Five Senses

What better way to immerse yourself in a new city, community, and job than to use all 5 senses, right? Here’s a little bit of what mine have been up to this week:

See: Concrete, Mountains, Smog, Sun!

On the way to and from work every day, Julie, Zach, and I constantly see tons upon tons of concrete. We take two different freeways to get to work, and the on/off ramps boggle my mind. At some points there are 4 layers of highway stacked on top of each other. Theresa quoted her dad in describing LA as a “concrete jungle,” a phrase he probably used long before Jay-Z and Alicia Keyes made everyone sing it in Empire State of Mind.  It’s crazy because on the freeways, we can see all the surrounding mountains, unless they’re disguised in the horizon by the incredible amount of smog that hangs over the city. But despite the smog, the sun is out every single day!

Hear: Ice Cream Trucks, Helicopters, Neighbors

From our dinner table on Monday night, we could hear the lovely jingle of the ice cream trucks that constantly patrol our neighborhood. I’ve seen many different trucks and heard every typical carnival/ice cream truck song you can imagine – from “Pop Goes the Weasel” to a very aggressive and inquisitive recording of “Hello?” on repeat.  The ice cream trucks roll down the street at a leisurely 5mph and I have yet to see anyone solicit them. We are starting to suspect they might sell more than just ice cream, but we’re not exactly going to try to find out…  We can also sometimes hear loud, low helicopters over the city. Our support people (who brought us dinner on Monday night! Score!) told us that probably meant there was police activity that needed to be monitored from above, in case anything ‘went down.’ Luckily the choppers didn’t sound too close. Finally, the other sound that we are all enjoying waking up to our neighbor on the phone. He paces in his side-yard, which is only feet from our bedroom and bathroom windows, and speaks very loudly about something very nonsensical. His accent sounds Caribbean, and even though we can understand exactly what he’s saying, it makes NO sense. Again, sketchy?

We also had the chance to hear some great stories and wisdom from our newfound friend, Rose. She is a former JV who served in Atlanta. She told us the horror stories from her year – the foundation of her house collapsed, roommates had to be removed for medical reasons, and there were battles over free-range chicken.  Despite it all, she LOVES JVC…so much so that she brought us Thai food and wine to welcome us to LA! The next evening our support people, Krista and Maria, came over to check in on us. They are wonderful!

Touch:  Office Furniture, Glue sticks, Markers

This week at work has been mostly about getting the office ready. It’s a slow process, but it’s looking good! We have made a few furniture and container runs to IKEA. [Sidenote: The escalator at IKEA was, in my mind, SO “So Cal.” It was two stories and completely open air, with a roof for the occasional rainy day. I felt I like I was at an amusement park, riding to the top of a rollercoaster!] Today we took a mildly successful fieldtrip to a warehouse were another agency, ANEW foundation, distributes used office furniture to other nonprofits. We didn’t find much, but it was an interesting model. Their tagline is “Doing what’s right with what’s left.” Cute, right?  Otherwise, the week has been filled with hours of sorting through the massive quantities of crayons, markers, glue sticks, children’s books, games, and stationary as we start to get organized in our new space.

 I also had a chance to meet one of the mom’s when she came in to pick up some school supplies for her kids, which were donated to Urban Compass. She was really appreciative! We took a spin around Nickerson Gardens earlier in the week to drop off some toys to some of the kids who will be returning to the program. I got to see a couple girls who are students. They were adorable but super shy. Their mom practically had to push them out their front door to come up to the van to talk to “Miss G” (Theresa). The Mom only spoke Spanish, but that didn’t stop her from inviting us to her daughter’s birthday party in October!  After meeting this family, I found out that many of the parents translate through their kids, so I asked Theresa if it would be helpful for me to translate the student application to Urban Compass into Spanish as well. She loved the idea, which gave me a great project for the afternoon!  

Smell: Lemons, Candles, Tacos  /  Taste: Avocadoes, Granola Bars, Yogurt

Smells and Tastes naturally go together this week. Planning meals, grocery shopping, and cooking for five people is definitely an interesting project. I’m so used to shopping for 1 at school! We have to keep out meals simple, so we eat a lot of yogurt and granola bars as snacks with our lunches. Deciding what to buy in bulk vs at the regular grocery store has been tough.  We go through food so quickly! It amazed me when we ran out of apples on Wednesday of the week because what we bought on Sunday would have lasted me a week and a half at school.  I am very impressed at how easy it is to put together a grocery list though – no one is super picky about food so whatever is in the fridge will undoubtedly be consumed.

This week’s dinner menu was simple because we were treated to dinner on Sunday and Monday. I must say, though, that Taco Tuesday was the highlight! I found avocados for a fraction of the price we pay at home and made a very simple (and very delicious) guacamole using lemons from our very own lemon tree! How cool is that?!  We also made a yummy pasta salad on Wednesday and hot sandwiches that we took with us to the beach tonight for another community night under the stars (but the alliteration just isn’t as cool as Taco Tuesday).

Oh, and the candle smell? That’s from spirituality night on Tuesday. We talked a little more about what brought us all to JVC and past experiences with service and spirituality. It was a great evening!

One last thing: below is a picture from our party last weekend. These are all the fine LA JVs this year, gathered on our front porch!

That’s all for now…Thanks so much to those of you who are following along! Apologies for such long entries. Thanks for sticking with me! Much love <3