Weekend Plus

Friday after class I participated (with the rest of the group) in my first non-violent march. We joined with CeaseFire Cincinnati to march around the community chanting "Stop the shooting," "Stop the killing," "They wanna live," etc. It was a really cool experience. The group marching was a pretty decent size, and we got lots of affirmation from passing cars honking at us. I felt like we were heard.

Saturday for our service, we went to an elementary school that was hosting the Guatamalan Consul to help immigrants make sure their papers are all correct. We played with the children. Most of them spoke English really well, but not all of them did. One girl (about seven years old) came over looking scared to death. Erin started talking to her in Spanish, and she immediately warmed up to Erin. She was scared because she didn't speak English. That experience really made me want to learn Spanish. And when I took some of the kids inside to get drinks, I couldn't ask some of the other kids I saw if they wanted to play because I didn't speak Spanish. Imagine how scared these kids must be around strangers who don't speak the same language.

After we finished we went to the bus stop, but were sitting on the wrong side of the street. We sat there for about an hour. Due to some miscommunication among our group, we missed two #32 busses before we realized that was the bus we were supposed to be on. We realized it as one of them was driving away. After that, we decided to walk. We started walking along the bus route and were going to catch the next bus as it drove by, but we ended up walking home all the way from Price Hill to Over-the-Rhine. It was a long walk.

Class-wise, we're still learning a lot, but it's hard to put it all together. I've definitely learned a lot more about the systematic aspects of poverty. There's a lot that goes into it that we don't even realize. The executive director of PIP told me she's been planning to read one of the books we're reading for class, When Work Disappears. She told me that she's going to move it to the top of her reading list and we can discuss how it applies to what we do at PIP/Venice. There are a lot of really interesting readings that Jennifer has compiled for our service learning class. Some of them are more frustrating and challenging to get through, but some of them are really interesting. One article you might be interested in reading is "Body Ritual among the Nacirema." Just google it. Then leave me a comment about what you think of it.

We're preparing to go to New Orleans. Over fall break, we're taking off the beginning of the week and traveling to New Orleans to do some service work and learn some new things. We know Christine will be taking us to a few museums since she's the history person. I'm not exactly sure what work we'll be doing yet, though. I'll let you know.