Laguna to Lent

Last Sunday night, an Alternative Spring Break trip from University of Detroit-Mercy joined us for dinner at our house to learn a little bit about the life and work of a JV. It was great to share a meal and put our recruitment materials (aka JVC bookmarks) to use. However, as I listened to my roommates talk about their work and clients, I was struck by just how much we have learned in the last 7 months. As I listened to John talk about working on Skid Row and homelessness in downtown, I realize just how our eyes, minds, and hearts have been opened. By sharing our stories in the evenings, I have learned so much more than just about working with kids…I have learned so much from my housemates and other JV friends who passionately talk about their life and work. As I look back on the last five months, I am so grateful for the network of JVs that is here in LA. We are blessed to have 4 communities with a total of 22 fantastic individuals all doing unique and important work across the city.

Last Saturday, we took a day trip to Laguna Beach, where Zach’s girlfriend and her roommates were staying for their spring break. The beach was amazing!  Later in the evening we celebrated Mardi Gras at Casa Ita Ford.  On the actual day of Mardi Gras, we went to Dolores Mission for Noche de solidaridad (night of solidarity). This was a prayer service and all-night celebration with the men in their homeless ministry. Each night, about 25-30 men sleep in the church.  Noche de solidaridad was a night filed with prayers, testimonies, and music, and also an open invitation to sleep out in the plaza of DM.  They were going to end the night with an Ash Wednesday service and breakfast at dawn.  We didn’t spend the night but enjoyed a couple of hours socializing with other JVs, the men in the ministry, and various immersion groups visiting DM.

On Ash Wednesday, Verb students attended services by grade, which gave the opportunity for staff to lead reflections that were particularly relevant to the students. I went to Julie’s service with the seniors, which was beautifully done. (Way to go, Ms. D!)

Last night, we celebrated Mardi Gras again at Verb’s annual fundraiser event.  The event is held at The California Club, an elegant club for the well-to-do businesspeople (traditionally businessmen) of LA.  Verb hosted a Mardi Gras-themed dinner with a cocktail hour, presentations, awards, and a silent auction.  Julie, Zach, and I helped with the setup, registration, and silent auction. There were so many cool items donated to give away: lots of wine, designer jeans, student artwork, signed movie posters, Rosetta Stone in 5 languages, handmade jewelry, trips, tickets to games and shows, and so much more.  I was the sole bidder on a signed cast picture from Off the Map, ABC’s new jungle/doctor/soap opera drama (Aunt Cyndi, I hope you’re proud!). It also came with a script from one of the episodes, also signed by the cast, and a candle...all for $10!

Since today is the end of the quarter for Verb, we have had around 15 volunteers each day at Urban Compass for the past two weeks as the guys rush to get their Christian Service Hours done.  These days are particularly calm in the classroom because the students get to work one on one with tutors, meaning they are more inclined to stay in their seats instead of running around yelling to me for help.  It’s great! It also gives me a chance to talk to Verb students. Half of them think I’m in college and I have a lot of fun watching them interact with the little ones.  The funniest moment from this week was when one of my most outgoing first graders yelled at her Verb tutor, “No me touches!” In her beautiful spanglish, she was trying to say “don’t touch me” which should have been “no me toques!”  She had been talking in Spanish to the tutor everyone started laughing at her mix-up.  She didn’t quite know why, but when we explained, she thought it was hilarious. 

"Ms. Z, you're not a sister."

Thanks, Jose…I almost forgot.  I was just so wrapped up in the celebration of the 100^th Anniversary celebration of the Morehouse (a historically Black college in Atlanta) Glee Club that when then when the emcee, a BET star, wanted a cheer from all the sisters in the crowd, I couldn’t help myself.

So why on Earth was I there to begin with, you ask?   Well, on Saturday evening, Julie, Zach and I joined a delegation of about 50 students and staff from Verb at Club Nokia downtown at LA Live for the event. The tickets (which went for $105 a pop!) were donated by a LA County Councilmember who has a special liking for Verb.  There were all sorts of honors being given and presentations being made, but we were most interested in the main event: the Glee Club.  The Morehouse Men put on a fantastic show, singing traditional African music, Christian spirituals, and other traditional songs.   There was also a guest electric violinist who tore up the stage; her rendition of Amazing Grace almost made me cry. 

After that very classy event, we joined up with the JVs for an event that was a little less classy but a ton of fun. We went to a midnight showing of a movie called The Room. It’s shown monthly in a movie theater in Hollywood and has a cult-like following across the country. It’s something like Rocky Horror in that people scream responses to the dialogue bring all kinds of props (plastic spoons, to be specific), and all seem to know it inside and out. The big difference is that it’s probably the worst movie ever made. The acting is atrocious, the filming is just sad, and there is actually footage that is repeated (and not in a dream sequence).  The writer/director/producer/star comes for Q&A and is absolutely insane.

On Saturday, I attended a conference with Colleen and Katie of Casa Ita Ford called Teen Summit: Preventing Dating Violence & Bullying.  It had potential to be a fantastic event – the speakers were wonderful, there were some great workshops lined up, and there was a ton of free food. Unfortunately, the whole thing was tainted by the lack of a schedule. Nevertheless, the keynote speaker started off the day with a moving story about growing up in Watts and dealing with gang life and the public schools. She also spoke about time she spent in prison after being charged with murder, and how she was determined to help young women turn their lives around before making decisions like the ones that led her to spend half her life locked up. She was inspiring, simply put. I attended a workshop about bully prevention, which proved helpful. The biggest problems with bullying at Urban Compass are among the girls – there are a couple girls constantly vying for the title of Queen Bee, and others who begrudgingly follow their every move in order to not be shunned. One girl straight up told me this, and said she was sick of it, but that there’s nothing she can do. The workshop had a couple suggestions, but for all the professional answers I would have to buy the services of the speaker.

On Sunday, I took a trip with my casa to The Getty Villa, a beautiful art museum in Malibu. It’s modeled after an Italian palace and is home to a beautiful collection. We took an architecture tour and ended up learning a lot about life in ancient Rome as we came to understand the layout of the palace, the materials used, and the namesake – J. Paul Getty.  It was a perfect spring-like day outside and being right on a cliff overlooking the Pacific was stunning.  

This week is our second area visit, and we kicked it off wonderfully with dinner tonight with our ever-fabulous support people and program coordinator. Thanks to Maria, Krista, and Andrew to their constant encouragement!

Reality Check

A conversation I had yesterday afternoon with one of my favorite third grade girls:

P: “Ms. Z., my mom had to leave early this morning to take care of my grandma. She sick.”

Ms. Z: “Aw, I’m sorry to hear that, sweetie…if it your mom’s mom or your dad’s mom?”

P: “My dad’s mom. But he can’t take care of her, ya know, ‘cause he’s in Tijuana.”

Ms. Z: “Is he coming back?”

She shakes her head. P: “No, he needs papers.”

Ms. Z: “Can you go visit him?” She nods.  “Can your mom go?”

P: “No, she needs papers, and so does my grandma.”

A few moments later:

Ms. Z: “Did you know I went to Tijuana last weekend?”

P: “No! Really?”

Ms. Z: “Yeah! I bet you didn’t even notice I left early on Friday.” P laughs.

P: “Well if you see my dad tell him you’re Ms. Z and you’re from Urban Compass and tell him I love him soooo much and that his family misses him.”

Ms. Z: “I was there last weekend, P, and I don’t think I’m going back anytime soon.  Plus, it’s a huge huge huge city with lots of people.”

P: “Really? Is there lots of dirt there? I picture it with lots of dirt.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have pried for info about her family. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her I went to Tijuana. But I knew a little about her family – her dad was in jail and upon his release was deported.  I kept thinking about the men I met at Casa del Migrante, and how so many of them probably had kids just like P, families just like P’s.  And I had the privilege of being able to cross the border for a quick weekend trip, all with the flash of a little blue booklet.

De Colores

This weekend, I was privileged to join a group of about 30 LMU students on a service/immersion trip to Tijuana.  Just two hours south of LA, TJ is a different world.  Each month, a group from LMU goes down to the community.  After around 25 years of these monthly trips, the link to the community is quite strong; students and staff have built strong and lasting friendships, and many students go back month after month. As JVs, Chris (from Casa Maura Clark) and I were guests on the trip and got to participate and experience the weekend while sharing our experience with undergrads, many of whom hadn’t heard of the Jesuit Volunteers before.  It was really interesting to accompany the students on the trip, as for some of them it was their first exposure to service projects or international experience.

So, what did we do?

On Friday evening, we drove from LMU to the North family home in San Diego. The North’s are a fantastic family. The parents actually met on a similar trip when they were students at LMU, and eventually married. They continued working in TJ with LMU and with their own foundation.  You can read more about their story and Build a Miracle foundation here!. The North’s graciously hosted us all and talked about the experiences in Tijuana. They were truly inspiring!

On Saturday, we crossed the border to Mexico and arrived at our first project site. We mixed and poured concrete in a true assembly line style.  We laid the slabs for rooms on two homes that are currently being built by Build a Miracle. Families are chosen by a committee of community members who identify those with the most need.  Families are asked to contribute service hours to their own home, but many are so grateful for their homes that they keep helping build homes two and three years later. There were about a dozen men and women on the work site with us in addition to the parents who were preparing for their new home!

El Florido, the neighborhood where we worke

Mixing cement in tray

One of the wisest parts of this whole operation was the development of a community center in the neighborhood.  The center was built before all the homes were constructed, and has been the single most unifying element of the community. With no local parish, consistent work, reliable schooling, or really any sense of camaraderie between neighbors, the neighborhood was previously full of strangers. With the advent of the community center (which offers adult education, trade skills classes, mental healthcare, and so much more), the families have come together to form what Father Greg would definitely call kinship. Beautiful.

So anyway, after a delicious lunch at the community center, we headed to Casa del Migrante, a shelter that houses recently deported migrants for up to 12 days. We had the chance to talk to Brother William, who works at the shelter, and ate dinner with men who were sent to TJ just a few days or hours before. Talk about a powerful experience.  With all the talk about the border patrol and immigration issues, I had never met someone who had actually been deported. Some of the men I talked to had been living and working in the US longer than I have been alive, spoke English beautifully, or were born and educated there. Can you imagine!?  I’m still not sure I know what to make of the experience, but I do know that I kept thinking of my students; some of them have parents who can’t come to the US or who have been deported. 

Later Saturday evening, we played a soccer game with some of the kids in the community.  We also colored valentines with them and had a great dance party.  On Sunday, we visited an orphanage in a different neighborhood and made valentines with the kids that live there. We played with kids from 2-12 years old.  They were beautiful and happy and reminded me so much of my students.  I must say, this wasn’t my favorite part of the trip.  I was so sad thinking that while my students don’t have much, at least they have family to go home to at night. 

View of the US/MX border fence

In the afternoon, we ate lunch and then headed back North. It took just over an hour to get through border patrol. All along the highway where cars are backed up for miles to get back to the US, there were all sorts of street vendors selling everything from chorros to puppies to sombreros to Mario piggy banks.  It was a bizarre experience to see so many people making a living off of the very captive audience of vehicles waiting to have their passports okayed by Customs Border Patrol.  After we got through, we pulled off to a great viewpoint of the fence that separates San Diego from Tijuana.  One of the student leaders presented a little bit about the physical border history and how he’s seen the policy change even just in the two years that he’s been going on De Colores trips. 

That is a super abbreviated version of the weekend…please feel free to shoot me an email if there’s anything else you want to know about!

It was a busy weekend at Casa DK...here's a quick recap: 

Hike to Hollywood Sign: On a beautiful yet slightly smoggy Saturday afternoon, John, Zach, Emily and I took off to Griffith Park and hiked to the Hollywood sign.  The websites with the hike info classified it as a “strenuous” hike, and right they were!  They hike ends above the sign, but high gates prevent you from actually getting close to the letters.  Alas, we were successful…and sore.

Hollywood Sign, from behind

Me and Emily!

John, Me, Zach, and lots of LA smog

Chinese New Year party: One of John’s co-workers at Chrsalis hosted the local volunteers for a Chinese New Year dumpling dinner party on Saturday. It was nice to mingle with other volunteers/interns in LA.  There were lots of JVs, Episcopal volunteers, and Vincentian Volunteers in attendance.

Ground Hog’s Day party: After dinner, we went over to our lovely FJV friend Rose’s apartment for her (4^th Annual) Groundhog’s Day party. She’s a riot – she made all sorts of appetizers and desserts in groundhog’s day theme, and hung up pictures of Puxatony Phil all over her apartment. It was nice to meet some of her friends!

On Saturday morning, I met up with Mariel and Caitlin (both BC ’10 – Mariel is a JV with me and Caitlin was visiting from Denver!!) at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market. The market was cute and VERY busy.  The vibe was totally different from anything in my neighborhood, but such is Santa Monica, I guess.  Earlier in the morning, I went to Mass: The Musical at St. Monica’s church.  It wasn’t really a musical, but the “contemporary” music sure made it feel like one. The church was packed and the whole time I kept thinking of Miley’s line “everybody seems so famous.” Everyone was dancing along to the very upbeat music.    

Note Zach's Green & Yellow Poncho (back left)!

Go Pack Goooo!: Later in the afternoon, the LA JVs joined us to watch the Super Bowl.  Thanks to a last minute save by Casa JD’s digital converter box (ours only gets Fox when our remote feels like working) we were able to watch Zach’s Pakers take out the Steelers.  Zach is a Packer’s fan through and through (see below).  Everyone brought awesome food too, so the party was a success! 

ReOrientation

“Ms. Z, you broke my heart!”

Alondra came running up to me straight from her classroom, and attacked me from behind with a bear hug and this oh-so-dramatic declaration.

“What do you mean I broke your heart Alondra?!”

“You didn’t came yesterday!”

(And no, 'came' is not a typo)

Apparently, while I was at ReOrientation for the long weekend with the other 80 or so JVs in the Southwest, the kids missed me! Another of my favorite third graders told me that they weren’t able to have any fun while I was gone.  Ah, their flare for the dramatic keeps me laughing!  I’ve realized that stories about my kids are generally lacking from my blog, so from here on out I’ll do my best to include some of the funniest, most inspiring, or heart-wrenching anecdotes.

Today with the kids was wonderful. We had just the right number of tutors and just enough homework to keep everyone occupied. Over the retreat, I thought a lot about patience.  I’ve noticed that my patience has been tested in many ways in the last six months. Overall, I’ve done a decent job at keeping my cool, but keeping frustrations inside is not always good.  Today I felt like a different person with the students – I was so even-keeled, so calm despite their typical craziness.  I attributed this to being away for a few days and missing them. I was so excited to come back! I want to hold onto that feeling, and some of the talks from ReO gave me some ideas on how to do that. More on that as the weeks go by...

And now, a brief ReO Recap.  The theme of the retreat was Social Justice, which is, after all, one of the four tenants of JVC.  We started the weekend with a reflection based on the words that we, current JVs, used in our application essays. It was neat to hear our own words reflected back to us, and to realize that we were all drawn to the program for similar reasons. 

Over the course of the weekend, we heard from four guest speakers:

1 – Mike Duffy: USF professor who spoke about Catholic Social Thought and shared an extensive social justice/Ignatian spirituality book list.

2 – Fr. Greg Boyle: Previously mentioned in this blog, G gave more or less the same talk I heard back in September at USC.  He also incorporated some stories from his book into mass on Saturday evening!

3 – Kate Carter: Former JVC staff member who spoke about Faith in Action.  She shared some thoughts about incorporating our spirituality and our work.

4 – Fumi Tosu: FJV and theology teacher who spoke about Ignatian discernment. This talk was super helpful and comforting. 

Perhaps my favorite element of the retreat was that each morning and evening, a different casa led a unique prayer or spirituality activity.  We did all sorts of things: created our own prayer flags, had a feet washing ceremony, read an adapted version of the stations of the cross with a social justice focus, shared – and burned – prayer intentions, drew in sidewalk chalk, and went down to the beach. We also had time to reflect with our casas and with people who have jobs in similar fields. I appreciated the chance to talk to other people facing injustices in education systems throughout the region – it helped me feel a little more connected to justice issues that affect my students. Some days I go home feeling like a glorified babysitter and forget about the many issues that my kids face each day in their neighborhood.  It was good to hash out some issues with other teachers and educators.

The absolute highlight of the retreat was the talent show. My casa kicked it out with a fantastic skit about the Program Staff.  We nailed it (she says as humbly as possible)! Seriously, we were hilarious.  The other acts were also great. All the LA houses performed (JD read from one housemate’s grade school diary, CMC performed a 20 minute original musical by one of their housemates, and Ita did a fantastic puppet show. Video links to come!).  Other houses did skits too; one house baked for everyone as their talent…yum!

In other news, tonight we had two Jesuits (one novice and one scholastic) who work at Verb over for dinner. Thanks to our newest house investment, a crockpot, we prepared a delicious meal (though let’s be real…everything we eat is pretty delicious!) and had a blast with our friends.  They live right in the neighborhood and invited us to their Jes Res soon for dinner with their community!