Round One

Today's the first day since we've gotten to Los Angeles that I've had a few hours to myself, so I decided to walk to the local library and sit with my laptop so I could write, check my email, and try to acquire the newest episodes of Dexter. Living and working here has been a major lifestyle shift for me, but for the most part I've been able to adapt and am enjoying this new world I find myself in.

Our housing situation is about the exact opposite of what I'd become accustomed to my last year at RIT. We're staying in a small house attached to a church that consists of a living room, kitchen, three bedrooms, and a single bathroom. I'm sharing a room with the other three guys on the team which we've dubbed "the man cave". Each of us has a standard issue cot and a sleeping bag (well, except Mike, who somehow lost his when we did laundry last week). We put together shelving by stacking folding tables in one corner of the room. I have the space under my cot, half a table, and a drawer in the bathroom to store my stuff in. For the first few days we didn't have a stove, but our sponsor managed to find us one. We're pretty sure it leaks, so when we aren't cooking we turn the gas off and have to manually light it every time we use it. We've also got a microwave and a fridge, both of work well. Our bathroom is decent, although the toilet leaks large quantities of water every time we flush. Also, since we only have a single bathroom we pretty much don't have any personal space anymore. Showers are timed on work days, five minute max, and while showering someone else is usually in the bathroom using the toilet or the sink. The second day we were here Scott found a secondhand shop where the owner agreed to find a couch for us. It seemed a bit sketchy, but the guy really came through for us and got a nice black leather couch for only $80 (we gave him $100 to thank him). That, with another folding table on top of two storage crates for a coffee table, make up our living room. It's large enough for all ten of us to be in there at once, and we usually have about four people on the couch at any given time. For privacy we have a back stoop that's surrounded by maybe 100 square feet of grass that makes up our yard, most people sit out there while on the phone. We have no TV or internet, but I find that I don't miss it all that much, so long as I can occasionally come here to check my email.

The team is still doing well together, although our housing situation has led to a few tensions. A few of us have been sick this week, myself included, the worst of which was Fayanna vomiting all night on Tuesday. She's home with her family in San Diego this weekend though, and hopefully she'll return healthy. Megan is also visiting her family around here this weekend, who were kind enough to invite us over for Thanksgiving dinner. They provided us with an awesome meal and were really nice to talk to. Her mom bought us a few bags of cleaning supplies and I ended up talking with her dad for quite a while while they prepared dinner. I was really sad that this was my first Thanksgiving away from my family, but being with my team and her family was still a good time. Since we have a long weekend all of us have been splitting into smaller groups and checking out various things around town (last night we drove to see the Hollywood sign up close), which has been great for morale. It's usually hard for all ten of us to make a decision quickly, but if we break into smaller groups it's much more relaxed.

And while it's been nice exploring the area and seeing what L.A. has to offer, our real objective here is to work with the CYFC program at two schools. Our team was broken into two groups, with Scott, Cassie, Megan, Mike, and myself working at Dorsey High and Melissa, Steve, Emily, Aine, and Fayanna working at 61st Elementary. Us working at the high school have been assigned to provide tutoring support in Algebra, Geometry, and CAHSEE (California state exams) math review courses during the day and providing homework assistance and playing games with kids after school. We're on block scheduling, so we have a total of eight classes, four each day. The teacher I'm working with the most, Mrs. Gay, is fantastic with her students and commands enough respect to convince them to learn the material. The student population is 50% Black and 50% Latino. There's a girl in one of my classes that I think might be white, but I'm not sure. The teachers are a little more diverse, I work with a few Asian teachers and two have strong African accents. The kids occasionally make jokes about our presence (the first day one kid shouted that he was going to give his "white milk to the white kids", and on Wednesday one kid shouted "white power!" at me), but they're good natured about it and I haven't seen any hostility from any of them. They're also pretty smart, and almost always pick up on how to do the work after a few examples. I think one of the largest parts of my job is just walking up to kids and pointedly asking, "are you planning on doing any work today?" The typical response to which is usually a sheepish grin and an admission that they just don't get it. However, there's almost always an "oh yeah, I remember this, this is easy!" moment after I get them about halfway through a problem. After school we usually just end up chatting over games. They're all just normal kids, although some of them have gone through things I can't really imagine going through. I'm starting to pick out a few that I really like and get along well with, I hope I'm making a positive impact on their lives.

Despite the fact that our house is located close to Inglewood and is in a pretty rough area it isn't nearly as terrifying as media stereotypes make it out to be. Our neighborhood is a pretty quiet suburb, where most of the folk seem to just be working to get by. According to some of the kids at Dorsey we're located in Blood territory, specifically the Rolling 60s gang, but I have yet to see any gangbangers anywhere or anything else to make me feel unsafe (Dorsey itself is right in the middle of the dividing line between Blood and Crip territory). We're smart about it and usually travel in groups, but we can walk to the library (about 10 blocks from our house) in small groups at night or alone during the day without feeling scared. Also, according to the kids a lot of the gang warzone image portrayed in most media is a relic of the 80s. Granted, the gangs are still dangerous, but a lot of the old hostilities have died down somewhat. Case in point, one of the girls we work with had a Blood father and Crip mother. She doesn't have the nicest life, her mom is dead and her dad can't support her so she's in a group home, but has ambitions and is smart enough to go places. Also, one of the kids told us that some of the rival gangs around here regularly play football against one another. It seems to me that the gangs tend to be more fraternal in nature, so I think if these kids can find another group to identify with they won't fall into that lifestyle. I really hope that our influence on the kids we're working with will help them go farther in life and that we can actively demonstrate that there are alternatives to ignorance and just doing whatever is needed to get by.