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!”