Some Perspective

Hi, readers! I apologize for the delay in posting. I also anticipate being a bit lax in posting during the upcoming month, too, because I'm about to undertake my first NaNoWriMo! And I think that most of my November free time to write will go towards that endeavor. :) Please harass me often to make sure I haven't been slacking on it!

Here's a little update on me:

I've just returned from a quick weekend conference to Napa, California, for my official first time on the West Coast! It was a workshop about running service-learning programs in the classroom, and filled me with lots of LGU flashbacks and memories. :) While the service program at our school is still very small, this was a fantastic opportunity to meet a lot of established Lasallian educators who know all about running Service Learning, and who were bursting with experience to share on getting out program up and flourishing.

In addition to being a great networking time, it was also a really useful reaffirmation of the importance of the work I've come here to do. I've been getting bogged down at times, so being surrounded by so many others who have made social justice issues their life's work was a welcome boost of energy. While it wasn't really a retreat, there was also some built in time for reflection (one of the focuses of Service-Learning!) and sharing with other members of the workshop, and I had some much-needed chances to simply recharge and recenter myself on this volunteer year. It was in an absolutely beautiful spot, too- right on the hills of a winery. Still- I was so thrilled to see water and actual trees when we first landed that I probably would have thought anything outside of the desert was beautiful. (It's gorgeous here too, but in it's own way).

All things considered, it was a really nice trip that came at a good point in my year. It was a reminder of my passions of undertaking this crazy ride in the first place. I didn't get to see everything I hoped (missing the Golden Gate bridge is my new equivalent of being close to Paris in '08 and never getting there...) but that's okay, because there's still 6.5 months left in my year, and adventure is only a flight, drive, or brisk walk away!

Oh, one last thing: my layover on the way back was in Las Vegas, my first time there too. The airport was packed full of slot machines and old people in wheelchairs. It was so strange. I was really tempted to use one of the machines just to say I'd gambled in Vegas, but I only had four quarters and spent most of the layover eating food, so I didn't. This probably says something about my life.

Always, Catherine

High School #2

This weekend has been the homecoming of the school where I'm working, which has been a fun blur of dress up days, screaming pep rallies, a candlelight 'tradition ceremony' and getting to see full out the pride so many El Pasoans have for their alma mater.

It's also been a unique opportunity to look back on my own high school career, which still feels like it's just barely past, and a time I think about often. Homecoming at my school was always a huge deal: competitions among the four classes that culminated at the football game in floats and skits that at the time seemed to be the biggest project imaginable. I look back and marvel about the many hours spent making paper flowers, often fun but also a source of great tension and bickering. Why had we cared so much?

Since I know my time here is temporary, I feel like a visitor to the space on the other side of the high school world: one of conferences and copy machines, elevator keys and professional titles. I often feel like a fake adult, but I don't think that's unique to someone in  my position, we're all just guessing our way along to some extent.

Some highlights from this week:

On Thursday, we went with members of the service club to drop off books they'd collected for a local non-profit. I don't know exactly how the dress up themes worked, but on that day all the seniors came in wearing togas. So we come parading in to this daycare center/library and they must have looked like storybook characters to the confused and fascinated little kids.

The pep rallies were intense, over the top screaming matches and dance-offs, generally a testosterone packed gymnasium. They competed in physical challenges and shows of spirit through synchronized cheers. One of my favorite parts was this dance-off where each class sent out a representative. As usual, the seniors were winning, but their champion was this shorter kid in a monkey mask. He did all this crazy footwork and all sorts of hyped up 'come at me, bro' gestures. The crowd went wild!

The tradition ceremony was a really nice idea, where everyone had candles. The flame started with the Brothers community, passed to alumni, who passed it to the seniors, who then in turn passed it to the freshmen. They had this energetic recent alum give a keynote speech, and an important faculty member who's been in the hospital even was there in the form of a video message. The cool part for me is that the LVs were included in the part where the Brothers lit the first candles, and I even lit the original candle from a lighter. It felt very important.

Last night was the homecoming game itself, and afterwards, a traditional Mexican tamalada. Something interesting they do around here is if anyone has a date to the dance, they wear these GIANT bow creations around their necks (girls) or arms (boys). It's a thing you buy for your date, like a corsage, but you wear it the whole day before the dance too. I think there's an unwritten rule that the more elaborate and expensive of the bow-thing, the more you supposedly care about your date. They were pretty but I think a bit excessive. The tamalada afterwards was mostly for alumni, and a nice time for them all to catch up with each other. The food was really good, but I did feel out of place.

I've experienced a lot of bittersweet nostalgia this week, and felt old in more ways than one, but I think it's served as an important lesson. I had my share of regrets coming out of high school, some that have bothered me longer than necessary. Being here on the faculty has taught me to lighten up and appreciate the time for what it is: brief, formative, awkward and a roller coaster for everyone. It doesn't need to be taken that seriously. At the same time, remembering my own experiences is a reminder of how very serious issues can seem to students as they're in the middle of them. It's a lesson in empathy and compassion, and one I hope to keep centered as this year continues.

Life Lately: Having Fun

Hi readers! It's been more than a week since my past post, and for that I apologize. I keep thinking of things to write about but don't set aside the time to put it out here for you.

There were a couple of cool events that happened since I last posted. One of them was that I went on my first community service project with the service group I moderate at school. We went to the Ronald McDonald House, located conveniently right across the street. They have gone there frequently in past years, and while this year are hoping to branch out to other organizations, were still interested in going back.

Service groups have been a favorite part of my high school and college experiences, and now going as a moderator was no exception. It was many of the student's first time visiting the organization, so I was able to experience the service project through their eyes as well. Our intended purpose of volunteering was to cook a meal for the children and their families staying at the house. The students brought the food we prepared- spaghetti and meat sauce, and garlic bread. It turned out great, but since so many students wanted to volunteer, we faced an example of 'too many cooks in the kitchen'. Turns out it doesn't take 15 kids to make a pot of pasta.

But they were there and eager to help, so with the volunteer coordinator on site, we managed to find a number of other odd jobs to help with. They watered several gardens and plants outside of the building, as well as washed down the organization's van. As could be expected, this turned into a wet mess with a couple of rouge hose sprays, but at the end the car was gleaming bright.

Our timing of cooking the food was a bit off, as was the amounts we'd prepared, but the guests who were there were certainly grateful for a night off from cooking. For me, the best part of the afternoon was getting to interact in a service setting with the student volunteers. We'd been able to meet and talk with them about service plans for the past two months now, and it was wonderful to actually be there during the project itself. I am always inspired by getting to work with non-profits, and seeing the students experience that similar joy was another sort of privilege. I'm definitely looking forward to their next project!

The second fun update: yesterday morning I went hiking to a place called the 'Aztec caves', and then played some Ultimate Frisbee! Hiking is the sort of adventure I'm accustomed to, joining an organized sports game was a whole other challenge.

Both of these adventures happened with a couple of wonderful new friends. I've been wanting to hike in the Franklin Mountains surrounding El Paso ever since I arrived 2 months ago, and was so excited to actually go. It was a chillier morning than I've been accustomed to, but definitely warmed up as we scrambled up the mountain. Everything was also so green, a result of the excessive rain this season. There were wildflowers and buzzing bees everywhere. The view at the top of the mountain was spectacular, we were afforded a beautiful view of El Paso and Juarez. The caves themselves were also fantastic- it looked like something out of a storybook. There were also a couple of ancient cave paintings on the walls! They were just out there in the open to the elements and tourists, which I thought was shocking but pretty cool.

After we conquered the caves, which only took about 2 hours, the friends I was with invited me to go play Ultimate Frisbee with a team they're on. They'd asked me to come before, but since I consider myself pretty horrible at anything involving a field and hand-eye coordination, I'd always declined. This time, though, with my athletic gear already on, and nothing to do for the rest of the day, I somehow found excuses harder to come by. I went.

It was an informal pick-up league sort of team, but everyone on it still seemed really good to me. I practiced throwing the disc around for a while on the sidelines, and sooner than I'd expected, was called in to replace someone who wanted a break. It was terrifying! I made a bunch of mistakes, but all throughout some of the more experienced players were giving me advice and encouragement. No one ever put me down, even when I threw the disc into the dirt on a short pass. A few times, I even properly caught and threw the disc (they don't call it a Frisbee), which may seem a silly accomplishment, but gave me the confidence to stick it out.

While the whole game was stressful, it was also fun in a way I hadn't expected. I'm still really apprehensive with any sort of competitive sport, but I think I'll probably go back. It was such a welcoming environment, and this seems as good a time as any to really try out something new.

I'll let you know how it goes- who knows, maybe this year will make an athlete of me yet. (Ha!)

Thank you, always, for reading. :)

Soul Food

Earlier this week, I tried my hand at a new recipe when it was my night to cook dinner-- bacon mac and cheese, a homage to the recent losers of a cooking show I've been following. I may have forgotten to strain out the milk clumps, and it may have momentarily caught fire in the oven, but overall it was a pretty tasty turnout. It felt like a soul food success, but some other events this past week have reminded me how much more is involved with feeding the soul.

In getting the students I work with involved in community service, I've discovered a wonderful ministry that makes sandwiches right next door to my house.  Stopping by before work to help them out has been a huge boost for me as well, because while the work I do at school is surely service, there's a different sort of joy that comes from seeing a stack of sandwiches pile up, and it's the sort of fulfillment I hadn't realized how much I missed.

Another group I've recently joined is the El Paso Young Adult Ministry. I've been going for a few weeks and it's given me a familiar type of happiness that I felt doing clubs in college. This past meeting, they did a service project that was, again, making sandwiches. It's an easy task for a big group of people to participate in, and one that has a quick payoff in terms of impact visibility.

We prepared about 35 brown paper bags, each with two sandwiches, a piece of fruit and Capri Sun. It was a pretty quick project in terms of prep. Then what we did was split into three groups, pile into groups, and drive around El Paso in search of homeless people to whom we could give food. This was different from any other service I'd done, where it was generally under the supervision of some certified non-profit. I'll admit I was honestly pretty nervous, because it was late at night and I didn't know my way around, no one really knew where I was, and I'd just watched a terrifying documentary on the violence in Juarez.

At the start of our expedition, we were sort of driving in circles and unable to find anyone. It was a weird sort of game: "Is that someone?" "No", "No", "Yes!!"

The first legitimate homeless we encountered were two men in a sort of walled-in parking lot. I felt like we must have seemed really suspicious driving up to them, but when we rolled down the window and asked if they were hungry, they seemed happy to take the brown bags. The one thing I remember about our first 'find' is that they had a cat carrier, and a small cat sitting between the two. I've missed my cats these two months, and it was a sort of humanizing connection I hadn't expected to see.

The second pair of people that we encountered was when we were walking around the downtown section on foot. We'd spotted them driving by, but had to park a ways away first. As we approached, I held back, because I was anxious about being the first one to start conversation.

Him: "Can you spare any change?"
Us: "How about some sandwiches?"

The expression on his face has been in my mind all week. How many times have I completely ignored someone asking for change on the streets of Philadelphia? Too many, and I've known this for a while now. The surprise and gratitude in his voice was overwhelming as he thanked us. He spoke clearly, though his companion, a woman he described as from New Orleans, was harder to understand. His name was Lester, and he asked us about a concert going on nearby, shook all of our hands and asked our names. We spoke for a while but then pulled ourselves away, explaining that we had to distribute the rest of the bags. We wished him a good night.

Our third and final stop for the evening was in response to a call from another of our groups, who had run out of bags. We joined them at 9th and Oregon, a street on the very extreme edge of the United States border. There, along a low stone wall, were at least 20 men trying to sleep. Some had blankets, most were cushioned by cardboard boxes.

I was uncomfortable. I didn't want to stay and gawk at their situation; I wanted to distribute the remaining bags as fast as possible and head home. But the group insisted in heading down the line together, so I did. When we were nearly finished and walking back to the car, one man from the line stood up and walked towards us. He wanted to know who we were and why we were doing this. When we explained it was an organization of 'Catolicos', he misheard and thought we said 'Alcoholicos', and joked (I suppose it was jokingly) that "Todos aqui son alcoholicos", "everyone here is alcoholic".

And then when we gave him his food bag, the last that we had, he didn't want to stop talking. His name was Guillermo. His wife and 5 year old daughter had both died in a short period of time, and he couldn't find work anywhere he looked. He was angry at God, he was fighting for justice, and he was in an immense amount of pain. He cried, and was ashamed of it. He talked with us for about a half hour, all in Spanish so I couldn't always keep up. At the end we prayed together, and he embraced us all.

On the drive back to where all our cars were waiting, we passed by where we had seen Lester earlier. He was seated on the concrete edge of a building, head bowed, and looking profoundly alone.

I'm not telling this story because I think I did anything great. I don't want anyone to compliment me for taking an hour to give some people food. I know there is so much more to do. I'm writing this because I want you to consider Lester and Guillermo, the woman from New Orleans and the men with their cat. They are the heroes of a story that has never been told, a tragedy that unfolds every day. The 'soul food' I make reference to in the title is that of human interaction, of being considered worthy of conversation and existence.

In the way that everything seems to come full circle, the day after I did the food distribution, I found this news segment that features a non-profit I used to work with back home. About a minute in, one of the guests explains that he goes to the kitchen not because he needs food, but "the socialization of people, and talking to people."

My all-time favorite song is called Everybody, by Ingrid Michaelson, with the lyrics of "everybody wants to love, everybody wants to be loved." It's such a simple idea, and one that resonates with me deeply in times like this. Love people, everybody. We all just want to be loved.

Some Weather We're Having

It's been a while since I posted, so here's a funny story.

When I first arrived in El Paso, I was greeted with a rainy weekend. It wasn't a big deal, but I quickly learned how much people here appreciate rain. It's a desert and most of the time one of the sunniest places in the country. It's even been nicknamed 'Sun City'. The place doesn't really know how to cope with rain, because they're not used to it, so on that drizzly Saturday morning I tried to take a walking tour, businesses and restaurants were shut down, a farmers market cancelled, and essentially every conversation was focused on the weather. When the rain stopped but the clouds lingered, all I could hear was what a nice day it was.

That's right: cloudy days are nice days, especially in the summer, and everyone congregates outside to celebrate not being burned to a crisp. They rejoice at how green everything is going to be, and in truth the sandy landscape did become a bit more vibrant. Still, after that first rainstorm all I could hear was how strange it was.

It's essentially the weather opposite of Ireland, where it's almost always raining and sunny days are a cause for huge excitement.

As much as I was reassured that the rain was most unusual, and I'd miss it soon enough, this has been a particularly rough 'monsoon season' for El Paso. And every time you think "surely that's the end of it", there comes another midnight rainstorm and cars crash and teachers at school are told not to mark anyone late because of flooding on the highways.

Since I live right next to my workplace, this hasn't had any sort of substantial impact on my commute. The biggest difficulty I've faced from the rain was about a week ago, when the gymnasium of the school took on a lot of water somehow. The weight room was flooding, and I was called in to help sweep everything out before it infiltrated the beautiful new hardwood floor in the main gym, recently completed and a big source of pride for the school community.

If you've ever had to do emergency flood control before, you'll know it's not the most satisfying task. I don't mind doing manual labor, and while transporting the sandbags from one side of the school to the other was difficult, it was easy to see our progress. Sweeping out the water, though, seemed Sisyphean at times. Each big push of water out the door just made way for more to fill up down the hallway, seep into a nearby locker room, and in general swill around my flip-flopped feet.

It was dirty, it was tiring, and it was yet another unexpected task in my volunteer time. In a way I had to laugh and remember how during orientation they told us to be prepared for everything. I don't know what other surprise natural disasters will come my way, but I'm trying to take it each one week at a time. The gym was saved though, and that was a great feeling. It makes for a funny memory too, I think!

The moral of the story: if anyone tells you it never rains in El Paso, they are either lying or have been hibernating this summerfall.

Trouble Brewing

Disclaimer: there have been some very interesting and blog-worthy events the past few days, but I'm having trouble sitting down and writing them out. Something about sharing my posts on Facebook recently has made me somewhat intimidated about writing in a way that's really silly. But I'll 'craft' a good story out for you all soon.

But first, here's a funny story that won't fit in a tweet and I wanted to share. I may move towards shorter posts in the style of my favorite blog, but hopefully keep up the longer pieces too.

So this weekend I have been lazing around the house with the excuse of a sore neck (I think I slept on it funny), rereading Harry Potter and eating oreos. Tonight I discovered Scrivener, a super cool writing tool that's described as 'photoshop for writers'. It massively improved my day and I hope it will inspire me to actually move on some projects I've had in mind. 

Anyway, so tonight I was diligently following the complicated tutorial for the program, and at one point it told me to go get a cup of tea and a biscuit. I obeyed, and went upstairs to get myself a nice cup of tea and a piece of 'soda bread' that one of the Brothers makes that tastes phenomenally close to Irish brown bread.

But for the tea...they don't own a kettle, which I've come across before. No problem, I would just boil some water in a pot, this time using the one with the little lip so it pours easier. I set it to boiling and wait for a few minutes, but it's making a funny smell. Lots of things in the house make a funny smell so I wasn't super concerned, but I took off the lid to look...

And there was a boiling bug in my tea water! Writhing and dying all horribly.

So I poured it out and decided I would just microwave my water. I went into the cabinet and rifled among the teas, passing over chai for green tea and pulling it out happily. One of the Brothers says,

"Green tea, eh?"

"Yeah," I say, smiling. "It's really good for you."

"Good." he says. "That's been in there a while."

Curious, I check the bottom of the box. And then I have to laugh. "Brother, guess when this expired."

"When?"

"February 2006."

That's been my Saturday night, everybody. But now I have a nice mug of microwaved regular tea that doesn't even expire until November this year, some bread, and an ice pack for my neck. Stay tuned for more exciting stories like this. 

Found in Translation

Hi Readers-

In case you missed it, I was just featured on the shared blog for the national organization that runs my volunteer year! It's a departure from my usual slice of life updates, and goes into more of a reflective overview of the whole experience.

Check it out here! (I hope the link works- I was having trouble connecting to the website earlier.)

I'll have another post up soon talking about the anniversary of 9/11, and how we memorialized it on campus for a group of students too young to remember the day.