I can't believe this is the third week I've been in New Jersey! So much has happened in the past two weeks…Where I'm staying in Lawrenceville, used to be a covent for nuns at St. Ann's (the parish we're staying at). I'm living here with twelve other people who come from all over the country. Even as far as Slovakia! (this would be Maria, who traveled the world to do me the honor of being my roomate ;) I've really enjoyed community living. In just a short time we've all become incredible close with each other. A part of this is because of our first WorX week last week. Although there's twelve members of the team, typically what happens each week is that we all are divided to either lead JusticeworX (the high school service program), or ServiceWorX (middle schoolers). Last week was JusticeWorX, and all leaders in my community worked in the same program. The week was incredibly challenging and rewarding. I think because we got to experience the week together, work together for a common goal, share joys and aggravations, it made us so much closer than before. But more on that later.
The week before last (two weeks ago) was our training week. However, we were blessed with the opportunity to travel around the area in between our training schedule. Tuesday of training week we headed to Philadelphia to attend Beyond the Walls: Prison Health Care & Reentry Summit, a conference focused on issues surrounded the current mass incarceration issue in the United States, presented by Philadelphia FIGHT for AIDS Education Month. The conference included presentations and discussions on abuse in prisons, reentry strategies for previously incarcerated individuals, and medical and health care issues in the prison system, including those topics focusing on HIV and other blood borne diseases. The keynote speaker was Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness", a New York Times Best-Selling book. She, like the conference, was absolutely amazing. This is a topic I feel very passionately about, so to attend a WHOLE conference dedicated to the issue was like Disneyland to me.
On Thursday, the whole team met Wills. Wills works at a bike shop in Trenton that restores and sells used bikes. The money then goes to sponsor the local Boys and Girls clubs. After school classes are offered for students coming from low-income families. As soon as they complete training, they have the opportunity to work at the shop. It's really a beautiful operation. Wills gave us all a bike tour around Trenton, guiding us on his double decker bike (if you don't know what this is, just imagine a bright green bike three times taller than your run-of-the-mill bike, of course there will be a video of this to come…). Major props to him for guiding around a group of twelve people through Trenton, all of which are not from the area. We had bike chains fall off, tires pop, near-death occasions, and Jaen getting lost at least three times. Again, major props, Wills. As well as working at the bike shop, Wills is involved in SAGE, a city restorative art project in Trenton. He took us to all the major sites, including the Gandhi Garden (a community garden), and the headquarters of Terra cycle. More info here: http://www.terracycle.com/en-US/
Friday we all went to the Jersey shore. We were incredible fortunate in this adventure, due to the fact rain had been predicted for the day all week, but luckily it was clear and sunny at the beach! Since the beach wasn't technically opened for the season, there were the lifeguard gestapo patrolling up and down the shore on a four-wheeler, demanding we not go in the water. So obviously we made a game out of playing as joyfully and fiercely in the water as much as we could, then running like hell back far on the shore whenever they came our way again.
Despite all the fun we had, I promise you we did do work :) We used this week to travel to our many service sites we would be taking students this summer. This included TASK (Trenton Area Soup Kitchen), a low-income preschool, a home for adults with developmental disabilities, nursing homes, and assessing vacant properties in the city. We divided in teams of four, and on Wednesday, my team and I were assigned to Children First, a day-care in Trenton. Virtually all the children there were bilingual, with the majority being Guatemalan. Of course, with little children you can't not have a fantastic time, plus it gave me the opportunity to practice my less than stellar Spanish. The amount of love and dedication there really blew me away. The building itself is incredibly small, and it serves close to 50 children in four "classrooms" created by room dividers. Despite the conditions, the teachers are incredibly patient and compassionate with the children. They told us they are aware of the situations the children are experiencing at home (sleeping in the bathtub because of bedbugs, shootings close to their home, lack of food...), and they want to make their day at the preschool as great as possible. The teachers were so grateful to have us, they ended up giving us so much food they had. Juices, snacks, cereal, and milk. I was astounded. These people were scraping to get by, and now they were giving all this to US? Walking the several blocks back to our car, we saw several men sitting on their front porch (this is very common in Trenton, people are constantly on the sidewalk, sitting outside their house, etc). Jaen called out to them, because he is our resident New Mexican and never passes a chance to speak to a stranger in his native tongue. Even I visited with them, and despite my poor Spanish, we had a good conversation. (one man even thought I was from Mexico - reassuring words to someone whose skin has barely seen the sun this summer). These men were SO hospitable and grateful for the fact we stopped to visit with them and gave them some of the food we had received from the preschool. They showed us pictures of their family members, and insisted we stayed for some watermelon. However, we had to pick up another group around that time, a cause that seemed unreasonable to our new friends. They were very convincing, but still, maybe another time.
That experience was my favorite part of the week. Moments like that that are unplanned, unscheduled, talking with people about their life. I can tell you there are some amazing people with tremendously intricate stories living in Trenton. They make me seem so small compared to how hard they've worked in their life and how kind they are. But more to come on that in the next post...
Thoughts on the week:
1. New Jersey loves their ice cream and pizza.
2. And pork roll
3. The liberty bell is not a bell. I'm pretty sure it's made out of plastic.
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