingly boring adaptation.

I briefly considered writing “…um….LINE?” after every third sentence in this entry because that literally is how the play went. But I’m not that much of a masochist.

Despite that, following along was fine for me, because I knew the story, the characters, and a good number of the lines. But for the brood, it probably amounted to a lot of ye olde blah blah blah-ing, mayhap.

But there remained a shroud of hope — this play, I knew, would eventually get violent!

I don’t work with a big staff. I don’t even work with a small staff. In fact, most of the time I’m on my own with the kids, so I don’t have anyone else off whom to bounce ideas or comments or general observations of perfect irony. Mostly it’s just my head and me. Cool.

So I make bets with myself. It works out, because obviously, I never lose.

This time the bet was “when the nodders-off, particularly Tyson, will snap awake and become entranced by the performance.” Naturally I guessed the especially murderous and sword-wielding latter-acts.

You would not be-lieeeeve the sheer velocity with which heads shot up for those fight scenes. We’re talking whiplash-caliber jerks, here.

Also there was that endearingly predictable eruption of laughter when MacBeth wonders aloud, “Who’s there? What, ho!”

Thankfully this was apparently the “abridged” version, and it ended within a reasonable hour or so. I was surprised that the best part of the performance ended up being the question and answer session with the cast after they finished. Before taking questions, each of the 25-ish members said their name, age and school. The majority of the public school kids were, unsurprisingly, from Woodrow Wilson, which is in far Northwest DC. It’s hardly a toenail’s likeness to Sidwell Friends (private school catering to the Elite Beltway Offspring), but it’s a still light year or two away from the atrocious Cardozo.

Wilson is much more racially integrated and the number of low-income students drops considerably. Maybe those kids are more exposed to opportunities like this because a parent is around to encourage it. I doubt the correlation is a coincidence. But the girl who played — brilliantly, I might add — Lady MacBeth said she had to find a club like this to join because her school doesn’t have art and drama classes. Yup, gotta love those budget cuts. Unless the budget never existed in the first place, which is entirely possible around here.

Our kids had a couple good questions for the cast. Too bad I can’t remember what they are now. But for the most part they seemed intrigued that other DC youth could be into something besides sitting around after school. I asked Pixel and Red on the way out if they enjoyed themselves. They nodded, and Pixel added that she thought the play was “real funny.” Yup, nothing cracks me up like a Shakespearian tragedy.

They may not have understood any of it, but the exposure was worthwhile. It’s impossible to fully comprehend this idiosyncratic bubble they live in until you’ve experienced it yourself.

The Hoodwagon sputtered back home, but not before making an obligatory stop at our neighborhood McDonalds. Like most trips into the “other DC,” it was equal parts culturally fascinating and socially distressing.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

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Silent But Deadly

May 16, 2007 in AmeriCorps, Uncategorized by d-roll | 1 comment

In college, I was somewhat of a journalism school oddball.

I found that 95% of those accepted to the program were either already set on a future career in print or broadcast media, or were full-throttle on the advertising track. The other 5% just enjoyed the building’s close proximity to the Union’s swell food court.

I wanted nothing to do with advertising, even less to do with broadcast, and wasn’t entirely sold on the (dying) print media.

Here’s the thing. I don’t mind reporting, but I absolutely abhor that “getting the scoop” mindset. I prefer to spend a lot of time with a subject rather than just calling them up and asking for a quote. It seems cheap, you know?

This is why I was the world’s crappiest Brownie. Nope, didn’t even make it to full Girl Scout. I only got the stupid participatory smiley face pencil because I didn’t want to bother my neighbors to buy cookies. Also because I didn’t know fire building from pedicuring.

I don’t have a problem talking with people, but just want no part of invasive investigation or being assertive to the point of drawing way too much attention to myself. I prefer trying to blend in and finding out stories the natural way. I guess I didn’t realize at the time that perhaps I should have been taking anthropology courses instead. I didn’t realize they actually have a name for that — ethnography.

Funny how things work out, though. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing all year… naturally.

The last thing any of these kids want or need is some outsider coming into their lives and asking personal questions and being all up in dey biddniss. Everyone has this irrational (to me, not them) fear of authority. I shouldn’t label it “irrational” because it’s part of the culture. Every authoritative figure is “The Feds.” Cops are the feds, social workers are the feds, parole officers are the feds, random white guys visiting the Center for whatever reason are the feds. Feds are the feds. Not that they’ve ever seen one.

It’s why, in that entry I wrote 8-odd months ago, I had to ask for their “government” names. Nobody wants to let out any truths about themselves for fear of being tracked and oppressed by the White Man. I wonder if they realize how oppressed they are to begin with. But I digress.

Point is: nobody is forthcoming with information. And asking them for it will only earn you a glare and some comment that would loosely translate into “no effing way.” The most detrimental consequence of pestering for information is the deterioration of trust. They don’t understand that someone like me might ask things out of curiosity or for their general welfare. They see it as prying for information that is none of my business, and then they’re less likely to tell me anything. Even things as mundane as how they’re feeling at the moment.

I’ve found that being patient and allowing them to build a trusting relationship with me over time is the way to get to know the “true them.” When I first met Dimples, I saw the probation ankle tracker thing on his leg. Jennifer Journalist might have said “What did you do? How did you get that? What crimes did you commit?” I took the “I’m here for you” route. I spent every day reading with him and talking about mundane things and answering his loopy dimpled grins with my own loopy dimpled grins. Then one day, he told me his entire rap sheet out of the blue while writing that one essay thing.

At that point, I not only had the information, but I could actually have a conversation with him about it. I guarantee that had I asked him about it during that first meeting three months prior, I wouldn’t have known how to respond. Not that he would have told me anyway. But if he had, I’m sure I would have just stared dumbly in return. Or more likely, not have interacted with him again because OMG, CRIMINAL! EEEEP!

I’m bringing up all of this now because today reminded me once again — there’s so much the kids here don’t say.

Even when they want to tell me, they still don’t articulate it. No, I make my best discoveries while editing their papers.

Today, Pixel handed me some assignment and asked me to “check it.”

“What am I checking it for — spelling? Content? Grammar?”

Shrug.

“Alright, I’ll just go for everything, then.”

She just nodded and walked away.

Pixel has very quietly become a prominent fixture in my daily adventures. Like Cupcake and Red, she’s been there from the start. But in the last few months, I’m no longer just “extra person who’s around after school every day.” It’s almost like each of them have their own internal trust sensors. Once an adult has been around long enough, they’re deemed non-fraudulent and the wall at least partially dissolves.

She seeks me out after getting here every day (it used to be the opposite), complains when I have to skip certain Friday trips because of AmeriCorps meetings, and says she misses me when I’m not around. Among other things. But she’s just so quiet — and I think she likes the fact that I respect that. I talk to her, but I don’t pry, and much of the time we just enjoy comfortable, companionable silence.

So today I got her paper. She’s pretty smart, so the spelling mistakes were minimal, and the paragraphs were well-formed. Mostly I was trying to decipher her schizophrenic verb tenses. Yes. That, and learning more about her life in two pages than I had in the last eight months.

From what I gathered, it was supposed to be a career paper. She couldn’t decide between wanting to be a pediatrician or a photographer. She’d always wanted to be a pediatrician but had recently discovered a love and talent for photography so now that was screwing up the works (sounds familiar).

But somehow she got lost on a tangent about her difficult childhood. Her father got arrested. Par for the course around here, but she made it sound especially painful. I don’t know what happened to her mother. But whatever it was must have been equally terrible, because it had the a similar result: a parent not around to care for the child. Then came the kicker: Pixel and her sisters were placed in foster care — separately. And while still in that respective care, she got word that her two sisters were adopted by another family and moved somewhere “very very far away.”

She ended up being adopted by an aunt herself, but was incredibly distraught about being separated and cut off from her sisters. Inconsolable. She wrote about how she couldn’t sleep or concentrate on anything in school. I can’t imagine how she concentrates in schools like these regardless, but all of that on top of it? She wrote that her grades suffered because of it, and that she’d have to work a lot harder now in order to make up for it. That she still lived with her aunt, but she was hoping things would get better.

It was a painful, cathartic addendum to an essay that probably didn’t need it. But I kept it in. All of it.

“Here you go,” I handed it back to her. “You kept switching verb tenses. I changed them so they’re all consistent.”

A nod.

“Need anything else… I’m here,” I said, not talking about her grammar.

She knew it.

“Thanks.”

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Dirty Laundry

May 21, 2007 in AmeriCorps, Uncategorized by d-roll | No comments

“Hey,” a friend called my cell around lunchtime. “Saw you guys made the Post. Nice.”

On a normal day my breakfast is oatmeal — liberally sprinkled with the Washington Post Online. But having a case of the Mondays, I didn’t eat, didn’t read, and probably didn’t have my head on straight upon arriving at work.

“What?” I dumbly replied.

“A-1,” she said. “Gotta go.”

This was about the time I finally noticed the news van sitting out front.

Oh.

It’s a bit sad how well I know the media machine. I didn’t need to read what happened to know what happened.

People are shooting around here all the time. And the news never shows up. Because it’s hardly newsworthy. So: someone must have finally gotten hit. And if it was in today’s Post, it must have happened yesterday. And if it happened yesterday and the TV news crews were still around now, it must be sexy. And by sexy I mean dramatic, and by dramatic I mean kids. Or old people. But probably kids. And probably not any of ours, either, because I’m sure I would have gotten a call. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know them. There are dozens of kids on this property who don’t come to programming.

Brilliant deductions made, I surfed to the Post Online. Don Henley would have given me a gold star.

Four (4!) teenagers got shot in broad daylight Sunday. On our property. Sitting on the playground.

It says three of them got shot in the back. This isn’t what you’d call a crime of passion. They were RUNNING. AWAY.

No one died. As of yet, anyway. And no names released. The kids all know the victims, though. I was right — nobody who comes to programming, but they all live here. Most of them hang around Upstairs.

So, then comes the question of why — and who dunnit? Surely because this incident happened in the clear, light, warm embrace of a Washington evening will prove useful to naming and catching the perpetrators. Ah, yes! But — wait for it… wait for it…

Nobody’s talking! Nobody wants to say who shot four kids. Nobody wants to snitch.

Our kids say it was a beef between those who ‘rep’ a nearby area and those who ‘rep’ ours. It was some intersection about 5 minutes walking distance from here. Apparently they came here looking for whoever they wanted to beef with and saw these other kids instead. So, you know, might as well shoot ‘em while we’re here! Environmentalists are always pestering people to combine trips, right?

As the days get longer and warmer, those young adults with no life direction, no parenting, no positive influences, and no idea how to escape the vicious circle otherwise known as life in the hood, will be subject to increasing boredom. Which probably means more news vans.

Sorry. I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m off to Pentagon Surplus for some Kevlar.

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The War At Home

May 22, 2007 in AmeriCorps, Uncategorized by d-roll | 4 comments

Tonight was the much-hyped community meeting thing about the recent shootings. A city councilman for this district decided to call the gathering Upstairs and invite residents, community folk, metro police, and whoever else. The little teensy bit of cynic in me had initially wondered if he’s up for re-election or something. But maybe he did it because the people living around here desperately needed it. Either way, it was supposed to serve as a forum for dialogue about what happened and what can be done to curb the ongoing violence.

So of course it dissolved into last-call auditions for Jerry Springer contestants.

Not that I was there to see it or anything.

No, no. I was put to work playing IT support for the upcoming reading post-assessment database. Everyone else went.

But from what Soup and Co-Workerette said, not much got accomplished. It basically turned into a “who could out-bitch who” session. So disappointing. But the worst part was when I asked about which kids showed up.

“Only a couple” according to Co-Workerette.

Herein lies the crux of the problem. Yes, some of the violence around this neighborhood can be attributed to drug dealing and other general hoodish skirmishes and whatnot. But the majority of recent incidents, especially since I’ve been around, have been teenagers/young adults and beef-related. Whether it’s groups coming in from across town or up the street, problems aren’t going to be solved without talking to the demographic most involved.

I didn’t expect “7th and Sesame St.,” or whatever the kids are calling the group responsible for the latest shootings, to show up and have tea and crumpets mumbo sauce. But interacting with and listening to those around that age seems like the logical place to start.

I don’t have a solution. I don’t even have a good suggestion. Like most problems in urban America, it’s multi-layered and complicated when you take the time to examine it. And apparently arresting people isn’t a good deterrent. Maybe that’s why DCPD still hasn’t picked up Darth and Michael Vick.

Nah, see, they’re still “on the loose,” and in the meantime, I just stare at the decorative hunk of useless plastic and fiberglass formerly known as a computer monitor sitting on my desk. It hasn’t worked since Darth and Michael Vick trashed the place in January. Ya know, the break-in and robbery that produced more than enough evidence to arrest them forty times over. I don’t even want them “locked up” (no one ever uses the term “in jail” here — kind of fascinating psychological semantics that should probably be another entry)… a really good placement for 200 hours of community service might be nice.

Although, considering how rare it is to know exactly who the perpetrators of a crime are around here, maybe the cops are just beside themselves with confusion on what to do next. They’re so used to witnesses to a crime, and oftentimes the victims themselves, maintaining ignorance or refusing to report it because snitching is more heinous and socially debilitating an offense than serial murder.

I am so completely not kidding. I can be Captain Hyperbole to illustrate a point, but the culture of anti-snitching in urban America is a very real and massively detrimental problem. Example: Gun-Wielding Thug #1 may have just shot your best friend, but the three of you have a common enemy: The Feds. So it’s just better not to snitch. Because that’s just the way it’s been, so that’s the way it is, G. Also: the world is flat! And sea monsters guard the British Isles! That’s the way it’s always been, so no beans on toast for you.

Which is why I doubt they’ll ever find out who shot up the playground. Even from the kids who got shot themselves.

I chuckle now, thinking about my naivety back when Fooler and Michael Vick stole Co-Workerette’s car and then nobody wanted to say who did it. I didn’t understand why even the “good” kids wouldn’t tell us. I couldn’t comprehend any reason for it. Didn’t they want to do the right thing? Didn’t they want to stop people from getting hurt? Didn’t they want to help the adults whom they liked and trusted? No, no, and no.

Why? Because, THAT’s why!

That’s what they say. There’s a lawlessness here that makes it even more of a “different world” than it already is. Nobody wants to trust the cops, and nobody wants to hold each other accountable. They’d rather just status quo themselves to death forever and ever and ever.

I’m just not confident that anyone can stop what goes on around here. Not until the people with equal parts money, power and heart see our fellow Americans trying to survive the inner city as people worth saving. The current administration seems so keen about “freedom spreading” all over the globe, but what about everyone on our own soil, caught up in the war known as their daily lives?

The War on Drugs, War on Poverty, War on Homelessness, War on Really Crappy Education, War on Violence, War on Joblessness…

No, really. These “War on…” whatevers just amount to one big ol’ “War at Home” that the majority of people would rather pretend doesn’t exist. Otherwise it wouldn’t be there, right? Or they’re so teary-eyed from hearing God Bless America during yet another 7th Inning Stretch that they are just completely ignorant to what’s probably happening a mile down the road, because the route from the suburbs to the stadium doesn’t have to go through the real part of the city.

When did the Iraq War become the only one worthy of our attention, not to mention tax dollars? Maybe I shouldn’t touch that can of nauseating worms. But it’s hard not to think about it — not while kids are getting shot while sitting on a playground in the capital city of the United States of America.

We have way too many casualties on our own soil. There’s no reason citizens in the world’s richest nation have to live like this — whether it’s my peeps, or those in New Orleans or the sticks of West Virginia or wherever.

Wartime commands an intense precedence in America. We pull together as the personification of patriotism. We take our battles seriously and flex both muscles and pride like a quarterback prom king. All except this one. This other, forgotten one.

It never gets any mention in the State of the Union. It doesn’t have its own memorial on the National Mall. It isn’t transformed into a colored, magnetized and oversized ribbon and plastered on the backs of minivans in the suburbs. It is simply ordinary citizens trying to survive living in a country self-deemed as the Envy of the World. The War at Home isn’t on the DoD’s budget. But it’s there.

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Pix of the Litter

May 24, 2007 in AmeriCorps, Uncategorized by d-roll | No comments

Soup doesn’t delegate much.

Not that he doesn’t want to, but I think most of his work is so specifically administrative that I’d have no idea how to do any of it. But today I got an extra assignment tossed on my desk. I’m not sure if he didn’t feel like doing it, or if he thought I could give a better perspective. I’d hoped it was the latter, but I’ve been here long enough to know it was probably the former.

Whatever. I was glad to get it either way.

The nonprofit corporation that owns this complex and program has over a dozen more properties in the greater Washington/Baltimore area. And each site that has a “programs” portion like ours was to choose one participant and write a recommendation for why he or she should receive the corporation’s scholarship award. So not only did I get to choose the student from our site, but I got to answer the questions and write about why this person deserves the award.

It took me about ten seconds to pick.

Nine of those seconds were spent handing Dimples a 10 and telling him to pick me up some fries and mumbo sauce and whatever he wanted so that I could complete this task in relative peace. I hadn’t seen him since he got arrested and banished to another foster home. I think he stopped by to show me his new tattoo. But I wanted some uninterrupted conversation with him, and I needed to do this first. We chatted briefly before he left.

“Got a tatt’.”

He pointed at the underside of his forearm, which now sported two dice below a script version of his mother’s name.

“How did you manage that? You’re 14.”

He shot me a trademark innocent smile.

“You know I can get whatever I want.”

Great. I’m sure Big Mo or whoever owns the needle gun thing on 7th Street ran a completely sanitary front porch business.

“I bet you can… say, are you getting your dad’s name on the other arm?”

See, I can be cute, too.

He scowled at me and shoved the money in his pocket.

“You ain’t funny!”

And he was off. So, done with my digression.

It didn’t take me long to know that Pixel was my girl.

The questions I had to answer about her dealt with commitment to education, proficiency in technology, contribution to the community, and leadership skills. Nobody else around here holds a candle to her in that… err… quad-fecta.

I always hate having to ask former professors and employers and the like for letters of recommendation. It probably goes back to my Brownie Complex of not being particularly fond of bothering people, despite the fact that the majority of them like me.

But being on the other side of it for the first time was really, really great. I’ve never more desperately wanted something for another person. I wanted her to get recognition and confidence and… a ticket out of here. She’s never going to be a National Merit Scholar. She probably won’t even have average SAT scores. And that’s frustrating because she’s at least as smart as any of my high school classmates who had no problem moving onto higher education. But little awards like this might make others take notice in her before she gets stuck in the doomed spin cycle of life.

Pixel has no idea that she has the capacity to be someone, somewhere else. I wrote about basically deputizing her in photography class because she has the natural “artist eye” that pretty much everyone else lacked. Dimples has potential there, but his head is only hanging onto his neck by half a screw, and he’ll need to find some tools before the dang thing starts rolling down Rhode Island Ave.

She doesn’t realize, despite my encouragement, that it’s a talent which can lead her other places. She also doesn’t realize that she has natural teaching and leadership skills. To her, it just seems like helping out her friends. Most of all, she doesn’t realize that selling photography in an exhibit as a 15-year-old is not normal. A lot of students had entries in the December show, and Dimples had the “big one” that garnered the most attention, but no one else contributed the sheer number of consistently great pieces as she did.

And so I typed away, making it as difficult as possible for these suits (or whoever) to resist picking her. I know what she’ll be up against from the other programs. Our site is the most… hmmm. What’s a PC-way to put this. Ours seems to be the most “urban.” Many of them are on the outskirts of the city and are populated by African immigrant families, and others are further up towards Baltimore and located in less-hostile environments. The other sites in Southeast DC are much smaller and I suppose the populations of the sites are more easily regulated. What I’m trying to say is — ours is the Hard Knock Site. The other nominees will likely have had access to more school programs and opportunities to boost their status. I doubt the others have had people shot outside their apartments lately. Oy.

But upon my final read-through before giving it back to Soup, I think she’s got a pretty good chance. I thought about giving her a copy of it, just so she’d know. Know that someone was in her corner… know that she deserved recognition… know that despite what society tells her, she’s already beating the odds. But I didn’t. I think it would freak her out. At least right now.

Dimples eventually returned with the curryout, and was predictably mum about his time away. He was much more interested in re-acquainting himself with the white girl-ness of my straight hair. Some of them are easier to help than others.

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World Wide Waste

May 26, 2007 in AmeriCorps, Uncategorized by d-roll | No comments

According to the AmeriCorps people, you’re supposed to accomplish something during your service that “can be left behind.” Not like, a wad of paper on the floor. You know, something useful to the people there even after you’re gone. Well, it just so happens that this place needed a website and I have professional design skills. What a marriage!

Or not.

Word of warning — this entry’s subtitle was almost “Everything you’ve never wanted to know about a non-profit.” Well, that’s not fair. Everything you’ve never wanted to know about THIS non-profit. Since I don’t really have experience with other ones. But I edited out most of that.

I’ve avoided talking about it until now. This falls into the same category as my dealings with Co-Workerette on the doomed Go-Karting field trip. This corporation gave me a great opportunity to work where I have been all year. I don’t want to belittle that. But that doesn’t mean I have to take this, for lack of a better word, crap, and enjoy it.

Way back in the yonder days of my hoodlife, during the sweet, innocent months of October and November, Co-Worker (remember that ol’ chap? Yeah!) got very, very excited when he found out I have experience in web design. He’d been pushing for a separate site for our program for a while, but didn’t have the means to construct one before now. Before me.

So we started talking about why it should be pursued. This site could serve a lot of purposes: a place to showcase the music, photography, art and other projects that students in our program create; a means to inform and involve parents and guardians in their child’s life and interests without being intrusive; a reference point for those already in the program of upcoming events and trips and classes and whatnot; and, most of all, a way to recruit kids who don’t live around here so they too can have safe, meaningful, enjoyable after-school activities.

And it would be teen-centered — a site that lacked all the boring, static, corporate markings of the organization’s main webpage.

Sounds great, huh? Well, it was. I should know, because it was finished.

Before I began, Co-Worker told me he knew a professional coder who could embed some mp3 and video players since that was a bit beyond my expertise. I thought that was a great idea, considering our music program was its biggest attraction. That way, youth could surf around the site and listen to their self-written, self-recorded, self-produced music at the same time. Cool!

The coder went a step further with his kindness and said that I could design all the pages and all of the content, and he’d embed ALL of it into his code. I likened this to me writing a thesis and him translating it into Slovakian. I’d do all the groundwork, the research, the content, the visual elements. And he’d save me from the tedious, technical part.

So I worked with youth from November to May on my mocked-up copies. Basically, I designed a few different versions of what the site could look like, and I showed them around the Center and got opinions on what they liked and didn’t. I polled them on the kinds of features that would entice them and their friends to visit. I tested out features, changing and re-changing certain nuances so they would reflect what the demographic using the site would want. Right down to the colors on the page.

Once the design properties were to my peeps’ liking, I started building the actual pages of content. There was a page for the music program, complete with video screen and top downloaded songs; a photography and art page with galleries of work and information on past and upcoming exhibits and classes; a calendar page with upcoming events and information on the SAT program and other seasonal offerings; a current classes page that described all of the nightly courses we offered, as well as ones from the past that could possibly be offered again in the fall; a resources page with links to the best homework help and other sites for educational and research purposes; a page thanking our donors and ways to contact the corporation if someone was interested in contributing; and a general information page for parents and prospective participants with details about our mission, camps, location, and downloadable brochures and flyers and any other kind of information they could possibly want.

Folks, it was cool.

Let’s rewind a little bit. When I was informed that Co-Worker was leaving, I was also assured the web project would continue on as planned. As the weeks ticked by, I started asking Soup about contacting the Coder. Problem: this was Co-Worker’s friend, and he didn’t exactly leave on the best of terms. So now it seemed Coder wanted some services (access to our music studio) exchanged for his volunteerism. The higher-ups said this wasn’t a problem, or so I heard, so I continued working.

But as winter turned into spring and the days were getting longer and I still hadn’t heard anything from the Coder, I asked Soup what the deal was. He said he’d “check up on it.” And I told him, bluntly, that if we didn’t start coding and publishing this thing soon, I would never have time to do it when summer camp started in June.

Eventually he came around and said he got word that it “probably wasn’t going to happen.”

When I told my AmeriCorps supervisor about it, she was upset enough on my behalf to contact my site’s volunteer manager and say something… who then contacted all the higher-ups and somehow turned it into a huge thing about me being upset that “MY” work was unpublished and “MY” time was wasted. Before I knew it, I was on a conference call via speakerphone with Soup, one of the higher-ups and the volunteer manager about my assumption that the web project was discontinued.

The higher-up was very offended and wanted to know why I thought it had been scrapped, because it was only “delayed.” I said that was pretty much the same thing, because with summer camp approaching, there was no way I’d have time to work with the coder and get everything online.

“Well, you only designed a shell, right?” she said. “I mean, you didn’t design any content or anything. Because you know, we don’t really know what is going to happen with the program next year.”

I couldn’t find the voice to tell them that no, in fact, I’d just dedicated a serious amount of time and energy and love over the last seven months to not just content, but ways to make your program a lot more relevant than it was now. I couldn’t seem to defend myself, and ask why, if they were considering changing the program in the coming year, they didn’t bother to tell me so that I could make a more generic site — if only for recruitment purposes. Most of all, I couldn’t bear to wonder why they hadn’t even thanked me for all the effort.

Later, I trudged back to my computer to find a “summary of the conference” in my inbox, carbon-copied to every other higher-up in the corporation. And then I knew why. It basically spouted a bunch of diplomatic BS about how they wished that I will come to see the “fruits of my labor” realized, but that “in this time of recrafting, we may be unable to see the web project through to completion.”

Wow. Great.

I don’t know if the ultimate reason was money, because having a website is hardly expensive, but given what I’ve learned about this place, it probably was. If it was difficulty with the outside coding help, I could have easily done it myself, had they ever communicated with me.

The worst part was that they didn’t get that I could care less about “me.” Maybe they would, had they said two words to me all year besides the times they needed me to run their assessment operations. They don’t get that the “fruits of my labor” is the fulfillment of seeing happy, healthy, safe kids. I’d rather have a portfolio with pictures and stories of those I’ve spent time with and what they’ve been able to accomplish through these programs, than examples of my brochures and flyers and whatever unpublished websites gather metaphoric dust on my hard drive.

I think, ultimately, I’ll have left plenty behind. Not that it’s anything they’ll be able to measure.

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I Can’t Get No SATisfaction

May 28, 2007 in AmeriCorps, Uncategorized by d-roll | No comments

To say I’d been dreading this day would be an understatement.

The SAT results were in.

I should have known the minute I walked in the office and heard Co-Workerette groaning in dismay from her computer. Even with hosting a weekly SAT prep class, facilitated by a real, live overpaid (though, maybe underpaid in this case) and trained instructor, our hoodlings couldn’t clear the basement.

Pixel scored halfway decent in writing, as did Tyson. Halfway decent being double-digit percentile levels. Not so much for the rest of them.

But overall… overall we’re talking first, second, third, fourth percentile-range scores. It’s deja vu from the girl’s score results back in the fall. Hey, nice job on your test, you did better than 2% of the country! Now let’s go research colleges!

I love a country that determines your existence by how you do on a ridiculously irrelevant and culturally biased standardized test. I swear, if I get on the subway in 10 years and see Tyson driving it, I’m going to cry. Well, maybe not, because I’ll be thrilled that he hasn’t gotten himself shot yet, but you get my point. There is so much more out there for them than the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority. Or jail.

For some reason, I’d always been torn about the issue of Affirmative Action. I wanted to be for it, like the good liberal I am, but at the same time, I wouldn’t want to be passed for a job or admittance to a school just because there was a minority applicant also going for it. It’s kind of painful to admit that. I feel selfish.

Since I’ve been here, though, of course I’ve had a dramatic change of heart. I, now, would gladly go to Clermont Community Backyard One-Room College For The Sarcastic And Dimpled while sending Pixel to Indiana instead. That doesn’t seem right, but until you’ve lived this life, you haven’t begun to understand what “wrong” truly is.

Not to worry, though, because I’ve come up with a brilliant plan.

FIX THINGS SO YOU DON’T NEED IT.

See? GREAT. Easy, too. Heh.

Keep Affirmative Action in place as a temporary measure. Then devote energy and resources on trying to rid the disadvantaged of the things holding them back, then everyone could get a fair shot. Well, a fair-er shot. Basically, rid the world of poverty. Boy am I ever the genius.

That’s right, Complainy McComplainerson. If you think Affirmative Action is “unfair,” write to your elected officials and tell them that poverty — and all its related stepchildren — sucks. Tell them you want an equal shot. That means either take away your white picket fences or make more for the people who need them.

The bad part (as if there weren’t enough of those) is that our kids probably won’t even apply to schools that take these things into consideration — if they even reach college at all. We’ve been pushing the college mantra all year, but it’s hard not to feel frustrated and helpless with hurdles like the SAT.

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