Day 8 - ASB 2005

Saturday
March 12, 2005

Driving, driving, driving.
I was able to get some shut-eye during the night. By morning time, everyone was pretty anxious to reach Cashville again.



We stopped in Little Rock at Nader’s house. I got two words: Albaloo polo. Bah bah! It was so nice to be in a Persian home again. Upon reaching there, only 5 and ½ hours left in our journey.

By that time I was a little grumpy due to: lack of sleep, food, end of a dank week, school starting, watching a sappy love story, and being in a cramped van.

30 minutes away from Nashville, the girls turned up the music in the car so we’d all be awake for our ride into town. As we pulled into the driving circle of Towers, we blasted Madonna’s “Like a prayer”….what had been the wake-up song all week. And the guys had Alabama’s “Dixie landilie” bumpin in their van. haha, what a homecoming.

I was back in my dorm by 1am.

Here’s to: “Madonna, Jack Johnson, Fluff, Gracie, Loco (the mayor of the dump), Morgan the Duck, awesomeness in the morning, the advil incident, diaphram raviolis, laughing until it hurts, 24 hour van drive insanity, beach and sunny days.....but most of all missing the most DANK week ever!! Bring me back to Bville!!!!" - Kelly

couldnt've said it better myself. yeah for the dankest ASB group!


Fluff! (don't hate me for putting up this pic, haha)


Now it’s back into the swing of school. Trying to ride the spring break high as long as it will last. Have much to think about and an awesome group to keep in touch with.
B-ville ASBers, be sure you post comments! Got anything to add? Let me know.

more pictures can be found at http://photos.yahoo.com/chaya221

Keep it real, palabra! Para verdad. ;o)

Day 7 - ASB 2005

Friday
March 11, 2005


Another day in Mexico today. David picked us up around 9am. We worked around the orphanage. Grace assigned each of us tasks to do: painting the porch, taking out the trash (to the big trash pit which would then be burned), watering the plants, organizing all the stuff upstairs, and cleaning the bathrooms. Heather and I were in the bathrooms. It wasn’t so bad, but then I had to overcome my extreme fear of spiders in order to get rid of a big daddy (no, not a daddy long legs…we’re talking a large, big as your thumb, green and hair creature). Ekh! It was gross.



Then we visited the local school not too far from the orphanage and handed out pencils and candy to each classroom. David had all the people that represented different countries introduce themselves. Sumeet – India, Nader – Iran, Lisa – China, Julie – Mexico, Dave – Boston, USA, and me – Chile.



After school, a bunch of the kids came over to “la casa grande” to hang out, play soccer, climb on top of Jon, Nader and Dave, etc. It was a pretty laid back afternoon.



We left for an open market/bartering experience later in the afternoon. Places like that are awesome for taking pictures. Bright colors and people selling all types of creative things...one can capture aspects of Mexican life that you won’t see elsewhere.



We treated David and Kyle to dinner at Garcia’s – a restaurant in Mexico, near the open market. It was soo good.

We then drove back to home base, gave food and Spanish bibles to David for the service he does, did highs & lows, and presented the last of the life maps.

The first people who opened one of the vans to clean it out were greeted by a foul rotting fishy smell. They turned the whole van inside out and couldn’t figure out where the smell was coming from…then Sumeet checked the trunk. It was none other than Morgan the duck – the wooden souvenir Dave had picked up out of the ocean while we were at South Padre. Lovely…a 24 hour trip with that, haha.

Luckily for everyone, the smell aired out quickly and nobody suffered - except for Morgan who was left behind in the dumpster.

We packed up shop and left for Nashville by 1am.

Quotes of the day:

Dave: When you call my name…
Kelly: What’s it like?
Dave: It’s like a little prayer
Sumeet: uh huh, where you at?
Dave: I’m down on my knees
Sumeet: Where you wanna go?
Dave: I wanna take you there
Kelly: What time is it?
Dave: In the midnight hour
Kelly: What can you feel?
Dave: the POWER!

“me llamo es…” – Nader ;o)

“Why do we have so much left over money?!” - Dave
“it’s for emergencies” – Kelly
“guys, we still have time to have an emergency” – Jenna

“Okay, that’s it! Dave has first shift in that van. He must have one hand on the wheel and one hand on Morgan at all times!” - Sumeet

Day 6 - ASB 2005

Thursday
March 10, 2005



Mexico!!
Today we crossed the border.
We got picked up around 8:30am by David Garza – the guy who was coordinating our travel between Brownsville and Mexico, basically letting us tag along and participate in what he does everyday. He had with him his sidekick, Kyle – a guy our age who had recently joined the mission project – “Jesus Is The Only Way Ministries” (a.k.a JITOW).



I think I can speak for all when I say that it was not what we expected. David was mad cool – dude really knew how to relate to us and make us laugh. Another Joe-like character that made the atmosphere a fun one. But we arrived at the “orphanage” only to find that there were no kids there. We were all disappointed because we were under the impression that we’d be tutoring and working with orphans.



Well…what ensued was a learning experience nonetheless.



We arrived at the “orphan house”/JITOW “headquarters” (that’s just what I’m calling it) which was located away from the developed part of Mexico. It was about an hour drive from the border. We drove through dirt roads, farms, and “wild” chickens, goats, dogs (kangaroos?? haha) roamed around. We got the grand tour of the place and a low down of what goes on there, the kind of service they do, etc. The tour was given by a lady named Grace – recently moved to Mexico to leave at the “headquarters” – who also felt it necessary to tell us about all the miracles that have occurred with people “witnessing” and being “saved”. The religious spin was a little strong and rubbed a lot of us the wrong way. It was a little bit over the edge. Despite her constant preaching and sometimes condescending tone, she had a good heart and had put a lot of time, effort, and money into service for this community. No one can deny that what they were doing was good.



We then grabbed some tools from the shed and packed back into David’s 15 person van. He took us to a colonia built on a landfill. Imagine. A colonia is basically a neighborhood that doesn’t have any of the basic things you might think are necessary for a community to function. No electricity, no running water, few of the people have jobs, no sewage, nothing really…it’s a wonder how these people survive. (a colonia "fact sheet" – click to read more about colonias on the Texas/Mexico border). In this particular colonia, JITOW had built a church and we brought with us bags of rice, clothing, and shoes to distribute among the members of the community.



Few people had cars – the rest either used their legs or donkeys for transportation. People dug through the trash trying to find anything that they could possibly resell and water tanks drove around the land fill with dirty over-priced canal water.

We met a guy named “Loco” - the “mayor of the neighborhood,” according to Grace. He spoke some English which he had supposedly learned from tourists. David eventually told some of us on the side that it was all bologna…but Grace sincerely believed it! haha.



The group took a lunch break at a gas station and then we headed to another neighborhood. It was in a little better shape than the colonia, but not by much. It least it was not built in a landfill, more of the people had jobs, and there was some running water. We cleared the driveway of one of the houses that was full of huge rocks.



At the corner of the street, we saw some kids standing around with puppies and so we all took turns going over and talking to them. I was happy to hear that they were going to school. There, school is only 4 hours a day. They wanted toys, but we had none to offer them. Their situation seemed much more hopeful than what we saw at the colonia.



It doesn't feel like we accomplished so much today. One of the things Grace said that probably had much truth to it, was that we can’t expect to make a huge change on the community in the short time that we’re here, but it is almost sure that we’ll walk away from the experience with more than what we were able to give. That’s kind of disheartening…but I guess the fact that it’s disheartening means that it made an impact on me. It made me so sad to see this part of the world in such dire need of so many necessities. I’m so apart from that world and as much as I have lived in poor financial conditions, never have I faced anything like this. The main/only goal of those people living in the colonia was survival. It wasn’t about improving their conditions – just survival. It was heartbreaking because there wasn’t really anything we could to do improve the situation for them. We can pick up trash, but it’s just gonna be there again the next day. The bags of rice are gonna run out and the clothes and shoes are gonna get worn. What then?



So today brought me into an awkward mood – it was really a humbling experience above all else.

We went back to the orphanage, hung out a bit and then David took us to a market to look around and buy souvenirs. That’s a bit weird – buying souvenirs when we’ve just left such a poverty stricken place. But in reality, I don’t think it’s healthy to feel bad about every single injustice that goes on in the world. I don’t know what the right thing to do is, but I don’t think giving up all material things is necessarily it either.

I remember one time at a fireside, someone shared a dream they had: there was some kind of reservoir and lots of people were drowning in it. People ran to the side of the water and attempted to pull out individuals one by one. Sometimes they were successful, sometimes they themselves fell in. And this lady noticed Abdu’l-Baha sitting on a hill nearby overlooking all this. She got angry because she didn’t understand why He wasn’t doing anything about it. People were dying and He was just sitting there. She approached Him and saw He had paper and pen in hand. And upon questioning, He told her that He was figuring out a way to drain the reservoir. Can you imagine how many more people will be saved? Though individual efforts are noble and courageous and will save precious lives, they will not ultimately solve the problem of people drowning in the reservoir. So what is the solution when it comes to poverty? What is the method to draining this reservoir?

Anyway, now we’re back…time for dinner, highs & lows, group games, and then bed.


Quotes of the Day:

“Is that a KANGAROO?!?!”
“yes Kelly, while you were napping in the car, we crossed into kangaroo inhabited land”
(it was a donkey)

“that’s bull taco!” – Nader

Day 5 - ASB 2005

Wednesday
March 9, 2005

Of the days we've been here so far, today has been my favorite. We left in the morning for La Esperanza Home for Boys (a Southwest Key program) - a juvenile home for youth who've crossed the border illegally, caught by authorities, and sent to this institution while the government decides whether to let them stay or deport them.

(Harsh Welcome to Children Seeking Asylum - click to read an article about a boy who made it to La Esperanza home and through the process, plus: key findings from Amnesty International about unacompanied immigrant children).

They divided us to work among different groups. Julie, Dave, Lori, and I were in the level with zero english. We worked with the boys on mathematics (improper & mixed fractions). I felt in my element with these kids.

Much to my delight, there were 5 Brazilians at the home. I was immediately drawn to them and had the opportunity to practice portuguese. They knew no english and spoke little spanish...but then they can always understand a great deal of spanish since the two languages are pretty similar. The high of my day was being with them. Josefino didn't quite fit in with the rest, even within the group of Brazilians. For some reason he had gotten a bad reputation among them. He's the one I talked to the most. We talked about Brazil, music, sports, how he got to the US and where he hoped to go - it's crazy what he had to go through. Not only the travel from Brazil to Mexico, but then having to raise enough money to pay for a cyote to get across the border (that alone was about $5,000...about 15,000 reis - brazilian currency)...it's probably the first/longest real conversation i've had in Portuguese. Leonardo was the only one from São Paulo - the rest were from Minas. Dave worked one on one with him for a good while. It was a kodak moment. Renat, Fabio and Luis were more loud and outgoing.



During the lunch break, I sat on one of the couches in the classroom and a bunch of the boys gathered around to talk. They asked loads of questions and told me about how they got to where they are and family that they had hopes of connecting with in the states. These boys ranged anywhere between 13 and 24 and I was impressed with their maturity and ability to talk about certain issues. Of course, they were quite successful at acting as young boys too, hehe - poking fun of each other and flirting with the girls.

At one point, the Brazilians were seated at my right and some of the Central Americans at my left. I was speaking back and forth between Spanish and Portuguese. Haha, the immediate constant switch was a bit challenging! It's easier to switch from Spanish to Portuguese than it is to switch from Portuguese to Spanish, if that makes sense. When I turned to my left, I kept slipping up with "eu, eles, vou, posso, etc...instead of yo, ellos, voy, puedo, etc." But it worked out. Being in that environment made me feel much more confident about speaking both languages.

A sad part of the day was when I was in the middle of talking with Fabio, and he got pulled away to go to court. He stalled as much as he could, but he had to go. I was disappointed at his sudden departure.

I really hope that things work out best for these kids. I hated getting to spend part of the day with them, getting to know their individual stories, only to have to leave and never see them again, and never know what will become of them. That's why leaving that place made me so sad...because being around those kids made me so happy. I wasn't thinking about being hungry and I wasn't worried about whether my Spanish or Portugese was "good enough" for them - it's all the same...we were on the same plane. We shared language and an uncertain future...perhaps theirs more uncertain than mine.

My heart goes out to them because they have gone through so much to get to where they are, and I wonder about the conditions that they lived in and the circumstances that brought them to try to enter the United States. They stay at La Esperanza Home for anywhere between 72 hours to 9 months, alone - w/o family - waiting to find out whether they'll get political asylum and/or permission to stay. The future is so uncertain for them.
So, that was that. I wish we could've spent more time with those kids - at least a few more hours.

It's a strange double standard that I encounter in other environments. The moment someone sees me struggle with Spanish, they say "it's okay, I know English..." And I tend to resent that because I want to become fluent and that won't happen if people keep allowing me to speak English just because it's "easier." Let me struggle, let me make mistakes - then correct me. But at the same time, there have definitely been times when I have said to people, "está bien, hablo español..." - because it might be easier or be more comfortable for some people to speak that way...and many times, that has been the case.



After that, we headed to South Padre Island. Kind of like Ocean City...except not at all. We got there around 4pm and stayed for about an hour. It was nice to hit a beach during break. It was pretty chilly/windy, but the sun was out. Definitely some relaxation/reflection time



On the way back, we ended up going the wrong way on Boca Chica. We went the wrong way for about 30-40 minutes, so we probably had been driving in Mexico for some time. Nothing but cacti, flores de pita and grass for miles and miles. What I initially imagined when I thought of driving through Texas. No sign of civilization anywhere...except some dirt roads and a shady looking farm shack. Dave had a strong desire to get a piece of the flor de pita that Maurizio had told us about a couple days earlier. It's really prevalent in south Texas and apparently edible. A couple obstacles: They're at the top of a palm tree type trunk, the leaves around the flower are really sharp, in the area we were driving, they were surrounded by cacti on all sides, snake holes, and the fact that it was probably illegal to cut them down. On the turn around, we found one that was close enough to the ground and the road so Dave could reach it with his knife. Just our luck - while he poses for a picture with his new found prize, border patrol pulls up. Of all the times for them to be driving by, haha. Luckily the guy didn't ask too many questions and we went on our way.



It was pretty dark by the time we reached homebase. On top of that, we were locked out because the other van went grocery shopping after we had led them in the wrong direction and as we embarked on our "flor de pita" adventure.

After that, we all reunited, cooked pizza, played ping-pong, cards, etc, and did our routine of highs and lows for the day. 3 more life maps were shared and we slowly went to the bed after that.



Quotes of the day:

“have you guys heard of blue grass?” – Nader
“I’ve heard of Green Day” – kid from La Esperanza Home

“Dude! There might be mushrooms on the farm!!” – Jon

“La migra, la migra!!” – Nader…trying to warn us of the approaching border patrol

“we could wake up and be like…whoa” – Jon

Day 4 - ASB 2005

Tuesday
March 8, 2005

Today was long, but not so much “make you dirty and sweat” kind of work.

When driving to our next project, Sumeet definitely drove on the wrong side of the road for a few seconds. This time we were working with YouthBuild USA– which is an amazing program that takes low income youth who haven’t finished highschool, gets them ready to get their GED and trains them for future job opportunities. It was a group of about 20 and in the mornings they all meet at their center, have announcements, appreciations, and boosts. They alternate days of work and study. Half of them stay and study and half of them go to the construction site. They’re building homes for low income families.

The weather was not as hot as it was yesterday. 70’s as opposed to the 80’s of yesterday.



So we helped build a house. But it seems we might’ve been more in the way than we were any help. We put up the frames of the house – what was left to put up and removed the wooden mold of the cement base of the neighboring house. The work was a lot harder than I imagined – I mean, just trying to remove a nail from a piece of wood – it took me 20 minutes to get my first one out. Even then I kept having to ask Riley (!!!) and Steve for help.



It was nice to work along side youth our age. They were so willing to work with us.



Joe – now he was a character! He definitely made the atmosphere we worked in a fun one. He gave us all jobs to do, but never left with just telling us what to do – he wanted us to learn it and understand. So he would explain things to us – even things we didn’t need to know for our particular task. He was funny and whitty and made us feel very comfortable.



After some of us finished building a door frame (there were about 5 of us girls and Sumeet) – built the whole frame by scratch) then Dave, Nader, and Jon come along and attach it to the wall and claim it as “their door”. Hah! Men! That’s okay, their masculinity was questioned when it took them a long frustrating hour to get some nails into some pieces of wood, haha). Joe came to us and was like “is this the way you guys work? Or are you trying to piss me off?” haha…he was kidding (I hope!) – but that’s the kind of humor that made it so fun to work with him – plus, his sincerity and genuine interest in seeing us learn.



When we were packing up for the day, he asked one of us (Jenna) how many roles we have in life. There are many: daughter, friend, student, future mother, etc…the point was, that there were many roles and so you can never say that if you do drugs that it only affects you. it affects a lot more than that. Something to think about…



We had “appreciations” at the end of the day and the youth expressed lots of gratitude for us having been there. We thanked them for everything – especially opening up to us and sharing their lives and their big dreams with us. I wish I had gotten to talk to some of the youth during the day.

I found out later that many of them have kids of their own and are trying to raise enough money to leave "B-ville" for a better life.



They presented us with a hard hat, Youth Build hammer, and a certificate – above and beyond our expectations. They didn’t have to do that.

We got back here around 4pm. A bunch of us crashed only to be woken up a couple hours later by Sumeet. It was time to work on “Life maps”. That was fun. Basically the idea was to make a map of things in your life that contribute to making you the person you are today. Then we made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for dinner. Sooo good! Of course, all our dinners will taste exceptionally good to me.

Then we all piled into the vans and went bowling. Let me just say that riding in the van with Sumeet is a “special” experience, haha. He kind of reminds me of me…at least things that I’d likely do (which is probably not such a hopeful prospect for those who have to share the road with me in the future). We went the wrong way on the high way and in about 5 minutes had reached the border of Mexico. There was no where to turn around, so we had to approach the border. Nader freaked out: “we are two middle eastern drives, in 2 white vans, around the border. What are you doin??!!!...we gotta cross the border…don’t be sketch!” Dave: “is the bowling alley in Mexico??”

The guys at the border were cooperative – we were able to back up and were then guided out by security. Another “Sumeet” moment: Sumeet pulled into a parking lot to turn around…except when he got to the exit of the lot, he realized it was a one way road we had pulled off of, haha.

We finally reached the bowling alley after the 3rd try. It was fun.
On our way out, Sumeet drove through a mall lot to cut through to the high way and drove 50 mph over a speed bump (“uh, guys…I think we hit something”)…yeah, haha, it’s the opposite of my 5 mph “sorry guys, I was going too fast” incident back in high school (oh so long ago, right?). Then, Kelly pointed out our exit we were supposed to take and Sumeet swerved “off the exit” into the grass…a little too early before the ramp…Kelly was only pointing out the “exit Boca Chia Blvd. 1 Mile” sign. We all screamed and he swerved back onto the road. We died of laughter, and some were just scared to death.

We made it back in one piece and then had 3 life map presentations. We talked about our highs and lows of the day and then hit the sack.

Good things, good things.

Quotes of the day:

“uh, Sumeet? WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD!!”

Kelly: “I have some throat drops”
Dave: “haha”
Kelly: “What’s funny?”
Dave: “haha, nothing – it’s just that Nader’s been complaining of a sore throat for the past 3 days now.”

“Why aren’t they following us?!” – Sumeet
“Uh, why would they?! You just led them to the border!” – Kelly

“It was fun tonight!”
“yeah, except for the time Sumeet almost killed us”
“you mean the 10 times Sumeet almost killed us?”

Day 3 - ASB 2005

Monday
March 7, 2005

What a day!
Julie and I woke up early for breakfast and we all left here by 7:30am. We arrived at the Good Neighbor Settlement House around 8am and waited for the contractors to arrive and lead us to the house we’d be working on. The local highschool (Porter High) gave us 3 huge baskets full of food and drinks.



The contractor for the house, Maurizio, was a genuinely nice guy with a huge heart. We all got assigned tasks and switched up among ourselves. I started off with landscaping – rounding the plants – i.e. digging up the grass and weeds around all the plants and trees and breaking up the dirt. It was a lot harder than it seems and I got blister within the first 10 minutes.



Good Neighbor Settlement (GNS) is kinda like a homeless shelter/soup kitchen – people can actually stay there and I guess in past years, ASB groups have done that. GNS hires contractors, e.g. Maurizio, and gives them $5,000 (per home) to make repairs to homes that are in dire need. I’m not sure all of the requirements and stipulations, but applicants must either be over 65 years old or disabled and be up with their taxes. I don’t know exactly how it works.

Olivia, the daughter of the lady’s house we were working on today, was pretty old too. She was incredibly generous with providing us with a constant flow of water and cool drinks.

There was another group, the NOMADS, who worked along side us. They’re a Methodist group that travels around the US in trailers helping out in projects like GNS. The service they were doing was impressive, but what was more impressive was that they were pretty elderly and still doing this kind of stuff.



We piled trash into Maurizio’s truck (had to make 2 trips and still all the garbage wasn’t gone) and drove it to the landfill. The ride over there was awesome. A bunch of us piled into the back of Maurizio’s truck and rode along under the hot sun balanced out by the cool breeze created by the truck driving. This was the first time I’ve seen a real landfill (“what, you’ve seen a fake one?” – Mehrnoush). And I know this is gonna sound strange, but it was amazing. Don't get me wrong, it was disgusting, but it was so vast that it was fascinated. Piles of trash, a big machine car running over it all, and thousands of sea gulls. A guy at the top of the mountain points you where to park, and you unload your stuff. We had about 1400 lbs worth of stuff in the back on the first trip.

Back at the house, we did more landscaping, painting and trashing (pickin it up, that is). The bathroom was being remodled (and had no door – just a toilet) and there was no running water. So that was an interesting experience.



During the next landfill trip, I sat up front with Maurizio and we talked the entire time there and back. He’s a very interesting guy and it made me kind of sad because he talked about never having done anything more with his life and never leaving Brownsville because he was too afraid of failing and making the first step. He said he was certain that if he could just make that first step, he’d work so hard and never fail – that’s how he is at any task you put before him – but that first step is close to impossible for him. We talked about a lot of other stuff – his family, government, life, education, the USA, etc. it was really refreshing.

We had one of the vans parked in the front lawn and blasted Jack Johnson and Bob Marley all day…and of course the car battery died by the time we picked up to leave. Sumeet was pretty stressed.

We came back tired, sweaty, and dirty



Some people had it in them to play ultimate frisbee and soccer, but I got first dibs on the shower and then just chilled.

As a group, we sat down and went through the highs and lows of our day. It was cool that most of our lows had to do with physical things – i.e. most of the day was very good.

Then we played “where the wind blows” (“This is NOT a 3 person couch!”) and Charades. It was really funny.

And that’s pretty much our day.

Quotes of the day:

“Oh man! I brought girls socks by mistake!” – Dave
“Oh man! I’m wearing girl’s underwear by mistake!” – Sumeet

“We have to go get more white Cheez-its” – Lisa
“What, you got something against the black ones??” – Jon

“the great wind blows for anyone not wearing a bra…”
“Dave, why are you still sitting??”

Day 2 - ASB 2005

Sunday
March 6, 2005



Uuuuuuhh…sleep! Less than 5 hours of sleep in the last 72 hours. But…we’re here!
We had a stop-over last night at Jenna's house in Austin for dinner and then continued on our all-night drive. We official arrived in Brownsville around 7am. I pulled the all-night passenger shifts while Sumeet and Nader drove from Austin to Brownsville. It was a long dark drive, and it started to pour down rain after a couple hours. The funniest part of all this (and those who know my reputation will understand why), was that I was in charge of directions during those 7-8 hours. And I will proudly say that our van lead the other van and we never got lost. Oh yeah!!
(okay, so we made 2 wrong turns…but they were easily fixed! they don't count!)

We stopped at McDonald’s around 6am as we were nearing the outskirts of the city…or signs of some kind of civilization. The last 7 hours had been dark long country roads. Most everyone was sleeping. I quickly ate my McGriddle and hashbrown before sunrise.

I got really excited to start seeing billboards in Spanish. It’s funny – the package that our site leaders gave us about Brownsville & Matamoros describes these places as touristic locations…which I wonder how far that really is from reality since the reason we’re here is to do service with respect to poverty and immigration, mainly.

For those who don’t know, the Baha’i season of fasting takes place during March 2nd and 2oth. It's the "season of restraint" where Baha'is abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset. Fasting "is a symbol of self-restraint, the withholding of oneself from all appetites of the self, taking on the characteristics of the spirit, being carried away by the breathings of heaven and catching fire from the love of God" (Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 69). Although those who are traveling are exempt, I’ve decided to maintain the fast during this trip. It’s extremely challenging especially with there constantly being food available to us during the car rides and eating meals together. I eat breakfast a lot earlier than everyone else, so it can feel a bit awkward in the mornings and afternoons when everyone else is eating breakfast and lunch together and I have to politely decline. Why do I feel a little embarrassed? I don’t want to announce to everyone that I’m fasting, but I don’t want to draw unneeded attention to myself by doing the opposite.

I feel it’s important to keep the fast even while traveling because Baha’u’llah did not have the luxury of exempting Himself from lack of food just because of harsh conditions He was exposed to. Plus, it's befitting with the nature of this trip: a chance to experience poverty and the effects of immigration first hand.



As we drew closer to Brownsville, we started to see Palm trees. They’re not as verdant as the ones that decorated all of Barcelona; they were browning and in some areas of the city, losing leaves…but still they’re beautiful. We passed many homes and buildings that weren’t in the best shape, but Brownsville still seems to be a nice community. Taquerias line every street – each with their own colorful design with painted or neon signs advertising their popular menu items.



You know you’re near Mexico when the First National Bank and Bank of America buildings are all decked out with traditional cream colored walls with the brick red wavy tiles on top, and the Circle K gas stations have huge signs up on their mini-marts: “wake up and smell the tacos.”


We arrived at the First United Methodist Church, our lodging for the week, this morning at 7am. It’s built in similar looking materials as the Bank…I think it’s called terra cotta, but not sure. I had to pee sooo badly when we arrived and the guy that works at the Church, Ken, wasn’t gonna be there for another 5 minutes – and I feared he was running on Latino time and wouldn’t really show up for another hour. The guys kept making me laugh and it was becoming increasingly difficult to hold it in! So finally Sumeet drove me and some of the other girls to the nearest gas station after the guy was a no show after 10 minutes. Of course, all the traffic lights turned red at the same time. Go figure! But we got there safe (and clean) and I finally got to relieve myself. Sumeet was my hero of the day, haha.

After a brief introduction, we went straight for the couches and crashed for an hour. We had to leave because the youth were holding their Sunday school classes this morning in that room. It took us forever to mobilize. Before coming to a unanimous consensus to take a quick nap, we made a grocery list and Kelly made vocal efforts to get us up to go grocery shopping. But all attempts were futile: we all, including Kelly, didn’t budge at all – so the nap happened.

Then we drove around a bit – the gang decided on a taqueria to eat at. Then half of us came back here to unwind, and the others went to get the groceries.



The set up of the Church is really nice. In the center of the buildings that make up the church, there’s this plane of brick pattern and a blue circle in the middle – a mosaic with a white dove in the middle. This center is surrounded by 3 sides of open passage ways with benches all along side each one. In each corner of that triangle is a concentrated cluster of browning palm trees and other plants. And the top is open to the sky. So I walked around and took some pictures just now – yes, I go crazy with pictures when it comes to flowers and plants, haha…okay – I go crazy with pictures period.



The temperature is comfortable – in the 70s today – a sweatshirt is sufficient. It’s not particularly sunny…pretty cloudy and gray today, but there are pockets of sunshine that break through now and then that turn this garden-sort of area into a paradise.

Tonight we’re meeting with the youth at this church and we’re gonna share with them what ASB is all about and what we’re doing on our specific project. Tomorrow starts the real work.

...

The youth meeting was so much fun. We all went out back in the backyard of the church and engaged in an intense game of Ultimate Frisbee. Even though I had no clue what was going on, our team kept scoring. So I dished out high-fives every time people on my team cheered. Then we went inside, had the Q&A from the youth – who were all middle schoolers, by the way – a really lively bunch. We ate dinner together and continued to throw the Frisbee around. The ASB group bunched together at one of the tables, but I sat at one of the kids’ tables during dinner – it was so funny to listen to them go on about their stories about how this and that happened. You could see the excitement in their eyes. Seeing these kids happy brought me a lot of joy.

They all eventually got picked up by their parents and it was us again, just the ASB gang. We played several rounds of Mafia. Let me tell you, this is an amazing group. I’m always laughing. It’s a good mix of quiet and outgoing and I immediately felt at ease to be myself. I look forward to spending the rest of the week with them.

Okay, now for a night of much needed & awaited sleep!

Quotes of the day:

“some people put on make up, some people do their hair. I put on my sweater” – Sumeet

“I wanna take a salt water shower” – Kelly

“Okay police, wake up. Who would you like to finger? Umm...let me rephrase that” – Dave, the “narrator” for Mafia

“The parfait was frozen though…but it’s still okay – you just gotta wait” – Sumeet

Day 1 - ASB 2005

Saturday
March 5, 2005

Last time I attempted to keep a written record of an exciting week-long trip, it lasted for about oh...2 days. I was in a similar spot then as I am now: at the beginning – except then I was sitting on a plane in the middle of a 9 hour flight to Barcelona. Now I’m riding in a mini-van cruising on I-40 embarking on a 24 hour trip to Brownsville, Texas (it should really take 19.5 hours, but with stops, it will add up to about 24 hrs)...and no matter what anyone says, that’s pretty close to the border of Mexico (5 minutes to be exact), so in my book we’re goin to Mexico. We’re gonna be spending 2 days in Matamoros, Mexico, so I do get to actually say I went to Mexico for Spring Break – but that mindset kind of defeats the spirit of this trip.

Let me explain...

First of all, I’m goin on this trip through ASB – Alternative Spring Break. It’s a campus organization that arranges for about 500 students to spend their spring breaks working on specific service projects throughout the United States (this year including sites in Guatemala and Mexico). The site I’m going to will immerse us into the issues of "poverty, immigration, childcare, and unemployment."

[Bathroom break]

We got off at the wrong exit, but I was dying for a bathroom break, so we all stopped at a gas station. Random request of the day: an 80 year old guy didn’t have his ID and the cashier lady wouldn’t sell him alcohol. So the guy asked Sumeet to buy it for him.

Now we’ve been on the road for about 3 hours and we just passed over the Mississippi River into Arkansas. Upon Nader pointing out a Mosque on the side of the ride, Sumeet's reply: "yeah, that’s definitely very mosque-ish."

Okay, as I was saying before about our ASB site. We’re gonna be working on dilapidated houses and constructing new ones. That’s the extent of my knowledge of what we’re gonna be doing.

I know that where we’re going is not gonna be the most beautiful place...it won’t be exotic and colorful...but it will be different. It’s important to see another part of what life is like for other people. I’m sure I’ll leave this experience feeling much more appreciative of what I have. Plus, this is a segment of society I want to work for and serve in the future...so whatever goes down will be eye-opening and valuable.

There’s a total of 12 of us making this trip down to Brownsville. 4 guys, 8 girls. That’s gonna be interesting with the 2 bathrooms we’ll be sharing in the morning. We’re split into 2 mini-vans...I’m in the "bonding" van – i.e. the van w/o the DVD player.

[haha...snoop doggy dog "rollin down the street smoking…sippin on gin ‘n juice..." haven’t heard that in forever.]

Not much bonding happenin yet...it’s still morning and not much of us got sleep last night. I stayed up all night with Danny & Erica – we all had to be up around 5am and if we slept, we’d never wake up. After they left my room, I stayed up watching a movie till 5am...one of those "strange, make you think, not sure what’s really happening in the movie because reality and fantasy are so mixed" kind of films. It had an important message though...one of those "exciting, keep you on the edge of your seat" kind of films that eventually has a moral to all the maddness - the realization that beauty exists and it always will, through all the horror and old age: "siempre, siempre existirá la belleza." The film was in spanish which made it all the more appealing to me. (Lucia, Lucia - directed by Antonio Serrano - based on the novel "La hija del canibal" by Rosa Montero).

Okay, enough for now...more later.

[Dispatch! Africa sounding song – haven’t heard it since Pikesville]

Lion King sing along!

New artists to check out:
Dave Barnes – great voice!
Ben Harper
Soul Miners Daughter
Jack Johnson
Gavin Degraw
Matt Works

Quotes of the day:

“Yo, fish are birds” – Jon

“Road trips are like life…the first hour is really long, but each subsequent hour becomes a small part of the big picture” – Dave gets philosophical

“I’m awesome in the mornings” – Kelly (said 3 sec. before almost running into a pole)

“hey! Asparagus!”
“dude, it’s celery!”