like a concrete phoenix

A prayer in pictures.

2010-04-15T21:57:00.009-04:00

I re-read St. Theresa's prayer in the bathroom at my old house in Baltimore, and wanted to illustrate it.

May today there be peace within.

May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others.

May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content with yourself just the way you are.

Let this knowlege settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us.

Amen.

Dosta.

2010-01-11T12:03:00.002-05:00

So, this is awkward.

I meant to write this before I left Serbia, but you know how it goes when you decide to end an assignment early and have only two weeks to say goodbye to your friends and pack all your belongings into two 23 kilo bags (and only ONE carry on, thanks a lot, Austrian air…). There wasn’t time to write it there, so I’ll explain now.

So, yes, I’m leaving early. Have left, actually. It isn’t that anything specific happened (other than, you know, my father dying), or that things were really so bad, or that I couldn’t deal with life in Belgrade. Belgrade is an incredible city full of beauty and passion and depth and surprises, my job was amazing, and I was starting to make some genuine friendships. I adored the other service workers with MCC in the region, and I was FINALLY becoming conversational in Serbian. So, why bail?

Good question. To be honest, I was really cold. The weekend I made the decision was the coldest we had had this winter and the heat in my apartment wasn’t working. Of course, it is more than that, but in the interest of full disclosure, you need to know that fear of frostbite was a factor in the decision. Of course, there is more than that, too.

After the funeral, when I decided to come back to Serbia, lots of people told me they were proud of me. Lots of people told me my dad would be proud of me. People told me I was being brave and selfless, but here’s the secret: I am much more scared of going home than I was of going back to Serbia. I think, on some level, being in Serbia the past few months protected me from certain parts of the grieving process. There was so much to do and see and think about I didn’t have TIME to fall apart. In some ways, I was hiding in the Balkans… hiding from my grief, from my past, and from my family.

Now I’m going home, because it’s time. I have always wanted to travel, to see what there is to see, to forge a new path, to be on my own, and I’ve been lucky to be able to do a decent amount of that through international travel the past few years. It took the death of a parent, but now I think I am starting to see the value of having both wings AND roots, the value of family, the value of home. It sounds cliché and naive, I know, but I do think part of the reason I wanted to live abroad was to, in some sense, “find myself”. I did a lot of things the past few months… I lived alone for the first time in my life, I learned Serbian (and Bosnian and Croatian!), I learned to trust myself, and I grew up a lot. The thing I am realizing now, however, is that maybe “finding myself” doesn’t need to take place in the Balkans, or Central America, or East Africa. Maybe those are silly places to look. Maybe I can- and should- “find” myself at the source of myself: at home.

Travel does do a lot for a person, though, I will be honest about that. Traveling has taught me some new things, changed some of my values, and showed me some of my values that I am not willing to change. I have realized I am, in fact, more American than I thought (and perhaps more American than I’d like to admit). I’m coming home wearing a scarf from Kosovo and jewelry from Bosnia, reading Winnie the Pooh in Serbian (in Cyrillic!), but I am not nor will I ever be from any of those places. You can go anywhere in the world, you can make your own journey, and you can try to even aim at a certain kind of ending, but you only get one beginning, the same way you only get one father. Now I see that, and staying in Belgrade, even if it is to work for a humanitarian aid organization, seems both frivolous and selfish.

My favorite Serbian proverb is “Svuda pođi, kući dođi.” It means “Go everywhere, come home.” There are two interpretations I’ve heard. One is that you can go anywhere and everywhere in the world and be at home there, and that’s the meaning I originally fell in love with. The other meaning is that you can go anywhere in the world, but you should always return home, to your roots, to your people, and that’s the meaning I’ve got tucked in my back pocket now.

I probably won’t write here anymore. After all, “Today I went to the grocery store, asked for something in my native language, and got exactly what I expected!” is simply not a compelling story. If you’re so interested and invested in me that that kind of story would be compelling for you, we’re probably close enough for you to call me and ask me those kind of questions… or else you’re stalking me, which is creepy, so stop.

This whole entry runs the risk of being overly sweet and sentimental, so I might as well push it over the edge with some song lyrics I loved as a 12- year- old. It makes me feel silly, but I do think Dar Williams’ words apply here. She writes:

Here’s something I finally faced, I finally think I come from someplace, and this is not a romance with the road.

She’s right, you know. You can love the road and enjoy the journey, and maybe one day I’ll court these kind of adventures again, but for now, I finally think I come from someplace, and that’s enough. Dosta. Enough.

Some language and photo highlights

2009-12-26T14:19:00.006-05:00

I promised you my molasses story. I have heard from some people (one person commenting here, and from friends in Sarajevo) that it is possible to find molasses in the region. Maybe that's true, maybe they were just teasing me, but this is what happened when I tried to buy it.

Maggie, having already invited several Serbian friends over for a gingerbread house making party, needs to find molasses to make said gingerbread. She goes to the biggest grocery store she knows, the one where she can find fresh ginger and mangoes, and has this conversation (in Serbian):
Maggie: Hello, I have a question.
Store clerk: OK, go ahead.
M: OK. I need to buy something, but I don't know if you have it, and I don't know how to say it in Serbian.
SC: OK... well, what is it?
M: I don't know. In English we call it molasses.
SC: I don't know what that is. What's it like?
M: It's like honey, but it's black.
SC: Black honey? We have that.
M: No, it's not honey. But it's LIKE honey. But it's not honey. It's black and sweet and... like honey. You cook with it. You can't eat it. I mean, you can eat it, but you can't eat it alone. I mean, you can, but that is gross.
SC: ...OK. Follow me. (Shows Maggie to the honey shelf. Hands her a jar of black honey).
M: This is honey.
SC: Yes, this is black honey.
M: No, what I want is not honey. But it is like honey (wishes desperately that she knew the word for "sticky" or "thick").
SC: I don't think we have what you want.
M: OK. Thanks anyway. (walks away, and accepts defeat).

Not all is lost, however. I free-hand cut house pieces from sugar cookie dough, baked those, and we put them together with homemade butter cream frosting. It worked pretty well!

The materials....

The process...

The finished products!

My friends had never made cookie houses before and were eager to try. They kept asking at what point we eat them... I think the concept of cookies just for decoration is pretty American (both showy AND wasteful! Yay!)

Otherwise, though, the winter has been progressing nicely, and by "nicely" I mean with a shit ton of snow, and then a warm front to melt it all. We did have fun with the kids at work in the snow, though, while it was here.

In conclusion, here are a few more examples of me making an ass out of myself in a foreign language (since apparently these are popular).

Buying cheese in the market:
Cheese guy: Would you like to buy some of this cheese, too? It's very good.
Maggie: No thanks, it's my first time.
Cheese guy: (concerned face) OK... well... enjoy....
(I mixed up "first time" and "another time". Earlier that day I had told someone that it was my first time in Europe, and apparently I can only use one phrase a day.)

While sitting (alone) at a bus station waiting to be picked up by friends for the weekend:
Stranger: Miss, do you need some help?
Maggie: No, thanks, I'm waiting with friends.
Stranger: (looks around deserted bus station) OK....
(za prijatelje (for friends) vs. sa prijateljima (with friends)... I guess I need to study the cases again).

At home, listening to music:
Friend: Is this on youtube or do you have it on your computer?
Maggie: It's mine. I bought this song because I love you.
*crickets chirping*
Maggie: OH! OH! I mean, I bought this song because I love IT! I mean, I like you, but, this song... I.... um....

It's beginning to look a [little] like [something sort of resembling] Christmas...

2009-12-16T11:56:00.006-05:00

Everyone has problems. The secret is not looking for a life without problems, but finding creative ways to meet your problems; notice I said meet... not necessarily solve. Thus, I give you:

The Lone American Volunteer in Serbia's Guide to Christmas

PROBLEM: You are a protestant living in an Orthodox country. What you have always celebrated as Christmas (December 25th) is not a holiday where you live.

SOLUTION: Make work special that day. Make your students balloon animals and give them candy canes sent from the US. Invite orthodox friends over for a special dinner; after all, it's not like they're doing anything that night!

PROBLEM: Nativity scenes are a big part of the holiday season for you, both because you're a Christian, and because they are a family/cultural tradition. You miss the nativity sets in your parents' house: the one your grandpa carved by hand from wood, the ceramic one you spent hours playing with as a child, the one your sister brought back from Ghana.

SOLUTION: Buy a nativity set in Serbia.

PROBLEM: You can't find a nativity set that costs less than $30, which is half your monthly income.

SOLUTION: Make your own nativity set out of salt dough.

PROBLEM: You had to bake your nativity set figures on their backs because the salt dough wouldn't allow them to stand up on the cookie sheet. Now Mary, Joseph, the wise men, the shepherd, and the angel can't stand up at all. Only Jesus in the manger and the sheep, who is lying down, look normal.

SOLUTION: Throw everyone but Jesus and the sheep away. Paint them, put them on display, and claim it is a visual reference to Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

PROBLEM: Almost all Christmas songs with any sort of deep or personal meaning make you burst into tears, especially ones involving the words "family", "friends", or "home".

SOLUTION: Listen to Santa Baby and Baby It's Cold Outside on repeat. Sing along. Declare "Serbian Sexy" as the theme for this year's Christmas.

PROBLEM: Making gingerbread houses from scratch with the mold your grandmother gave you is a tradition, but that mold is now in Virginia and your mother refuses to spend the $80 to ship it to you.

SOLUTION: Throw a gingerbread house making party for your Serbian friends, using hand cut gingerbread pieces instead of the mold. They won't really know what you're talking about, but will be interested. It helps if you claim it will be like the house in Hansel and Gretel and tell them they can eat the candy.

PROBLEM: There is no molasses in Serbia [see future post for Maggie Makes an Idiot of Herself While Trying to Buy Molasses story] and you can't make gingerbread without molasses.

SOLUTION: Make sugar cookie houses. Decorate with (homemade) colored frosting, sprinkles, gummi bears and gummi dinosaurs.

PROBLEM: Everyone you love and everyone who loves you live on another continent.

SOLUTION: Skype with family and friends. Use your time to work on new relationships where you are. Count your blessings. After all, the first Christmas took place when Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were away from home, too. At least you're not in a barn.

"[Maybe next year] we all will be together,
If the fates allow,
Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow...
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now."

"but WHERE is the MONKEY??"

2009-12-05T05:40:00.005-05:00

Language differences continue to be both the most difficult and most amusing part of my time in Serbia.

It almost feels like I am making more mistakes the more I learn, because now I understand just enough of what people are saying to THINK I understand what they mean. A popular one to mention with my friends here is kofa vs. kafa. Kofa is a bucket, and kafa is coffee. A few weeks ago a girl was in our apartment and feeling sick. She put her head between her knees... and then threw up between her knees, onto the floor. Repeatedly. We all jumped into action, and I, of course, wanted to be as helpful as possible. I understood that one person was saying (in Sebian) "Go get the kofa! Bring the kofa!" I didn't know the word 'kofa', so I heard it as 'kafa' (a word I know and love). I thought it was a bit odd that they wanted to give the puking girl coffee, but Serbs LOVE coffee, and also have many "home remedies" for ailments that I find perplexing. They want coffee, I thought. Great. I can do that. So I made coffee, and I got some REALLY funny looks when I brought it into the room.

The language barrier really goes both ways, though. Like I've said before, people in Belgrade, especially people my age, tend to speak excellent English. That being said, some things just don't translate. My first gut-busting laughter since coming back from the funeral was shared with my roommate in our kitchen. I was washing dishes, and she was using a laptop I had borrowed from work at the kitchen table. She went to log in to facebook and couldn't find the "@" symbol, since international keyboards vary. She looked up and, with all seriousness, asked me in English, "Where is the monkey?". We hadn't been living together very long at this point, so I didn't want to freak her out or accuse her of smoking crack, so I did my best to maintain a straight face and said, "Milana, we don't HAVE a monkey." After several "what?"s, "WHAT??"s, and "What do you MEAN??"s, we figured it out. In Serbian, the "@" is called "majmunce", or "the little monkey". Since it doesn't make sense, she assumed it was a term they had borrowed from English. Needless to say to the native English speakers reading this blog... it's not.

There have been some fun times with people who are learning English as well. One of my colleagues at the kindergarten told me the day we met that he doesn't speak English. He said it in excellent English, though, which was confusing. I believe his exact words were: "Hi! I'm Kolja. I'm sorry, I don't speak English. I only know some English from watching TV". That boy must have watched a LOT of TV, though, because we have had several long conversations in English. I think what he, and a lot of Serbs, meant by "I don't speak English" was really "my English isn't perfect." That is true. Multiple times now he has asked me, "Maggie, do you want to go to bed with me?". The first time this was especially confusing (and I should mention here that this particular colleague is very handsome, wears funny shirts, is great with kids, and smells like fabric softener [in a good way]). The first time he asked, I think I just looked at him for a while, and then he motioned for me to follow him to the basement. WELL, who am I to argue? I'm a great cross cultural ambassador, I would ever be culturally insensitive and turn down a social invitation, and I love fabric softener, so I followed him to the basement... where we set up the little beds where the younger kids take naps. I should maybe tell him what he is implying with the way he says this, but I enjoy being propositioned too much to correct him.

Finally, there are the different ways Serbian and English are difficult. English grammar, compared to nearly any other language, is ridiculously easy. I laugh, you laugh, (s)he laughs, we laugh, y'all laugh, they laugh. No cases for nouns (with the possible exception of pronouns) and no genders. Serbian grammar is NUTS, with 7 cases for nouns, genders, confusing accents, and letters I can't pronounce. Serbian, however, is completely phonetic. "Write as you speak, and read as it's written" (Thanks, Vuk Karadžić!). Every letter in Serbian has ONE sound, and the sound can't be changed by the order of the surrounding letters. There are no silent letters, no Is before Es except after Cs or when sounding like A as in neighbor or weigh. It is pure, honest, and straightforward, and once you learn the rules, they don't change. This is why I can read books to my students. I usually have no idea what I'm saying, but I can read, and they understand what I'm saying. Thus, the most difficult thing for Serbs learning English is the crazy way things are written and pronounced. One of my friends from work speaks English well, but has never learned to read or write it, so she just writes it like it's Serbian, leading to things like this (actual text message I received): "Ajm lejt bikoz aj vejt bas. Aj bi der for 10min." That's in English... um, kind of. If you read it with Serbian rules of pronunciation (and grammar) it says "I'm late because I wait bus. I be there for 10 min", or, with English grammar, "I'm late because I'm waiting for the bus. I will be there in 10 min." I have this message saved in my phone, and will keep it forever. It is the most endearing text I've ever gotten.

I have a new Serbian teacher now, so I making faster progress on more practical things. I have also gotten over a lot of my anxieties about practicing what little I do know, because I've realized people think my accent and inability to hear the difference between "Č" and "Ć" or say "Lj" is cute, and it's a good way to make friends (and be kissed... somehow it's a fairly common occurance for me to say something in Serbian and for someone to laugh, put thier hands on my head, and kiss my cheek.) Dosta mi je težak, ALI, snalazim se... nekako. :o)

2009-11-11T14:02:00.004-05:00

I spent this past weekend in Sarajevo visiting with my region representatives and another service worker in the region. We went on a hike through the mountains near Sarajevo and went to this waterfall, which was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. I don't think I even realized how sad I have been until I was standing on this bridge, feeling the spray of the waterfall on my face... it sounds stupid, I'm sure, but there was something healing about it.

"...let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream." Amos 5:24

Ne razumem...

2009-11-11T11:47:00.006-05:00

I haven't written anything for a while, and I apologize to those of you who have been waiting on the edge of your seats. I would love to tell you that I have been too busy learning Serbian to write anything, but then you might ask me to say something, and I would have to admit that I still know next to nothing.

In theory I work at the kindergarten from 8 until 1, and then have Serbian lessons from 4- 5:30 during the week. I also have about an hour and a half of homework every day. So, that means I am spending about five hours a day working, and three hours a day learning the language. In truth, however, I learn much more Serbian at the kindergarten than I do in my lessons. At work learn things like "Don't put that in your mouth!" "Sit down!" "Eat your cabbage!" and "Don't open the bunny cage!". In my lessons I learn things like "There is a shift and change of stress in many Class I disyllabic masculine nouns with the short-rising accent on the first, and the length on the second syllable. The accent shifts to the middle syllable and changes into the long rising one in all cases except the vocative singular." Incidentally, I always thought I was good at learning languages before I tried to learn Serbian. It turns out I happen to have studded easy languages.

People in Belgrade tend to speak very good English. In fact, the only people I have met who ACTUALLY don't speak English are either elderly or under 10. Many people between those two groups will claim they don't speak English, but they usually do and are just being modest (or don't want to talk to me). There seems to be an attitude here that everyone *should* know English, and when people think their English isn't very good, they're embarrassed. I have even been asked by more than one person why I am trying to learn Serbian, because it is "such a small language", and "only relevant here." I hardly know what to say to those people. I am learning Serbian because I LIVE here, because I look like an idiot in the grocery store, because I can't talk to my students, because I respect you enough to try to address you in your native tongue... the list for THAT goes on and on.

Despite my genuine efforts to progress, I still fail at most things most days with this language. Some fun examples:

(At work):
Kindergartner: Maggie, you are American?
Maggie: Yes I am.
Kindergartner: Do you LIVE in America??
Maggie: (confusing the verb "to live" with the verb "to come from") Yes, I do!
Kindergartner: WHOAAAAA!!!!!!
(Several hours later)
Maggie: (to self) Why was she so shocked that I am from the US?? OH CRAP she asked if I lived there NOW... she thinks I am commuting every day to Belgrade from DC... oh dear.

(With friends)
Friend: (sneezes)
Maggie: (literal translation) Shhh, kitty!
Friends: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Maggie: What!? Isn't that what you say when someone sneezes??
Friend: That is what you say when you are 6 and someone sneezes.
(guess where I learned it?)

(At the grocery store)
Maggie: (struggles to figure out how to get the little scale to print the sticker so she can buy her lemons. Motions to the clerk for help).
Clerk: (points at lemons) Lemons?
Maggie: (conditioned response) I don't speak Serbian.

(At home)
Doorbell rings. Maggie is home alone and answers it. A large, very scary looking man is standing there.
Man: Hello.
Maggie: Hello.
Man: Is your TV working?
Maggie: (WTF? Did Milana call someone to fix the TV? Shouldn't he have some kind of uniform on if he works for the TV company? Maybe they don't have uniforms for TV guys in Serbia. If I let him in, he will probably kill me, but it might be culturally insensitive to not let him in. It's raining, maybe he wants coffee. Maybe if I make him coffee he won't kill me...)
Man: IS... YOUR... TV.... WORKING?
Maggie: (what the hell) No, it is not working.
Man: OK. (enters house. Messes with TV.) (bunch of stuff in Serbian)
Maggie: (nods)
Man: (bunch of stuff in Serbian), understand?
Maggie: yes.
Man: (bunch of stuff in Serbian) TV not works (something in Serbian) understand?
Maggie: Yes.
Man: (Bunch of stuff in Serbian) understand? (Messes with TV. Bunch of stuff in Serbian that sounds like a question.)
Maggie: Yes?
Man: Yes??
Maggie: No?
Man: Good. (bunch of stuff in Serbian. TV starts working. Bunch more stuff in Serbian.) You speak Serbian well.
Maggie: Thank you. I am learning the language.

So it goes.

Another MCC worker in the region had some really interesting things to say about learning the language. He will be serving in Sanski Most, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but is living in Sarajevo for a few months to study language. You can read his thoughts here: http://matthewharms.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/what-exactly-am-i-speaking/ (it isn't letting me put it in as a link and my computer skills are as limited as my language skills, so you can cut and paste. I trust you).

If you can't tell from that post, he knows a LOT more of the language than I do. I bet if asked if he was buying lemons, he would say, yes, I am buying lemons. The he would probably proceed to have a conversation in the local language about Yugoslavian literature. Not that I am bitter. I am learning the language, too... polako, i malo po malo.

Cute fuzzy kittens

2009-10-21T13:08:00.002-04:00

Yesterday night as I was coming home from a cafe I saw a kitten on the corner of my street. He looked like he was about 6 weeks old and was black and white. It was a very cold night, and he looked so cute, and I have really wanted a cat lately, so I seriously considered picking him up and taking him home. I wasn't sure how my roommate feels about cats, though, and I don't really have enough money to buy cat food, so I left him there.

Today on my way home from work I saw him again a little further up the street. This time he was lying dead on the sidewalk with his throat ripped open. It looked like one of the stray dogs got him.

Some days are harder than others. I guess that's true no matter who and where you are, though.

Concrete Phoenix

2009-10-19T09:21:00.006-04:00

The careful observers among you may have noticed the title change to this blog. "like a concrete phoenix" is a reference to Belgrade in the Bradt guidebook to Belgrade by Laurence Mitchell that the previous SALTer gave me. The full description is this:

Belgrade has the dubious distinction of the only European city to have been bombed on five separate occasions in the same century: during WWI (twice), followed by Nazi bombers in 1941, Allied bombers in 1944 and NATO bombers in 1999. Somehow, Belgrade always manages to rebuild and resurface like a concrete phoenix, only too aware that, lying as it does on a geopolitical, religious and cultural fault line, 'inconveniences' such as war, invasions and air raids inevitably go with the territory.

If it is not clear from this paragraph, the description- and the entire book- is clearly written with love by someone who deeply admires the beauty and strength and limitless character of this city. And I don't just say that to make up for loving on Sarajevo in the last post.

Anyway, that description always interested me, and now it has taken on special meaning. I am going to take a cue from beautiful Beograd and bear my own burdens with grace and strength. If Belgrade can survive- and, dare I say, thrive- through and despite all that it has, I can certainly spend this year (or years) in this place growing and learning through and despite my own circumstance of loss and pain and sorrow. I don't dare claim to be a concrete phoenix myself, but I aim to be at least worthy to live in one.

Further encouragement to stick it out came today in two wonderful letters, one from my grandmother and one from a dear childhood friend. They were both written before my father died, but could not have come at a better time or with more appropriate words. My grandmother writes "...think only of what is being added to your life, not what you miss," and my friend writes, "dig your toes in deep, love, do not let go."

I can't promise either of those things, but I will do my best... like a concrete phoenix.

Home again, home again.

2009-10-15T10:44:00.006-04:00

Ask me how my trip back to Serbia was. I dare you.

I knew it would be a long day of travel. We decided it would be best for me to spend a few days with other MCC people in Sarajevo, Bosnia before returning to Belgrade, so I was supposed to fly from Washington DC to London, London to Belgrade, and then Belgrade to Sarajevo (it was cheaper to fly into Belgrade and then to Sarajevo than it was to change my destination from Belgrade to Sarajevo). That is a lot of flying, and with connections on top of it, I knew to expect a lot of movement and perhaps some stress. I did not know to expect the Spanish Inquisition.

My flight from DC into London was a bit late, and I missed my connecting flight by about 45 seconds. The plane wasn't at the gate, the passengers had to take a little bus out to the plane on the runway, and I literally saw it pull away. The people at the desk said it couldn't come back for me, and that I should go to the information desk to sort out how to get to Belgrade. That seemed reasonable enough, so I went to the desk and explained the situation. I asked when the next flight to Belgrade was, and the woman said, "same time tomorrow." This was about 7:30 AM in London, 2:30 AM body time, and I hadn't slept at all on the plane. I was tired and confused and did NOT want to stay overnight in London, so I did something I'm not super proud of. My voice wavered a little bit and my eyes (conveniently!) filled with tears as I explained, "I'm not sure if tomorrow will work... I'm actually traveling for a funeral." Please notice that I didn't lie, per se. I didn't say I was GOING to a funeral, I said I was TRAVELING for one, which I was. The funeral is why I was traveling right then... I just happened to be traveling HOME from it... four weeks later. The woman's face changed, and she said she would "see what she could do." I said thank you, and fought back tears, which were about 50% genuine and 50% to get me on a quicker flight. She was able to get me on a 2:30 PM flight to Belgrade with JAT airlines. She got very serious and said I needed to be quite quick, as I would need to go to another terminal to catch that flight. I said that was fine, and the plan was set.

In Washington or Chicago or New York or ANY OTHER AIRPORT I have EVER been in, going to another terminal involves walking a bit, maybe getting on a little tram or bus, and walking a bit more. At Hethrow, however, going to another terminal involves 4 times zones and requires a sherpa. First, I had to be escorted out of the current terminal BY SECURITY. So that was fun. Then I had to go through immigration, fill out the little card thing, and even got a UK stamp on my passport (which was actually pretty exciting, I'll take all the stamps I can get!). Then I had to go collect my luggage. I should point out now that I had a LOT of luggage. I kept thinking of more and more things at my mom's house that I could use in Serbia, and I was bringing gifts for the other service workers and a few Serbian friends, and I had bought a lot of clothes in the US because I had done such a terrible job packing. As a result, I had two giant 50 pound suitcases, one of which was mostly full of maple syrup. Thankfully my luggage hadn't made it onto the flight either, so I was able to collect it, go through customs (thankfully they didn't ask why I had 4 bottles of vanilla extract...)and was off to find terminal 2!

Terminal 2 is, apparently, in northern Africa. After officially entering the UK, I have to get on a subway system- WITH my 100 pounds of syrup and 30 pounds of carry-on luggage- and ride to the next train stop. I finally lugged all the bags onto the train and found a seat. Then I watched the informational video of the TV in front of me about the on board showers, wireless internet, sleeping cars, and- hold up. SHOWERS? Where the hell was this TAKING me?

The train ride really wasn't that long, maybe 10 minutes. True to their word, the Brits had put helpful signs directing me from the train platform to terminal 2. What the neglected to put on the signs was that it is about 400 miles, uphill, while- again- carrying about 130 pounds of things that I suddenly could not remember why I ever wanted after not having slept for a day. I finally found terminal 2 and no one was at the JAT counter because it was more than 3 hours before the flight.

I should point out that, at this point, I didn't even care if I got on a flight to Belgrade. I would have happily gotten on a plane to Sarajevo, or Sofia or Istanbul, for that matter. I would have gotten on a school bus if they told me it would take me to the Balkans. But there was no school bus, and no one offered Sofia, so I waited for the JAT airline people, checked in, re-checked my bags, and went to wait in the airport.

I supposed the rest of the trip was uneventful. Once in Belgrade I had to go through customs again, collect my bags again, then re-check them to Sarajevo, and go through security again (twice! I was very secure). When I landed in Sarajevo it was about 10:00 pm and I hadn't slept since Sunday night in the US. There was also snow on the ground, and I was in a dress... note to self: when in Sarajevo in October, wear pants. Maybe 2 pairs.

The time in Sarajevo was wonderful, though. I hope Belgrade won't feel like I am cheating on it when I say that Sarajevo is a beautiful, beautiful city. It has such great intensity of passion and depth of character. It has been though some pretty deep shit but wears even the wounds of war with dignity. It is a place where a foreigner can feel safe and welcome, but it also doesn't reveal all that it is and has seen and survived all at once and, thus, remains endlessly interesting. If that city were a man, I would marry him, no questions asked.

And so it goes.

2009-10-05T19:52:00.003-04:00

Well.

When all of this first happened, there was no doubt in my mind that I would go back to Serbia. For one, what would I DO in the US? I doubt I could find a job, and if I could, there is no way I would love it as much as I love my job in Belgrade. I don't like leaving things undone. I signed up to live in Belgrade for at least a year, and wasn't ready to let go of it.

Then I started thinking about what going back would actually look like. I adore Belgrade, I love my job, and have met some really lovely people. The fact of the matter, however, is that I still don't have any close friends there, and certainly no network of friends and family who know me intimately and love me no matter what I do. Living alone in a country where I know no one and can't speak the language was difficult and lonely at times. Losing my father has been incredibly painful. I started to wonder... do I want to combine something very lonely with something very painful? That seems like a bad combination.

There was a day or two where I thought I couldn't go back. I was too sad, too tired, too scared to do anything. I talked to my region directors about how to get my belongings back to the US. I talked to my family about living here. And I talked to a pastor who knows me well from college. He didn't tell me what to do, didn't even really offer advice, but he asked the kind of leading questions I needed to be asked. A specific Bible verse came to mind while speaking to him (perhaps in part because it was the first Bible verse I learned in Spanish while in Nicaragua with this pastor). The verse is 1st John 4:18, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear..." If I stayed in the US it would be because I am scared. I am scared to be alone, scared to fail, scared that if I leave again something else terrible will happen to my family. But fear has nothing to do with love, perfect love casts out all fear. Because God is love, I know that this fear is not from God, and therefore I can be free from its influence. So, yesterday I emailed my region representatives and committed to going back to Serbia. I have my ticket and everything. I am still scared, of course, but I also have the strength and confidence to face the fear.

Like many things I say, this is an idea that has been expressed often (and often more eloquently!) by people before me. So, I will borrow John Newton's words to sum it up:

Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come
It was grace that lead me safe this far, and grace will lead me home.

2009-09-27T16:47:00.002-04:00

I have often wondered what makes a person an adult. I certainly didn't feel like an adult at 18 (or 19, 20, 21, or 22), didn't feel particularly grown up when I graduated from college, and until now, have sort of been wondering when that transition would happen. I know it doesn't have to be an all-at-once transformation, but I also anticipated things like marriage or childbirth being strong indicators of adulthood. I did not think the death of a parent would be my first major growing up moment, and find it almost funny that it has had such an effect on my self perception. Not "haha", funny, of course, but funny because I feel like an adult for the first time at a point when more than ever I want to curl up in someone's lap, cry, be held, have my hair stroked, and all my decisions made for me.

One of the (many) challenges I am seeing in the aftermath of my father's death is that it feels like I am living two incomplete lives. I am here in the states with my family until the 12th of October, but don't really have anything to do. While my sisters and mother return to their homes and slowly begin their daily activities, I wait... feel sad... find things in the house to clean... but as much as it feels like there is nothing for me here, there is, perhaps, almost less for me in Belgrade. Here I have so many dear friends, and of course my family... in Belgrade I have an apartment and a job (and all of my physical possessions) but little in the way of a support network. Where does that leave me, then? In limbo, in neutral, in the in-between, stalled, frozen, STUCK. Between where I grew up and where I want to be, between my responsibilities to my family and my aspirations for my career, between childhood and an adult life for which I might not be ready.

Of course, no one asked if I was ready. I keep thinking about the last time I talked to my dad on the phone, and the chances I had to call home that I turned down. The fact of the matter is, however, no matter when the last time I spoke to him was or could have been, I wouldn't have known it would be the last time, so I wouldn't have known to make it special. That paradox hurts. I am living day by day, moment to moment, taking the fears and sorrow and hope in bite size amounts, because that is all I can do right now (and, in the larger sense, all any of us can ever do).

2009-09-22T13:32:00.002-04:00

The following might seem like a strange thing to put on a blog. This is an incredibly public place, and every day it seems I find out another person I know is reading it. Even some people I DON'T know read it, and to them, this might seem particularly odd. Still, I feel compelled to write it, because if this is supposed to document my year in Serbia, it would be painfully inaccurate if I didn't talk about it. I also hope that in some small way, sharing this with however many people will see it will make it an easier load to bear.

My father died last Tuesday. It was his 60th birthday. In fact, my first whole Serbian sentence that I made up myself, not from a book or for homework, was "Danas je moj onacov rođendan! Srećan rođendan, tata" which (I think) means, "Today is my father's birthday. Happy birthday, dad." (I wasn't 100% sure on the possessive). Anyway, as I was writing that sentence (and feeling proud of myself for being able to), my father had a heart attack while taking a nap and died in his sleep. I found out at about 10:00 pm Belgrade time, and was home in DC by Wednesday evening.

It hurts. I don't recognize my life or my family or myself. I have never felt anything like this before, and I am not a big fan. The neighbors bring food, so we eat it. We put it in our mouths, chew, swallow, and agree that it is good. We are sure it is, but we don't know, because we can't taste yet.

It is exactly like playing in the snow too long. There isn't any pain when your hands and feet are red and raw and numb. The pain comes when you go inside, and the numbness starts to leave. I remind myself that, just like hands numb from the cold, this pain is a good thing. The pain means that the blood is starting to flow to that part of you again, that your heart is beating, that feeling is coming back. Knowing that doesn't make it hurt any less, though. I hear that at some point it will hurt less, but I don't know when that is yet.

I feel like I have gotten to know my father more through the open house and funeral and reception than I did when he was alive. I keep thinking about how much he would have enjoyed the reception after the service, or how pleased he would be to know that they talked about him on NPR. Mostly I keep thinking about the things I want to say to him, the things I didn't think to say when I still living my old life, the life of a child, so I will say them now. Dad, if you're still reading this blog, I want you to know that I love you. I want you to know that I am proud of you, and that I miss you, and that I think I am starting to understand how much you loved me, and that you were proud of me, too. I want you to know you were on NPR, and in the Washington Post, and on the home page of the Newseum website. Mostly I want you to know that I love you.

Tears come in waves, and cards and flowers and emails come by the truck load. So many times I have remained silent when someone I know has lost someone, because I never knew what to say. Now I know that the important thing is just to say SOMETHING, because every text message, facebook post, email, card, and phone call mean something... mean a lot, actually. Each one brings a little hope, a little peace.

I will be going back to Serbia. I don't know when yet, but I know I will go back. I love my life there, and my dad would want me to go back. I know that, because he loved me, and he was proud of me.

Doviđenja, tata. Volim te.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/21/AR2009092103716.html

http://www.newseum.org/news/news.aspx?item=nn_PAGE090917&style=f

http://www.kansas.com/news/obituaries/story/975616.html

Death by stupidity.

2009-09-11T12:07:00.003-04:00

I know we all thought that a draft would be what killed me, but it turns out there is another contender for my life: Belgrade's trams.

First, a confession: I am not great with public transportation. I am not afraid of it, but I am not very good at it, either. I can get around just fine on the DC metro, but that is about it (and I have been doing it since I was a child). In Baltimore I sometimes took the bus home from work, but most days it was actually faster to walk. I took the metro in Baltimore once, with housemates, and never used the lightrail. In Belgrade I have been using the buses, trams, and trolleys, but usually with a Serbian friend. I can take the tram to work, but usually walk because the weather is so nice and the bakeries smell so good. So, while I am certainly capable of using public transport, I'm not great at it. I admit that and have come to terms with it. Now I might need to get over it.

Two days ago a friend at work called the internet company to find out why there still wasn't internet in my apartment. He told me that everything was set up, but I had to go to the office to pay them. He explained where the office was, near the city center, which I am pretty familiar with. Another friend looked at the address and said it was near Kalamegdan, which I am also quite familiar with. Another friend had previously told me that tram 5 would take me from my house to Kalemegdan. So, I put two and two (and two) together, and decided that I could be brave and independent and take tram 5 to Kalemegdan, walk towards the city center, find the internet place, give them money, and come home to working internet. Easy. Fast. Non-lethal.

After work I hopped on tram 5. I took a seat and figured I would ride until I saw Kalemegdan, and then I would get off. It seemed a reasonable enough plan. After a few minutes, most people got off the tram... eventually I was the only one in the car (which was the last car, not the one with the driver). That made me a little nervous, but I hadn't seen Kalemagden, so I held my ground. Then I saw that there wasn't anyone in ANY of the cars, except the driver... this made me a little more nervous, but darn it, I wanted internet, and if that meant riding in an empty tram, well, I was going to do it. Then the tram went off the road into a little turn-around kind of place, and turned around. Then it stopped. Then it turned off. Then the driver got out and walked away.

"Nervous" quickly became "quite alarmed", but I thought, you know, I am a strong, young, independent woman, and if nothing else, I can just walk around until I know where I am. I went to the door and pushed the button to open it and... nothing. I was downright terrified now, and ran to the other door and pushed that button and... nothing. I tried to get a few fingers between the doors o pry them open, but they wouldn't budge. One or more of the signs may have had emergency opening procedures on it, but they were all in Serbian (Cyrillic, on top of it! That's just mean, the two alphabets thing...). I tried to open the windows, but they didn't open, either. I saw my life pass before my eyes, and it seemed far too short with not nearly enough traveling. Of all the ways to die, starving or suffocating or simply being scared to death on a tram at the end of the line in Belgrade is really not up there on my list.

There was nothing left to do except yell (and hyperventilate). I could see the driver down the way a bit, smoking a cigarette. I pounded on the windows as loudly as I could, and since neither my Serbian phrase book nor my Serbian lessons covered "For the love of God I am trapped inside the tram", I yelled "MOLIM?? MOLIM??" Which means please, and you're welcome, and is what you say when you answer the phone or when someone says your name to get your attention. It seems like a generally all around polite word, but I was screaming it at a not very polite volume. The driver didn't flinch. I figured maybe my accent was so good he thought I was just a very loud polite Serbian, so I decided to try to convey more of the distressed foreigner persona. "HELLO????" I yelled, still banging on the windows as loudly as possible. The (surprised) driver turned around, and waved at me. Yeah, not the response I was hoping for. I waved back, and then gestured frantically at the doors in my best cross-cultural "OPEN THE DOOR OPEN THE DOOR OPEN THE DOOR" charade. He slooowwwllly walked to the tram, turned it on, and opened the doors. I have never exited anything so quickly in my life.

As I walked past the front car, he said something to me in Serbian (my best guess at translation is: You are the biggest idiot ever. Also, you should find a paper bag to breathe into." I did my best to smile. "...ja sam Amerikanka...", I said meekly. "Ahhh...." he said nodding, as all confusion left his face. Of course you are an American. Americans are often in the habit of not knowing where the end of the tram line is, staying on too long, and then having panic attacks in the back of the car. That explains everything. On your way, then....

As I walked away (and got my bearings- we were at the zoo, behind Kalemegdan... I hadn't seen that side before and didn't recognize it) I couldn't help but laugh.... and laugh and laugh and laugh. A few minutes later the same tram with the same driver passed me on the street. He had only wanted to smoke a cigarette before heading back the other side of the route. Nothing- and I mean nothing- brings more joy than the realization that you will live to see another day in Belgrade... except maybe the realization that you are a huge idiot and need to get off the tram when everyone else gets off the tram.

I paid the internet people, by the way, and am writing this from my apartment. Also, it took me 40 minutes, but I decide to walk the whole way home.

My dreams are toast.

2009-09-05T10:18:00.002-04:00

There is a quote in the little book the kindergartners gave me that I have been repeating to myself a lot lately. I don't have it with me, but it says something along the lines of, "If you were lucky enough to wake up in Belgrade this morning you should ask nothing more of life. To ask for more would be immodest."

I guess I got greedy. Today I was supposed to get a TV and a toaster and possibly maybe I was hoping for internet in the apartment, but no go on any of it. For some reason the toaster is the most disappointing loss. I really miss toast. There are a lot of things I would like to have here in Belgrade... friends would be nice. Internet in the apartment would be great. A cheap way to talk to all my friends I (foolishly!) left in the states would be wonderful. An instant ability to speak and understand Serbian would help a lot. None of those things, though, feel like immediately realizable, concrete goals. As any nanny or parent or preschool teacher will tell you, the most important thing about goal setting is that the goals be realizable, and while I certainly hope at SOME point to have friends and internet and the ability to speak Serbian, those aren't things I can control or achieve this very weekend. I thought a toaster was... and it wasn't. That being said, I was lucky enough to wake up in Belgrade this morning, and the air was cool and fresh and I am blessed to be here. I repent of my immodest longings for toast, but to be honest, I am still in the market for a toaster. Just because this one didn't work out I'm not giving up ALL hope. One day I will toast again, and that day will be beautiful.

Other than that, things are going well. I have started my official Serbian lessons, which are hilarious because the teacher doesn't really speak English. I suppose that will help me learn more quickly, but it is also frustrating at times. The must be working at least a little, though, because this week I understood my first real Serbian sentence (not one about greetings or polite conversation). A little girl at work asked me if it was Friday, and I understood her. Yes, I said, it IS Friday! I was far more excited about my proficiency than she was. Hopefully I will continue to learn and learn quickly, because nothing- and I mean nothing- makes me feel more ridiculous than standing in the grocery store looking at my Serbian-English dictionary trying to figure out what is laundry detergent and what is floor cleaner. Don't put pictures of flowers and apples on the bottles, people, put pictures of THE FLOOR or CLOTHES or a TOILET or a COUNTER. This would make my life much easier.

Finally, based on comments on my last post it seems some real live Serbians have been reading this, which shocks and delights me. In the off chance that any of you continue to read, I have a question. Why in God's name have you been keeping ajvar from the rest of the world? That stuff is delicious. We do NOT have it in the US and the first person to start exporting it will make a lot of money. Please, have compassion on your fellow human beings who have lived long enough without this deliciousness.... spread the ajvar love.

Serbs say...

2009-09-02T09:55:00.004-04:00

Before coming here I spent a decent amount of energy convincing people that Serbia is a place where I will be quite safe. A lot of what people in the US know about the region relates to the wars, so when they hear names like Bosnia and Belgrade, they get nervous. Over and over again I explained that I would be safe, I knew what I was getting into, and that I almost certainly would not die.

I am sorry to say I have to take back those comments. It turns out I probably WILL die this year, and according to some Serbs, it's a wonder I haven't already. The following is a BRIEF list of all the things that Serbians are sure will kill me and/or cause me to be infertile (which seems to be a major concern over here):

If I go outside with wet hair, I will die.
If I stand or- God forbid- sleep in a drafty place, I will die.
If I use the AC too much, I will die.
If I drink too many cold drinks, I will die.
If I sit on cold concrete, my ovaries will freeze and I will become infertile (this is my favorite!)
If I walk around without shoes or socks on inside, I will become infertile, and then die.
If I let a wet bathing suit dry on my body, I will get a UTI, become infertile, and then die.
If I swim in a cold lake I will get a UTI, become infertile, and die.

I had no idea the dangers I was getting into when I signed up for this. I certainly didn't think my potential future children would be in danger from all the concrete steps I'm prone to sit on... I guess I just like living on the edge.

Oh, I should also address the other fear that people (read: my mother) had about this year. My mom (and, OK, some of my close friends... actually, anyone who knows me well...) was afraid that I would move to Serbia, fall in love, get married, and stay forever. I am sorry to tell you all over the internet, but this, too, is a fear realized. I am deeply, passionately, and blindly in love with... Turkish coffee. It's like I have been living a lie with all of that drip and filter and french press nonsense I drank before. Coffee! That's nothing! I have met my beverage soul mate in the thick, strong, sometimes overpowering wonder that is served in tiny, adorable cups, and I will never, ever go back.

Playing house.

2009-08-29T11:19:00.003-04:00

I am pleased to announce that I am now the proud resident of a Belgrade apartment. I'm not positive I can find my way back there from this internet cafe, but the important thing is I have the keys and all my stuff is there. The past few weeks have been a bit rough... after spending a year in Baltimore (which was bad enough!) I spent three days in the hospital, 4 days at my parents' house, 6 days in Akron, PA, 3 days in Sarajevo, 2 days in Novi Sad, 3 days living above a Swedish pentecostal church in Belgrade, and 4 days living with a woman from work in her one bedroom apartment. There has been A LOT of moving, so when I actually got to unpack today, it was quite a celebration.

My first day at the kindergarten the kids gave me a bag of gifts, including a little book called "I Love Belgrade", which is full of famous (and semi-famous) quotes about this lovely city. Seeing as how I'm more or less an actual resident now, my favorite is this:

"Typical Belgrade girls are good-looking, bold, gracious, but they possess a touch of Belgrade-style naughtiness that does not spoil their femininity, and is a mark of courage and wit, qualities that one must be born with."

Now, I'm not saying that being the owner of keys to an apartment in Belgrade makes this apply to me, but it is good to have goals :o)

The apartment is technically furnished, but we went to a church bazaar at the church next to the kindergarten where I work to pick up some extra things. The bazzar was pretty much like any church bazaar in the US, with a few important differences. 1. Everyone was speaking Serbian, which I still find a bit alarming. 2. All of the prices were in Dinars, so I had no idea how much anything cost, and 3. Middle aged Serbian women kept handing me things they insisted I needed to start my household. At the end of the day the bare essentials we left with included, but were certainly not limited to:

every day plates
fancy plates
plates that are only for cake
coffee mugs
tiny cups that are only for Turkish coffee
three decorative candle holders
a decorative tea pot
two vases (for all the flowers from all the Serbian men I'm not allowed to date, I guess)
three water pitchers
an egg separator
every kind of spoon, utensil, and gadget known to man, including a few that I've never seen before
two decorative baskets
about 43 sets of sheets (none of which fit the bed)

So, I am clearly well stocked, and you should come visit! For the time being I have two bedrooms and a pull out couch all to myself, plus enough dishware to host a dinner party every night! I'll show you a good time.

Beograd

2009-08-27T05:27:00.003-04:00

So, I made it to Belgrade, and was told that I would be living above a Swedish sponsored Pentecostal church and living with a girl from work who is my age and speaks English. Then they raised the rent on that apartment, and I moved in temporarily with a different woman from work while we try to find somewhere for me to live. I went around town with three Serbian women who had about 15 words of English between them to find a new apartment for my roommate and I (she is currently working in Greece and coming back in September) and we found an acceptable one, and it seemed things were coming together (again). Later that day we found out my roommate actually found another apartment on her own and won't be living with me. We are supposed to meet with the apartment owners, who are currently living in Australia, on Saturday to sign for it... although with the way things are going, I'm crossing my fingers but not holding my breath. We also tried to regiter me with the police today, but something happened or didn't work or wasn't there, and it didn't take. So, no visa for Maggie (yet?). Perhaps you will be seeing me sooner than originally anticipated...

Internet access has been few and far between, which ranges from mildly frustrating to catastrophic, depending on how many other things are going on. I am trying really, really hard to be sweet and gracious and flexible and thankful for the hospitality people are showing me, but the truth is, I am a little concerned. If this is my honeymoon period with Serbia, I might need an annulment.

At least one good thing has happened, though... a realization. For so long I thought I was attracted to gay men, but it turns out I'm just attracted to EUROPEAN men. I'm telling you, there are tight pants, nice shoes, cool glasses, and messenger bags EVERYWHERE. Thank you, men of Belgrade, for making this transition a little more tolerable.

Safe in Sarajevo

2009-08-18T04:57:00.003-04:00

Well, I've made it to Sarajevo. I'm here for orientation for a few days, and then I'm off to Novi Sad, Serbia, and finally Belgrade, where I'll be living.

Sarajevo is a beautiful city. I've never been to Europe before, so I was excited to see rows of beautiful buildings along a river with pedestrian bridges over it... it fit into my stereotype well. Of course, many of the buildings (and sidewalks, and streets...) have very visible evidence of the war. I knew that, I had read about it and been told by people who had been here, but it is still shocking to see. Bullet holes and shrapnel damage are generally not a part of my mental image of European towns. I know if I had paid more attention in history class it would be, but I didn't. I don't count that as too great a loss, though, because at least I will learn about it now, and by seeing, not by reading.

This is my first time in a foreign country where I'm not constantly stared at. Being a foreigner in Nicaragua and in Kenya was painfully apparent, but I got quite used to it. Actually, come to think of it, I was stared at last year for being white in my neighborhood in Baltimore far more than I am here. It is exhilarating to think that maybe- if I keep my mouth shut- people will think I belong here. Several people have even tried to speak to me in Bosnian and received an apologetic smile in return. In the interest of full disclosure, though, people could be ignoring me because all of the women who really do belong here are tall and thin and alarmingly beautiful and well dressed, and maybe my little American self just doesn't make much of an impact. I prefer, of course, to believe the former.

I don't know what else to say about this place that won't sound cliche or naive. It really is beautiful, and the weather is great. The people are sweet and the coffee is strong and the peaches and tomatoes are some of the best I've had in my life.

I am trying not to think too far into the future because my head will explode. Today I am in Sarajevo. Thursday I will go to Novi Sad and Saturday I will go to Belgrade. I will live in Belgrade for at least a year. See, that's too far in advance. I can't think about a year of Serbian language and meat pastries and war trauma... so I will think about today. Today I am in Sarajevo and it's beautiful and warm. I had two peaches for breakfast and I'm happy. Tomorrow I'll think about tomorrow.

Not kidding anymore.

2009-08-07T17:11:00.004-04:00

You know, I was always half joking when I would talk about how much I hated Baltimore. Apparently the Gods of Baltimore can't take a joke, though, and I have now moved from a general sort of tolerable dislike to full blown loathing.

Last Thursday, the 30th, I was packing to move out of Baltimore and RHHP forever, which I was pretty excited about. "Oh boy!" I thought as I put things into boxes, "I'm ready to move on. Sure, Belgrade is another economically depressed city with a lot of violence, but I'm sure it will be great!" Later I thought, "Gee, I wonder my stomach hurts! Oh well, haha! I'm sure it's fine!". About an hour after that I thought, "WOW! My intense stomach pain now has a friend, Sharp Stabbing Pain in my Side! OW!". At this point I had stopped packing and was, instead, lying on the floor crying. I called our local program coordinator and couldn't get a hold of her, and I called my housemate who had the credit card (which is also our only form of health insurance) and couldn't get a hold of HER. I lay on the floor and cried for a while more, and then started throwing up. The intense stomach pain plus the sensation of being stabbed in the side with a dull, rusty knife, plus the vomiting didn't seem like a great combination, so I did what any self-respecting 23 year old college graduate pretending to be an adult would do: I called my mom. Then I called another housemate and asked if she could leave work to take me to the er, which she did (THANKS, ANNA!).

Long story short, I was admitted to the hospital for three days for kidney stones- IN BOTH KIDNEYS- and a badly infected left kidney. It was a pretty miserable few days, as I'm sure you can imagine, although I'm fine now. The cause? Stress. Everyone knew I hated my job and had a tough time with some of my housemates and hated my neighborhood, but even I didn't know I was so unhappy and dealing so poorly with the stress that I would actually get sick from it. Quite frankly, next time I get sick from stress I would prefer a cold to calcium deposits in my organs, but no one asked.

I eventually was released and got to go back to my parents' house for a few days to prepare for Serbia. I didn't want my last memories of Baltimore to be of being in intense pain, though, so last night I went to finish cleaning my room and to say goodbye to some friends. We had a great evening, it was wonderful to be able to spend one last night with the people who made the year tolerable (and even good at several points) and I was quite satisfied with the experience. I was pleased to be able to leave the city- and the country- on a good note.

And then I got a parking ticket.

Kind of irritating, kind of hilarious, but mostly just a fitting way to end this year. I'm ready for new challenges. I promise you, though, if there is an ice cream truck in Belgrade that drives around at 11:00 PM playing Christmas songs and selling crack, I am moving back to Vienna so fast you won't even get a souvenir.

All good things must come to an end... thankfully, so must the awful ones.

2009-07-28T10:49:00.001-04:00

Today is my last day of work at Project PLASE, the transitional housing facility where I have been volunteering full time since September.

It is tempting, though perhaps not entirely accurate, to describe this past year as the worst of my life. That's a hard call to make, though, and is clearly subjective. Overall I've been extremely lucky and had a fairly easy, joyful life. Of course there have been some less than stellar times, like when I broke my back in three places and ruptured a disc and lost several of my closest friends. That was really just a few months of suckage, though, and it was sandwiched between two fabulous things. The month before I broke my back I had a month-long internship in rural Nicaragua, and six months after I broke my back I went to Kenya for two months. While both of those trips had difficult times, they were also some of the times I've felt happiest, and certainly the times I've felt the most fulfilled. Thus, it would be inaccurate to describe that as "the worst year", because that year had two great things and only one awful thing.

This year has had quite a few awful things, but more than that, it's just been consistently discouraging. I have been yelled at, intimidated, and assaulted by the clients I'm trying to help. I have learned a ton about homelessness, mental illness, and addiction, but mostly I've learned about people. I've learned I can't fix people, and a lot of times I can't even help people. Some people in my house are fabulous, and some people I will say goodbye to and hope I never see again. Some of our clients are honest, hardworking, genuine people, and some are manipulative jerks who will take any opportunity to make sexually inappropriate comments to and about me. I can honestly say that I will miss my coworkers, the other counselors here who do this impossibly hard job every day for 20 years or more. Most of them love their jobs and do them well, and I and the clients are fortunate to have been in their presence.I don't, however, think I will miss anything else. I will not miss the unappreciative and often aggressive clients, I will not miss the drug infested neighborhood, and I will not miss being part of an organization that so blatantly disregards my personal safety and needs. Maybe the ineffectiveness, mismanagement, and poor communication isn't true of all non-profits, but it will still be a long, long time before I work at any sort of public service organization again... you know, my year volunteering in Serbia aside.

All things considered I am more than ready to go. It isn't that I think Serbia will be easy or perfect or carefree, but it I do know it isn't here, and right now that's all I'm asking for. I'm sure at some point- maybe soon- I'll be grateful for the experience and the things it taught me. Right now I'm just grateful it's over.

2009-07-25T13:38:00.002-04:00

Jes Karper says,

"Try on Life it fits like a glove
and feel what it’s like to Be Free
Try breathing and seeking to be an instrument of Love
and encourage one another on the journey
Give thanks to the land and the sky up above
and pour your energy into building a community

Make a space for the traveler to stop and put some love in
Be a shelter from the rushin’ and the pushin’ and the shovin’
Let the music play all night so we can sing and dance
Grow good organic food and lots of bright flowering plants
Put it in a pot and stir it up with lots-o-lovin’
Roll out the dough and fire up the cob oven
Dig into the dirt so you can take a stronger stance
Educate, Relate and be creative with resistance
And Try on Life…

Try exploring and evolving in whole new directions
emanating light from your innermost reflections
Create your own economy not based on the love of money
but on the abundant and free source of the sun’s energy
Feel the Healing Vibrations of Light’s far reaching projections
Open up our arms for caring and sharing our affections
Strive for sustainability, give back to the land, plant a tree
Grow a garden of souls and minds for the harvest will be plenty
as we Try on Life…

Try making a life, filling two new eyes with sight
as husband and wife spin their love and unite
For Unity is the healing force that creates
as community blooms from its embryonic states
Give children wings for flight so that they just might
find new ways of making the light shine more bright
Sing with them dance with them learn with them help them carry their weights
and cherish them for they grow at alarmingly fast rates
and Try on Life…"

...and I agree.

Andy Warhol on Love

2009-07-21T22:03:00.003-04:00

"I wonder if it's possible to have a love affair that lasts forever. If you're married for thirty years and you're 'cooking breakfast for the one you love' and he walks in, does his heart really skip a beat? I mean if it's just a regular morning. I guess it skips a beat over that breakfast and that's nice, too. It's nice to have a little breakfast made for you."

Andy Warhol knows everything.

Are you ready for this?

2009-07-09T13:36:00.004-04:00

People keep asking if I'm ready to go to Serbia, and I usually smile and tell them there isn't too much I need to do to prepare. I don't need a visa or work permit and I've already been vaccinated against anything and everything. The climate is the same (more or less) as Baltimore, so I don't need new clothes. I've been studying Serbian and reading all the histories of the region I can get my hands on, and even watching the Serbian films I can find.

That's the easier answer, so it's what I always say. The truth is, I'm not nearly so sure about this or anything else. In fact, I'm a little scared... some days more than a little.

People keep asking if I'm ready to go, and I give them my lengthy, logical, rehearsed answer. What I really want to say is, I have no idea. How do you know when you're ready?

"Into the caverns of tomorrow with just our flashlights and our love, we must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge... and then we'll get down there, way down to the very bottom of everything and then we'll see it, we'll see it, we'll see it..."

2009-06-30T22:25:00.005-04:00

The church is a broken institution made of broken people. Sometimes it seems all that any group of Christians ever does- myself very much included- is build caricatures of other groups of Christians to tear down. I find myself getting so angry at groups of Christians for being hateful towards other groups of Christians, only to realize I'm doing the same thing they they are.

I find myself torn between two points of view. One says if you love Christ you will love his church... the other says I love Christ, but not Christians, because Christians are so unlike Christ.

I know I love Christ, but some days I find it difficult to say the same about his followers. I guess the grace comes in the assumption that genuine Christians are progressing on a path to be more Christ-like? I know none of us are there yet... but how many of us are even moving in that direction? I'm not sure I can say I am.

Come Thou fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
I'll praise the mount I'm fixed upon it
Mount of Thy redeeming love

Here I raise my Ebenezer
Hither by Thy help I come
And I hope by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wondering from the fold of God
He, to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood

O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love
Here's my heart Lord, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above

2009-06-29T09:05:00.003-04:00

Here is an article from BBC news on Bosnia. It wouldn't let me post it directly to the blog from the website, so I'm copying and pasting the text and pictures. It's by Paul Moss.

"Bosnia echos to alarming rhetoric"

They may have disagreed about politics, but the group of 20-something friends who had gathered for an after-work drink were all certain about one thing - they were Serbs.

"My father is a Serb, my grandfather is a Serb, I am a Serb. This is my nationality," said Vladislav.

"If we are looking at a football game," added Bane, "Serbia against somebody else, we are fans of Serbia."

These would not have been particularly notable declarations of identity, save for one crucial fact.

We were speaking in Banja Luka, a city in Bosnia, and all these people were Bosnian citizens.

But that meant little to Ivana, a trainee architect: "Bosnia is an artificial and silly creation, we naturally belong with Serbs," she said.

That "creation" was born out of the ruins of battle.

Everybody should be worried, this is the Balkans, and nationalist rhetoric here always leads to war

Svetlana Cenic, writer
At the end of the Bosnian Civil War, it was agreed that the country would remain a single nation.

However, the Serbs were granted their own officially-recognised region, known as the Republika Srpska.

It has its own parliament, and a fair degree of autonomy.

But now some fear this delicate constitutional compromise could be falling apart.

'Thinly-veiled threats'

The Republika Srpska parliament has issued a declaration, insisting that it has the right to make its own rules in certain key areas, like immigration and customs.

Milorad Dodik has hinted that he wants Republika Srpska to secede
That move was vetoed this week by Bosnia's High Representative, the internationally-appointed figure who still has executive authority in the country.

But the resulting row has left many worried about the country's stability.

"The way the Serb politicians speak is getting more and more nationalistic," says Svetlana Cenic, a writer and newspaper columnist.

"Everybody should be worried," she warns. "This is the Balkans, and nationalist rhetoric here always leads to war."

Svetlana and others are particularly alarmed by the pronouncements of the Bosnian Serb Prime Minister, Milorad Dodik.

He has made thinly-veiled threats that the Republika Srpska might secede from Bosnia altogether.

Any attempt at secession by the Republika Srpska would be seriously destabilising.

It would alarm the many ethnic Croats who still live in the region, as well as the Muslim population, known as Bosniaks.

It might also tempt the Croat region of Bosnia to contemplate a similar move towards independence.

But more than anything, secession would be resisted by the remaining part of Bosnia, with its capital in Sarajevo.

Hundreds of thousands of non-Serbs now live there, having been driven out of what is now the Republika Srpska during the Civil War.

'Betrayed'

And for those who remember this experience, like the actress Alena Dzebo-heco, independence for the Republika Srpska would be a moral outrage.

"The people who did the ethnic cleansing, they would get what they wanted," she argues.

"After everything my family went through - my uncle was in a concentration camp, my father was arrested.

"We would feel betrayed."

The ruling party in the Republika Srpska, the SNSD, has been playing down fears that it plans to secede - at least any time soon.

The speaker of the parliament, Igor Radojicic, said Mr Dodik, his party leader, was only responding to threats from Bosniaks.

He argues that they would like to take away the Republika Srpska's powers, and rule the whole of Bosnia directly.

"The fact is that Serbs are a minority in Bosnia, approximately one-third.

"There are fears that the Muslims might make decisions in favour of their ethnic group. So we are fighting to protect our autonomy."

There is certainly plenty of fear in the Republika Srpska that Muslims pose a threat.

They range from the kind of sober political argument advanced by the Parliamentary Speaker, to more lurid anxieties, whipped up in part by sensationalist newspapers.

"Osama Bin Laden has operations in Sarajevo," one well-educated man told me.

Others insisted that the Serbs were in the vanguard of the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism - this despite the fact that Bosnian Muslims tend to be relatively non-observant.

It is 17 years since the Bosnian Civil War began, sparked off by each different ethnic group believing that the others were trying to take over, and that they had to fight back.

The risk is that these fears, and the inflammatory rhetoric that tends to drive them, may be gaining ground once again.

Well timed, National Geographic. I appreciate it.

2009-06-25T13:57:00.005-04:00

Thank you, Jessie, for alerting me to an article about Serbia in July's issue of National Geographic. It is informative and, unlike Noel Malcom's "Short" History of Bosnia and "Short" History of Kosovo, a readable length. I sincerely hope I have a chance to visit Kosovo/a while I'm there. I also hope there isn't any violence in Belgrade (or Bosnia, Kosovo/a, or anywhere else) while I'm there... or ever again. Perhaps that is wishing too much, though.

Here is the link to the article. There is a very nice series of photos as well: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/07/serbs/carroll-text

I don't wanna grow up, I'm an MVS kid...

2009-06-24T10:07:00.002-04:00

I didn't realize how firmly planted in childhood I am until this week.

I'm house-(and dog)-sitting for a family from church this week, and it has been great. My house in Baltimore is great some of the time, but I am loving the quiet of the suburbs and the independence of living alone. I had no idea how anxious the neighborhood and, yes, the housemates make me until I had a chance to live my regular life but removed from RHHP... what a difference. Having an adorable dog around doesn't hurt, either. I've loved doing my own grocery shopping (I want some sunflowers? Great! I can buy some sunflowers!) and all my own cooking (dinner when I'm hungry, all foods that I like) and being able to be in the kitchen in my pajamas without a bra on (no middle age conservative male refugees to offend!). The one downside is that I have been making and drinking whole pots of coffee. At home I use a single-serving maker or a french press, but this family has a big, fancy coffee maker and I can't help but use it to its full potential. Clearly at 23 I am not yet mature enough to monitor my own coffee consumption.

So what defines adulthood? Paying rent? Having a job? Having self control over delicious caffinated beverages? Right now I don't pay rent, I don't pay any bills, and I don't make any money. Once a month Heather hands me $50 in cash. I spend it on what luxuries I want (coffee or drinks out, fancy soap...) and once it's gone, it's gone. If I need food I write it on a list and it magically shows up Monday afternoon. If there is something wrong with the unit car I take it to the shop and hand over the Magical MVS Credit Card, for which I never see a bill. Same with if I get sick- I don't have health insurance, but if I get hit by a bus or get swine flu, the Mennonites pay for it. For all intensive purposes I live right now the same way I did when I was 14, except I think my allowance may have been higher then.

Next year will be more of the same. I will handle my own money, but it still won't be MY money. I will take X amount of money and give it to the landlord. I will take X amount of money and it is all I am allowed to spend on food. I will get X amount of money as a stipend to spend on coffee, alcohol, and fancy soap. Baby steps towards adulthood... baby steps.

When I get BACK from Serbia I'm still not sure if I will meet societal expectations for adulthood. I am most likely going to try to do an Americorps position in Minneapolis so I can earn an education award to go back to school. I will make my own money that I can spend however I want, but it will only be about $900 a month, and that's BEFORE taxes. After a year of THAT, I am now 80% sure I want to go back to school- nursing school, to be exact. I will take pre-requisites at a community college or online while doing Americorps, and then spend the education award to work towards a nursing degree. Originally I wanted to go to nursing school so I could work towards being a midwife, but now I mostly want to go to prove wrong a friend who strongly implied I wasn't smart enough to do it... spite is a great motivator.

This is all to say that my post-college life isn't exactly how I (or my parents- sorry guys!) imagined it. Volunteer for a year... volunteer for a year abroad... volunteer for another year (but KIND of get paid!)... go back to school (there is an intensive 16-month program for a masters in nursing designed for people with a bachelor's degree in something other than nursing at the University of Minnesota that I would love to do) and then do some MORE school to specialize in midwifery.

What do I want to do after that? I will be 27 or 28 by the time it is done, specialization and all, and will have never had a "real job". So what would the next step be?

Why, volunteer with MSF or CPT, of course.

2009-06-19T17:25:00.002-04:00

Low income countries have an infant mortality rate NINE TIMES HIGHER than wealthy countries (like the US). I don't think rich babies are worth nine times more, though.

I always thought I was called to work with the world's poor- the "poorest of the poor', if possible. Now that I'm going to Serbia I'm struggling with what it means to be a servant to people whose primary burden is not poverty (although Serbia certainly has more than its share of poverty)but violence. The more I read about the history of the region, the more confused I am. My questions are not so much how people can do these things to each other, because quite frankly, I understand the tendency to react to pain by hurting other people. What I don't understand is how people can live through the things that these people have lived through. Maybe I'm just being a pessimist, but I'm not as shocked by the violence and the hate as I am by the strength and the perseverance of the people. I'm almost afraid to meet people my age who grew up in Belgrade. When I was 13 I was thinking primarily about glitter eye liner and the boy whose locker was two down from me. When people my age who grew up in Belgrade were 13, they were living through the bombardment of their city (by my government!). What does that even mean? What do you do when bombs are falling? When actual bombs are being dropped on your city, what do you do? Do you go the basement? If you live in an apartment building do the people in the basement apartments let you in? Do you stay where you are? Eat dinner and try to talk about something else? My closest point of reference for something like that would be sitting in the bathtub in the basement hugging my dog during thunder storms, which, needless to say, is not even on the same graph as a war. I have so many questions... so many questions.

Lord, give me a humble heart. Make me a servant. Use me to lessen the suffering, Lord, but if I can't change the suffering, use it to change me. "Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God".

Bwana Asifiwe!

2009-06-03T10:51:00.004-04:00

I haven't really thought a ton about Kenya the past few months, but lately it's been making a strong comeback in the competition for the forefront of my thoughts. One of my best (and prettiest! Hi, Katie!) friends from college just got back from 8-ish months in Tanzania and a few weeks in Kenya, and I got to hang out with her this week. She brought me a can of DOOM, which is this insanely strong insecticide that is sold in Kenya and almost for sure not FDA approved. It kills giant roaches immediately on contact, and since the roaches in Baltimore are the size and strength of the ones in Kenya, I asked her to bring me some. I am shocked and delighted that it got through customs, and have used it to spray down my closet and the corners of my room where I have seen roaches. I also sprayed a circle around my bed and have the can sitting on my nightstand for any emergency roach spraying needs. I've been sleeping much better since then, probably both from the peace of mind and the fumes.

The cool thing about Katie being back, other than the pesticides and getting to hang out with her, is getting to hear about her travels and live a little bit through them. I have this problem where I think everyone else's life is infinitely more interesting than my own, so I enjoy sitting down and living vicariously through my interesting friends. Even just thinking about Katie in Kenya (and, to some extent, Tanzania, too) makes me think about my (very short) time in Kenya and the things from that trip that changed me, and the things from that trip that I've since forgotten. When I first came back I thought almost constantly about the dead babies I saw, the starving kids, the slums, the poverty, the pain. After a while I only thought about it sometimes, like when I would hear a baby cry or throw food away. When I started thinking about it this week, I couldn't remember the last time I had thought about it. While I was talking with Katie I was also cleaning my room and putting away clothes, and I kept thinking, oh my God, when did I get this many shoes? Why do I have so many shirts? Why do I need so many books? When did this become my life? Where did that girl who was so passionate about clean water sources for economically poor communities go, and why does she now care so much about nail polish?

Another reason I've been thinking about Kenya is that we just got a new client at work who is Kenyan. I was perhaps a bit overly excited when I found out and I think I might have scared him a little, but I'm going to make it up to him by bringing in some of my Kenyan chai. I might even make him some ugali and chapati and cabbage and oh... I'm excited.

The other country on my mind, clearly, is Serbia. I am getting much more nervous about moving, my main thought being "WHAT AM I DOING??" and my secondary thought being "WHO MOVES TO SERBIA??". The more I try to learn Serbian, the more I realize that Serbian is a really hard language to learn. They use the Cyrillic alphabet sometimes and the Roman alphabet sometimes, but the Roman one isn't the English one, it has all these EXTRA letters, and is missing a few, too. They all make different sounds, and some of the Cyrillic letters look like Roman ones but aren't the same. Also, Serbian not only has formal and informal forms, as well as nouns with genders, but it also has cases for the nouns. If a noun is the subject of the sentence it is in the nominative form, if it is the object it is in the accusative form, if it is possessive it is in the genitive, if it is the indirect object it is in the dative. And of course, just to mess with your head, the plural forms of the cases are different from the singular ones. And then they change the alphabet. And then you offend people if you call KosovO KosovA and vice versa.

To make myself feel better I formulated a 4-part fool-proof plan to make friends in Belgrade.

Part 1 (stateside): Buy lots of clothes from H&M to fit in. Ignore Kenyan memories about excessive spending and possessions. Try not to think about sweatshop labor.

Part 2 (in Belgrade): Smile a LOT.

Part 3: Bake a lot of cakes, cookies, bread, and anything else with a strong, welcoming scent. Keep all apartment windows and doors open. If necessary, place small fans in windows to direct scent of baked goods into the street and apartment building. Welcome and feed Serbians who follow their noses to my house.

Part 4: Marry hungry, handsome Serbian man. Steal his friends. Be doted on by his Serbian grandmother.

I'm pretty sure this will work, and it doesn't require memorizing any more crazy Serbian words and grammar. Check and check.

Hello, goodbye.

2009-05-17T23:15:00.002-04:00

For the first time since moving to Baltimore I'm starting to feel like I have actual friends here. The worst part of this year- other than the physical assualt, of course- has been feeling so unloved and unwanted. It isn't that people are mean, but I have no connections with anyone here. Until this week I genuinely felt like when I moved to Serbia no one would miss me or even really notice I was gone. I'm not saying that now people will be rending garments and covering their faces in ashes for me, but I am begining to feel more understood and- dare I say it?- cared about by several people here.

It's a good feeling, but it makes the countdown to moving bittersweet.

88 days until Bosnia, 74 of those in Baltimore. I wish I knew how to feel about that.

Flowers CAN grow in Baltimore!

2009-04-26T17:53:00.004-04:00

My strawberries are growing! Soon we will have no need for the farmer's market. Take that, Waverly.

They might not look like much, but give them time! Also, my mums are still alive! Photographic proof:

Many of you will not be impressed by this. That is because you didn't see the number of plants I killed in college.

2009-04-25T13:31:00.002-04:00

I was assigned lawn duty this weekend. It involves mowing the lawn, and perhaps doing other yard-y things. I have never mowed a lawn in my life, and, as stated in an earlier post, my very presence tends to kill plants. My official plan was to have a boyfriend by this time and make him do it, but that didn't pan out. Sad day.

In other news, it is 85 degrees out, which is glorious, but I'm not allowed to open the windows in my room, which is heartbreaking. Thus, I will spend the day on a balcony learning Serbian flashcards and praying the grass cuts itself. Or dies. Either way.

Bout darn time.

2009-04-22T14:57:00.003-04:00

I'm going to take a SHORT break from complaining about Baltimore to say that I get to LEAVE Baltimore for a week and go to the Caribbean! My sister was offered a free cruise from Carnival so that she'll write about it in the magazine she edits, and her husband can't go, and she didn't want to spend a week on a boat with her 10 month old baby and no help, so I get to go! I want to say that I do not approve of cruises. They are environmentally destructive, encourage gluttony, and provide ample opportunity for Americans to disrespect local people in the cruise destinations. That being said, I'm not the type of girl who holds on to her beliefs so strongly that she would turn down a free cruise, so I'm going.

You can read about how badly sunburned we are day by day here: http://maggieandkristenandjackonacruise.blogspot.com/

It will be awesome.

In other news, I made a basil pesto that is good, but not perfect. The quest for that continues.

Ouch.

2009-04-10T17:54:00.002-04:00

Whoever said cockroaches can't hurt you needs to come take a look at the bruise on my leg.

Last night around 10:30 I was minding my own business, about to go to bed. I get up from my desk, turn around, and see a cockroach that must have weighed at LEAST as much as I do but looked much, much stronger. Like any young, responsible, college educated woman, I screamed and climbed onto my bed, begging my housemates in the living room to come save me. After about 10 minutes of no one coming to rescue me, I got up enough nerve to try to trap it so I could go demand aid. The only empty container I could find was a metal heart-shaped tin my sister gave me for valentines day. The cockroach was crawling on top of the lid to the bin where I keep my dirty clothes (we have to keep our dirty clothes in giant tupperware-like bins or else the mice eat our underwear. Seriously). The lid was on the ground, with a plastic grocery sack on it, and the cockroach was crawling on top of the bag. I put the tin over the roach and the bag, and then stacked two books, "Kosovo: A Short History" and "Bosnia: A Short History", on top of it. I should point out that both books are HUGE and very poorly named. For good measure, I threw my sketchbook and two pairs of shoes on top of the books. Then I went for help.

Anna was in the living room, and leaped to action after being briefed of the situation. We then spent about 10 minutes staring at the tin, trying to decide how we were going to dispose of the intruder. Anna was of the opinion that I could lift the tin and she could smash him to death with a hole puncher, but I was doubtful of this solution for several reasons. One: I have heard that cockroaches are hard to smash, and this one certainly seemed like a formidable opponent, two: I didn't want to lift the tin, three: I didn't want to have cockroach guts on my laundry bin or, worse, my carper, and four: I was about 87% sure that if I lifted the tin, the roach would fly or crawl around and Anna and I would both scream and panic and he would find a way to burrow into my underwear drawer or, worse, my brain.

I should point out that Sarah was on the phone with her boyfriend, Jeff, this entire time. I, of course, demanded that Jeff come save us, and he flat out REFUSED. What is the point of any of us having a boyfriend if he doesn't even come out to meet our needs in times of crisis?? Yes, it is 10:30 PM. Yes, you live 20 minutes away. What is the problem? Anna insisted that we were strong women who could handle the situation ourselves, but I was doubtful. I'm a pretty big fan of traditional gender roles, because I like babies, cooking, cleaning, and not opening doors or paying for meals. I have always thought that "bug killing" was in the "manly chore" category, along with yard work, taking out the trash, paying for everything, and defending my honor. If the men in my life will do that, I will be happy to bake scones and give birth. ANYWAY, Jeff refused, so I texted my sister and demanded my brother in law come to Baltimore to save me, mostly because he has a gun. And you know what?? HE refused, too!

Having exhausted the entire list of men I know in Maryland, Anna and I had no choice but to handle the task. We devised a plan in which we carried the entire apparatus- plastic lid, plastic bag, roach, metal tin- to the bathroom, where we would then try to flick the roach into the toilet, shut the lid, and flush. We were about 70% into this operation when Jeff (via phone) helpfully suggested that it could probably fly, would land in the toilet water, and then fly into our hair/ eat our faces. Anna was willing to take that chance, but I was NOT. Thus, we began the painstaking process of applying heavy pressure to the tin while sliding the plastic bag until the tin was INSIDE the bag, and the roach was in the tin. We tied the bag in a knot, and then lifted the tin enough to get the lid on it. I wanted to carry it up to the attic and leave it there, but Sarah said I had to take it outside. I ran down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor, opened the front door, and threw the whole thing in the trash. Then I shut and locked the door, and vacuumed my entire room. It was around this time that I realized at some point (probably the screaming/ flailing stage) I had banged my leg pretty badly on something hard. I now have a huge purple and green bruise to show for my efforts.

There is really only one conclusion to draw from this: I need a boyfriend. With a gun.

And... does anyone know if there are cockroaches in Serbia...?

Confession

2009-04-06T18:03:00.002-04:00

So, I'm sitting here, listening to hymns and eating jelly beans (what? like you read to underprivileged puppies in your spare time?) and I caught myself picking out the army green ones that, as far as I can tell, are death flavored. I paused, and had a moment of quiet reflection on who I have become these past few months. Then I threw them back in the bag.

It was a long time coming, but something snapped in me about two weeks ago. It was the day the client attacked me (the first time!) I think. I came home, still fighting back tears, thinking about if I could move in with my parents, if I could find a job, if I could live with my sister... for once, no one was in our kitchen. I went to the pantry to get a snack, and grabbed a box of mixed nuts. I poured myself some tea, ate the nuts, and thought about the various ways I could get out of my commitment to MVS.

I don't really like mixed nuts; I mean, they're fine, but they're not my favorite snack. I, like everyone, like some better than others. I have this rule, though, that I really try to follow. I believe that one should eat what one grabs. Not just for sanitary reasons, but on ethical principal. If you are eating out of a communal bag of chex mix, for example, you can't pick out all the bagel chips and eat them because they're your favorite part. If that is just your chex mix, fine, but if you're sharing it you need to keep in mind that maybe other people like the bagel chips, too, or don't want the delicate bagel chip/chex/pretzel balance upset. It's taking one for the team, sometimes, when you eat the pretzels in the chex mix or the back jelly beans, but it is your DUTY as a member of a family or community to not mess with everyone else's snacking pleasure.

So, there I am, eating whatever nuts I grab. Cashews, hazelnuts, almonds, and pecans. I really just like the pecans. The others are fine, but the more I think about it, the more I know that I only really WANT the pecans, and I'm eating the cashews as more of a penalty. A penance. A necessary evil to enjoy the pecans. And then it happened- it was almost audible. The "snap" of my moral convictions about mixed snack food tearing apart. I was not going to eat any more f-ing cashews. I work 40 hours a week for free, I had just been attacked by a client, I get out of bed at 11:00 PM to pick up my stranded housemates, I live with 14 people in a neighborhood that scares the crap out of me, I make $50 a month, I hate my job, I don't drink bottled water, I don't buy clothes made in sweatshops, I give 10% of my income to the church, I match dollar for dollar what I spend on alcohol on a clean water charity, and I do NOT need to SHARE or GIVE or SACRIFICE ANYTHING ELSE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

I ate every pecan in the box.

I feel kind of bad about it. In reality, I don't think my housemates will notice, and if they do, I doubt they'll care. But again, it's the PRINCIPAL. Shouldn't I be willing to eat the proverbial cashew? This is the life I want- I chose this- because these are things that matter to me. I miss shopping at Gap, but I DO think human rights are more important than fashion. I DO think it's ridiculous to pay for water in a bottle when our tap water is clean. I DO think that the gospel is best lived out and understood in community. And yet...

I guess I'm learning my own boundaries. Sometimes my ideals don't look that ideal with flesh on them. I don't know if the pecan (and now jelly bean!) incident is just funny, or a sign of something larger breaking down. I guess at this point I can learn to love myself as a person who sometimes picks through mixed nuts. I think I can live with that. I want to be flexible, even within my concept of justice, because I know I don't now, nor will I ever, know all the answers. But if Bathfitter starts looking like a great deal on a good idea, I'm moving to a convent.

2009-04-01T15:32:00.003-04:00

The past few weeks here have been really, really awful. As I stated in the middle of February, I was moved (without my consent) from working at my shelter to working with clients at another shelter. At the new shelter I had 9 clients, all men, and was often there as the only staff person. There was sexual harassment at my old shelter, but it was nothing compared to the new one; at the new shelter, sexually inappropriate comments were daily and severe. I was incredibly uncomfortable being there by myself, but figured I would be able to tough it out, because I was told I would only have to work there through the end of February. The end of February became the middle of March. The middle of March became the end of March. The end of March became "until each client has permanent housing", which could be months.

The day I found out my stay at this particular shelter had been extended indefinitely, a client became extremely hostile and aggressive towards me. I was the only staff person in the building with a violent and irate male client twice my size in the office. It was terrifying. I calmed him down enough to get him to leave the office, shut and locked the door, and called the social worker who was sometimes at the shelter. She told me to just stay where I was and she would deal with it when she got there.

This was (understandably, I think) a really scary experience for me. I told my supervisor that I did not feel safe at the placement, and also told my local program coordinator for MVS. My supervisor agreed I could work part time at the new shelter so I wouldn't have to be there all the time. This wasn't ideal, since I didn't want to be there in the first place, but this year of my life (and hopefully my whole life) is about serving, so I figured I would be a servant, swallow my pride (and my fear) and deal with it. The first attack was on a Monday. The next Thursday the same client came into my office and flipped out again, and I was alone in the facility again. I maintained my composure long enough to get him calmed down and out of the office, shut the door, and wept. I have a VERY strict "No Crying at Work" rule, which, until that day, I had managed to follow pretty well. Not today. The stress of the harassment, the fear of even being in that neighborhood, the anger at being left there alone when I have no training or background in this all came out, and I cried and cried. At work. I still feel badly about it.

I emailed my supervisor and my local program coordinator and told them that what had happened and that I was going home for the day. I went home, watched TV online, cried for another hour or two, and then went into work at my old shelter. Basically they decided that I don't have to go to the new shelter any more, which is great, and I was (and am) really happy to be back with other staff who support and encourage me (and stop clients from assaulting me, when possible). That was until I found out yesterday that all the clients from the new shelter are moving into the old shelter, including the one who seems to hate and want to hurt me. You can guess how excited I am about that. Stress induced stomach pains, anyone?

I will say one thing about the whole situation: it has made me appreciate my housemates, especially the other volunteers, much, much more. Even before the client became violent towards me, I hated the new position so much I was considering dropping out of MVS, moving back in with my parents, and trying to get my old job at the zoo until it was time to move to Serbia. By the time the client actually flipped out, I was ready to have my bags packed. What stopped me is the love and support I received from my housemates. I have been honest about feeling a little disappointed in community; the living situation has not been the blissful nest of love and support I was naive enough to expect. I did not chose to live with these people, and there are some I would not chose to live with. In the past few weeks, however, they have been wonderful, expressing love and encouragement and concern for both my physical safety and my mental health while in these situations. I don't think I realized before how much they care about me, or how much I care about them. I wish I didn't have to be attacked to realize these things, but I'll go ahead and take the silver lining where I can get it.

I apologize for dropping of the face of the earth for a while, especially to those of you I owe emails or letters or phone calls. Hopefully things will get better and I will feel sane enough to be a decent friend again. Or maybe this client will kill me, in which case you can have my books and CDs.

Can we have a new heaven and a new earth, please? We broke ours. We're sorry, though.

2009-03-17T22:52:00.003-04:00

Today at work I sat for an hour listening to one of my clients talk about how he almost killed himself Friday night, then went and smoked crack and tried to sleep with a prostitute, and then almost killed himself again. I say "tried" to sleep with a prostitute because, apparently, the (massive amounts of) antidepressants, antipsychotics, and anti anxiety meds and/or the crack prevented him from actually being able to have intercourse with her. Because that's what I want to hear about. My client's sexual problems. With prostitutes.

Now Maggie, you're thinking, don't the vast majority of your clients continue to use drugs while under your care? Can't you safely assume that many of them are also engaging in risky sexual behaviors? And you're right, many, if not most, of our clients continue to abuse drugs and/or alcohol while they're in the program. It happens. Heroin isn't like biting your nails; it takes a hell of a lot more than will power to give it up (and I KNOW how hard it is to stop biting your nails! But I think heroin is, in fact, harder to quit). And, of course, drug abuse is only a symptom of other issues that are going on. You need to treat the whole person, all of their illnesses, in order to end a pattern of destructive behavior. Sometimes it takes 2, 3, or 47 tries. Sometimes it never happens.

So why was I particularly shocked that this client did this? Because he was a model client. He's been at the shelter for about 4 months now, and I've been his counselor the whole time. He has a host of mental illnesses, but has come so, so far in his functioning, emotional stability, recovery, and self confidence. He now has a job moving medical supplies at the Veterans' Administration (he's a Veteran) and has completed three differnet mental health and social skill programs at the VA. He comes to our weekly meeting religiously, and calls me to tell me if he will be back late, if anything changes with his meds or appointments, and one time just to tell me he was on the bus. "Hey Maggie. I’m on the bus. I just thought you should know." And then he hung up. Strange? Yes. But I would rather 400 clients like him than one I never see or hear from, who doesn't trust me or tell me what is really going on.

This client trusts me. He tells me what's going on. He told me not only about his suicidal ideations, but his drug use, and WAY too many details about the sex (or lack of). Crack is not an aphrodisiac. Who knew? When he told me, I could tell he was in so much pain, that he felt ashamed and worthless. He wouldn't look me in the eye. He asked if we could keep it between us, which of course I couldn't do. Even if I was willing to overlook the drug use, which I was not, suicide is not something that can EVER be taken lightly, particularly not in a client with his history and illnesses.

After I assured him that I was not disappointed in him, that he is the only person he answers to, that him being honest was more important than using, he seemed to feel better. After he left the office I was talking to another counselor. She asked me if I thought it happened because I wasn't there. I have transferred buildings and am now only at my old shelter, where he lives, once a week. Last week I wasn't even accessible by phone, because I was in the Midwest visiting friends. This client is freakishly attached to me, and has had a very hard time since I transferred to the new building. He (apparently) asks where I am all the time, if I'm ok, when I'm coming back. This other counselor asked if I thought tat I was his crutch, and if having the crutch removed contributed to his depression and self doubt, which led to him seeking a prostitute, which led to him smoking crack.

No. I didn't cause it. I can't control him. I don't know, maybe if I had met with him on Friday afternoon I could have said or done something to make things turn out differently. But maybe I couldn't have. Maybe I would have made it worse. We shouldn't use people as crutches- not our friends, not our family, not boyfriends or girlfriends or spouses- because NO one will ever be there all the time. No one will. You can't ASK that of someone, and I refuse to try to pretend like I could live up to some unrealistic expectation to be a super-counselor. I mean, I'm not even a SOCIAL WORKER, I'm just some kid. White girl from the suburbs moves into the big bad inner city trying to make good, right? I can't even fall asleep without straining my ears for gunshots, or walk with total confidence to and from work. I can't fix him, or anyone else. No one can. I can't do it.

I hate this.

Given the choice, of course, between (not) having sex with a prostitute and smoking crack or suicide, I would rather he smoke the crack. But I don't like the choices.

Sometimes I don't even remember why I'm here. I would rather live in some crappy apartment and work as a receptionist or telemarketer or ANYTHING other than this. I feel so tiny and worthless and powerless and vulnerable. And then I remember that I'm here because I love Jesus, and he calls us into these places, that Jesus lives with the crack whores and the drug dealers, and that's where I need to live, too, for now. I need to love them and serve them and work for them, even if it does nothing and means nothing, because that's what people who love Jesus do. We love people. We serve them.

(and then sometimes i try to remember why i love jesus. and sometimes i don't know. why would i love someone who asks me to do this? why would i love and follow someone who leads me here? and i try to remember and i try to remember and all i can think is i'm here and i love him because he promises something else and he promises something better, a world without crack whores or dead babies or drug addicts.)

so where. is. it.

Oh crap.

2009-03-03T23:09:00.002-05:00

I bought a book that is supposed to help you teach yourself Serbian. I didn't even get past the alphabet page and was lost (and I am good at languages!). Conclusion: next year might be painful.

Also, this is really embarrassing, but because I have heard the same thing from several people my age, I will confess: as a child, I thought Bosnia was in the middle east. It's because when I was growing up I knew there was a war there, and I saw images of people running in terror out of burning buildings, buildings being bombed, tanks rolling through streets... and I just thought that all wars happened in the middle east. Certainly all the wars I heard about as a child happened in the middle east... I knew World Wars I and II involved Europe and Asia, of course, but I just assumed that all wars that happened during my lifetime happened in places that were really hot and sandy (which, to be fair, doesn't even describe most of the middle east). The truth, as anyone who reads this blog and ever had a decent history or geography class will no doubt know, is that since 1986 (the year I was born), plenty of wars, genocides, and other horrible things have happened all over the world. I am only now starting to learn about the things that tore apart former Yugoslavia, my future home, this little part of the world that BOTH my mother and I had to look on a map to find.

By the way, we had the same map, and on it Serbia was too small to have its name written in. Instead it was labeled "12", and you had to look at the number key on the side to see that 12 is Serbia and Montenegro. And while we're on the subject, I can't figure out if Montenegro is a separate country or part of Serbia. And don't even get me started on what Kosovo/a is.

Good thing I don't leave until August, because I have a LOT to learn.

Wait, WHAT?

2009-02-24T23:22:00.002-05:00

I guess I am moving to Belgrade, Serbia. Wait, what? Who moves to Serbia?!

I guess I do. I'll be teaching kindergarten and working in a center for education and counseling for victims of trauma starting in August. Here is my new job description:

The last 15 years have been difficult and traumatic for all citizens of the former Yugoslavia, due to the long and devastating war. These events also struck Serbia. In the beginning there was a great fear of possible mobilization, causing many people to hide and live in fear. As well, the number of refugees that came upset people and brought fear.

Sanctions for Serbia lasted for years and caused serious economic crises. It was very difficult for people to provide even the basics for their families. The future seemed unpredictable, causing feelings of uncertainty and insecurity. In addition, the spread of the war to Kosovo ended with the bombardment of Serbia, a traumatic experience for all Serbians.

Apart from traumas caused by wars, many of the traumas Serbians are dealing with occurred within the family. Family violence multiplied during these years. General disappointment and insecurity as well as economic and political uncertainty caused anxiety that was felt within families, where the victims are usually children and women. Men are usually victims of crime, and the reason they engage in illegal activities is in order to provide for their families.

Noah’s Ark Kindergarten: SALTer will help the kindergarten teachers in their everyday work with children. This placement represents an opportunity to build bridges and to strengthen one of the few church-sponsored kindergartens in Serbia.

Psihoorijentir: SALTer will assist the Center in organize files and the library, developing materials, consulting and fundraising. SALTer's observations and analysis will be sought as to help the Center develop better.

Assignment Description:

Kindergarten - The kindergarten Noah’s Ark is situated in the central part of the city of Belgrade. It was founded in 1996. The founder is the Baptist Church. At the moment there are 35 children attending the kindergarten, including 2 children that are handicapped. There are 4 teachers working in the kindergarten and usually one trainee. The kindergarten is financed by the donations and contributions of the parents.

Psihoorijentir - is a center for education and psychological assistance. There is a team in the Center trained for education on trauma. Educational trainings are held in the center, designated for teachers, kindergarten teachers, pedagogues and psychologists employed in education and social institutions (orphanages, social work, reformatory schools…). Beside education the Center offers support to adults and children that experienced traumatic events. This is conducted through individual therapy and support groups. The Center also educates volunteers for work in support groups.

Duties:
Throughout the assignment and especially at the beginning the service worker will focus on learning Serbian to fulfill the duties listed below.

Noah’s Ark Kindergarten: SALTer will work 3 days a week (Monday to Wednesday) from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. He/she will assist one teacher: will observe what the teacher is doing and will follow her instructions. Working in the kindergarten involves playing with children, helping them with dressing, helping them in drawing and all sort of creative work, setting the tables for lunch and removing the dishes after lunch together with kids, setting the mats for their afternoon naps, helping them dress and most of all be able to answer to their questions, instruct them in their work and observing their behavior and interactions with other children.
It also involves some extracurricular activities. Together with the teacher, depending on activity, he/she is to help in doing it, for instance: an excursion outside the kindergarten area, sport activities, going to theater for children, kitchen activities and so on.
SALTer is expected to be present at all activities that are organized for children and parents by Saturdays and after the working hours. She/he is also expected to be present at the meetings where we plan and analyze our work.

Psihoorijentir: The working hours of the SALTer would be 2 days a week (Thursday and Friday) from 9 A.M. to 4 P.M. Our project is a specific one because of the seminars and consequently we are forced to work on Saturdays. Therefore the volunteer will be expected to participate in working on Saturdays, with the option that whenever the volunteer works on Saturdays he/she could take a day off during the week.
Filling and organizing the library – SALTer will help in organizing files and library which will help the Center in learning what other resources are needed and how to obtain these (via web, buying books and so forth).
Development of materials – Since the SALTer will have access to materials from the US or Canada which are designed for people in helping professions, we expect that volunteer would help us in the choice of material as well as in advising us how to use them.
Observation – A SALTer would attend seminars as an observer. He/she will be the observer of our teamwork as well. If SALTer shows interest and would like to be part of the team that leads the seminar we would be open for this (the Center’s staff). However, we understand that this might take some time after volunteer would feel comfortable with the language.
Analysis – A SALTer would help us to analyze the work that has been done and also to evaluate it. The participating of the SALTer in analysis will be the result of the observations that he/she has observed.
Fundraising – To research the web and learn about grant possibilities from organizations and individuals that would interested in supporting the work of the Center.

As far as working on Saturdays SALTer will in conversation with the director of Psihoorijentir and the Kindergarten make decision when to be working at the Kindergarten and when at the Center. Just to make a note that not all Saturday will be work days.

SALT participants are expected to demonstrate an active interest and commitment to learning Serbian language and to engage within the local community where they serve.

Location Description
Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro as well as the biggest city with a population of more than 2 million, is strategically situated at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. Because of this it is a city that has been destroyed many times due to wars, and is now a mixture from charming old architecture to plain somewhat neglected concrete apartment buildings from the communist era. Because of the recent conflict in the region hundreds of thousands of displaced people have migrated to Belgrade, straining public services and causing a very tight housing situation.

Despite the recent history Belgrade remains a safe place to live, generally without fear for personal safety. It is a bustling city with constant activity 24 hours a day. There are many theatres, cinemas, cultural events, good restaurants with reasonable prices, and coffee shops which spill out onto sidewalks and side streets for 6 months of the year. Public transportation is readily available, with buses and tramlines providing good connections to all parts of the city.

The climate in Belgrade is temperately continental. Winter temperatures are usually around -5 to -10 degrees Celsius, but it can get as cold as -17. It is normal to have some snow in the months of December to February. Summers are fairly hot, with temperatures climbing to 40 degrees Celsius for brief periods of time. Fall and spring are fairly long and pleasant seasons.

I still feel like they are lying to me about the winter, but I think that is because I am mixing up Serbia and Siberia (they're different, I looked on a map).

Happy ash Wednesday!

Oh my.

2009-02-23T15:11:00.002-05:00

There are times this job feels daunting and thankless. When I sit in my office and look out the window and can LITERALLY watch drug dealers hand out testers (free samples of drugs) to people- mostly kids- to get them addicted, I feel discouraged. I think that is probably a normal reaction.

But then there are certain days and certain clients that are filled with gratitude. I have one client who said that he was feeling bored and restless and that he wanted something to do. He said he grew up on a farm and loves animals and misses his dog. I went online and printed out three applications to volunteer at different animal shelters in the city, and I filled out some of the basic information for him. Today when he came in to the office, I showed them to him and told him he could fill out the rest, or I could fill the rest out with him. He looked up at me, astonished. His eyes filled with tears. He thanked me repeatedly and told me I had really helped him out, that he would work on them right away, that God would bless me for this.

This is not something I deserve that kind of gratitude for. The entire process of printing and starting the applications probably took less than 15 minutes. What touches me is not that I was finally shown some gratitude for my hard work, but that I was shown gratitude for almost nothing. These people have been beaten down- figuratively and literally- so many times by so many people for so long that they begin to see themselves with the world's eyes. They start to believe that they are worthless, that they don't deserve love or attention or affection, that their disabilities or addictions or illnesses define them. This client is so used to being ignored that the simplest act of kindness became monumental to him. His tears are not a testament to my love or service, because I didn't do anything particularly noteworthy. They're a testament to past cruelty and pain. As such, his thank-yous were more painful than pleasing to me.

In other news, I have to decide by Thursday if I want to take a job working at an orphanage for kids with developmental disabilities in Managua, Nicaragua, or a job teaching kindergarten three days a week and working at a center for people with PTSD two days a week in Belgrade, Serbia. Both jobs are a year long, starting in August, and are through the Mennonite church. I have no idea which would be better. Serbia sounds awesome, and would be new, but I love Nicaragua and have close friends there. Nicaragua has mangoes and monkeys. Serbia has... well, I don't really know, I've never been there. I'm thinking of flipping a coin. After all, I agonized over my decisions of what to do with this year and ended up in a job that has nothing to do with my interests or skills, and I'm pretty happy. So deciding between two jobs that ARE relevant to my interests and skills should be refreshing. And terrifying. I'll let you know on Thursday where you can start sending my mail.

2009-02-18T23:42:00.004-05:00

I used to think it was a bit silly when people would say things like, "It's the little things that make life worth living!" Part of me still thinks it is. The little things, after all, are just what fills in the space between the BIG things. I like the Big Things. I've always liked Big Things, and tend to end up with a lot of big events in my life. This is partially because of luck (both good and bad) and partially because I have a flair for the dramatic and tend to thrive on change, movement, even crisis.

This is changing somewhat for me. I am not doing the most glamorous job in the world. I spend a lot of my days entering urinalysis results into a computer, on hold with the department of social services, or trying to fit a new shipment of food from the food bank into a pantry. Most days, there isn't too much to tell about what I've done. There are rarely measurable accomplishments, and sometimes there aren't even clear goals or benchmarks. I would prefer a job where every day something really breathtaking or beautiful or heartbreaking or scary or hilarious happens, but really, how many jobs are like that? The fact of the matter is, Big Things are big because they don't happen every day.

I tend to see God and learn about myself and form really lasting friendships during or immediately after Big Things, but I guess that doesn't mean God isn't in the small things, or that nothing in my character is revealed in how I deal with the mundane, or that genuine relationships can't be born out of boredom. Lately I've been really enjoying watching the flowers on my windowsill grow. I've been trying to be fully present and really looking with open eyes as I walk home from my new job (although, honestly, this is AT LEAST as much to prevent mugging as it is to see the neighborhood, which is TERRIFYING). I have found joy in attempting to perfect a cupcake recipe and seeing how happy it makes my housemates that I've started baking so many cupcakes. I've been trying to really taste the coffee I make. Not just drink it, but taste it, feel the warm cup, watch the sugar dissolve...

Life is short, but sweet for certain.

sigh

2009-02-12T10:34:00.005-05:00

I started a new job today, kind of. I'm now working with external clients at another facility. They're funded by Project PLASE but are housed in an outside agency. Six of these will be my clients, in addition to the two at the co-ed facility. Today all I'm doing is reading files and looking at charts and trying to get to know the people, where they've been, and what they need. It's so hard to try to understand people from these little blurbs that counselors write.

"Client reports witnessing incest between father and daughter."

"Client was diagnosed with HIV in 1985. He called his sister to share diagnosis and she told him to never call her again. His uncle said 'you turned out to be a real bum.' Client has no other family to speak of."

"Client began using heroin at age 17, cocaine at age 20."

"Client dropped out of school after grade 5."

"Client dropped out of school in 7th grade, aged 17 years."

"Diagnosis: Adjustment disorder NOS"

"Diagnosis: Adjustment disorder with depression"

"Diagnosis: anxiety disorder"

"Client is more irritable than usual."

"Client has passive suicidal thoughts but no plan."

Counselor is in over her head.

Rebirth

2009-02-10T19:33:00.003-05:00

Reason Number 468 Why I Need to Live South of the Mason-Dixon Line:

One of my biggest complaints about Minnesota is the lack of flowering trees. Living there for 4 years was rough for me. Not only is winter really, really, really long, but spring isn't even that pretty. It's mostly muddy from all the melting snow, and then just when it's getting warm and you're wearing skirts and flip flops it will snow AGAIN, and there are no dogwoods or cherry blossoms, and then the next thing you know, it's summer. I'm not OK with that.

Walking home from work today I was in a pretty bad mood. As I crossed over 83, I looked up, and a tree by the side of the sidewalk had little buds on it. I think they were flower buds, they were about the size of a large olive and were fuzzy. I pulled one off a low-hanging branch and rubbed it between my fingers the rest of the walk home.

It made me feel like I was holding a tangible representation of a promise. "Spring is coming!" it said. "And there will be flowers!" No winter lasts forever, and even things that may seem dead for months can produce fruit.

It isn't that I'm unhappy here, per se, and it's not that I'm counting down the days until I leave (although I am counting down the days until I go to Minnesota to visit friends- 27 left!). I just feel stuck in winter, in a ground too frozen to til and temperatures that kill seedlings. I long for a warm spring breeze and FLOWERS and the scent of honeysuckle. Today I was reminded that they're on their way, and that party of the beauty is in the patient waiting.

"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

Goodbye?

2009-02-04T11:59:00.003-05:00

I'm not very good at letting people go. I still talk to my best friend from when I was 6 about once a week on the phone. This weekend I'm going to visit my two best friends from high school. I talk to my roommate from college on the phone about twice a week and email with her a few times a day. I am in regular contact with college friends who are now living in Kazakhstan, Tanzania, and France. I email my host sister from Nicaragua and my host father from Kenya. Thanks to Facebook, email, gchat, Skype, and cell phones, it seems that no one is ever REALLY gone. Even if I don't communicate directly with friends from high school and college, I, in most cases, can still see when they get a new job, move, start dating or break up with someone, and any number of other things through Facebook and blogs. I, and most of my generation, have come to expect and demand ties that withstand any distance or length of time, however informal. I'm not even at the forefront of this communication and connectivity craze. I am notoriously hard to reach by cell phone, partially because I leave it places and partially because I refuse to answer it during work, meals, or meetings (and it appalls me that this surprises people). I only use one online networking site, despite invitations to join MySpace, twitter, and any other number of resources that would invite even more people into my life.

I'm not trying to say that all of this is good or bad; like (almost) everything else, there are benefits and disadvantages to hyper connectivity. This week I'm learning about some of the disadvantages.

My favorite client from work is gone. He arrived at the shelter the same day I did. I even did part of his intake interview (which with LITERALLY no training was an interesting experience). He is friendly, funny, and very intelligent. He was a source of encouragement and joy for staff and clients alike. We had frequent conversations about friendship, relationships, family, religion, and politics. A recovering cocaine addict, he had relapsed and used drugs once while a resident here. He immediately told staff, was placed on contract, and even publicly apologized to the other residents (which he did of his own accord with no prompting from us).

Last Sunday he didn't come back to the shelter. His curfew had just been moved from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM. At 10:00 PM he phoned to say that he was waiting for a bus, and would be back soon. That was the last we heard from him. The veteran's administration, who funds his placement here, has said that they will no longer pay for him to stay here. If he returns to the shelter, we are supposed to escort him to retrieve his belongings, and then ask him to leave. As the days pass, however, it is seeming less and less likely that he's coming back. We have called central booking and every hospital in Baltimore, and he's not there.

I feel betrayed. He specifically told me when I pointed out that he and I had the same first day that "we came together and we'll leave together." He said he wanted to have permanent housing before I leave in August. It was quite a realistic goal, he was doing well in recovery and worked very, very hard. And now? He's just gone. I'm not offended if he has started using drugs again, because I know that addiction is bigger than I am and that nothing I can do can make it go away, but I'm hurt that he would not at least let us know what's going on.

More than anything, I'm worried about him. Did he die? Is he staying with family? Is he living in a park? There is no Facebook status update or blog entry or group email I can check. I can't call him because he has no phone. I can't send him a letter because he's homeless. Ours was a relationship built entirely on face-to-face interaction; now one of those faces is gone. While going home from work I found myself looking closely at the people I pass on the street. Maybe he's out there. Maybe I'll run into him at the inner harbor or Lexington Market. But most likely, I'll never see or hear from him again, and that is a concept that is incredibly difficult to wrap my head around.

who needs insurance?

2009-02-02T13:00:00.004-05:00

Today is my first day in a week wearing real pants instead of my awesome organic sweatshop free yoga pants from Maggie's Organics (www.maggiesorganics.com). I have been sick for about 10 days now, and didn't leave the house for the last 6 of them except to go to the thrift store to buy decorations for an Edgar Allan Poe party.

The worst part of this illness, which I at first referred to as tuberculosis until a friend mistakenly thought I actually HAD tuberculosis, is that I am so unused to being sick. I don't get sick, and if I do, I'm over it in a day, two tops. I often joke that it's OK that I don't have health insurance this year because I have the strongest immune system in the world, with the only caveat being that I am incredibly accident prone.

In the past 8 years I have fracture my skull, broken my ankle, ruptured an ear drum, and sustained three compression fractures, several bone chips, and a ruptured disc in my back. I have had to seek emergency medical care for a severe allergic reaction to an antibiotic and been hospitalized overnight for a drug overdose. I contracted a parasitic worm and, as a result, dysentery while in Kenya. I haven't been to the ER in over a year, which is the longest I have gone without going to the ER in 8 years. Some would say I'm due for an accident of some kind, and I am inclined to think they might be right.

I deal with pain pretty well, and know the drill for riding in ambulances (which, by the way, is really, really fun, except for the intense pain and fear of death part that often comes along with the ride). But sickness I do not do well with. I get incredibly frustrated- irate, even- when I am unable to breathe. I refuse to give in to the sickness, which means I often refuse to rest or stay home from work. I try to show the virus (or bacteria or evil mutant space germs) who is boss, but in this case, I just ended up feeling worse and worse. I TRIED to go to work, and they sent me home because I looked and sounded like death herself. So, I stayed home for a whole week. I cleaned everything in our house, drank my weight in tea, drank a WHOLE BEAR full of honey, and made cupcakes (which will probably infect everyone else in the house, oops!). I stayed in my pajamas and sweatshirt and caught up on my reading. But it was still awful. For all the days I lie in bed and wish I could stay home from work, I now know that the flip side, staying home all day every day, is worse. So today, despite a lingering cough and brief periods of light headedness, I am at work. And I'm not in yoga pants. And it feels good.

Please pass the honey.

life

2009-02-01T23:53:00.004-05:00

I'm good at taking care of things, I like to think. I have been told on multiple occasions that I'm quite good with kids, and to be honest, I think I am. Few things give me more pleasure than talking or drawing with a child between the ages of, say, 18 months and 4 years. Holding a baby is a unique kind of bliss. I have recently decided that after 4 years of art school and a year of social work with the homeless that my TRUE desire is to be a preschool teacher.

I'm good with animals, too. I spent two summers working as a zookeeper, and was the ONLY keeper for whom the zebras would approach the wagon rides. You want to see a zebra up close or have a chance at petting one? You better hope you were on one of my rides. In fact, I was the chosen keeper for training the camels and tagging baby deer, too. I spent 3 years in college volunteering at the local humane society, and at no point in my childhood had fewer than 3 pets, including, at most points, 2 dogs. If you're small and/or furry, there is a good chance that I will love you and take great pleasure in caring for you.

This is all to point out how sad it is in comparison that I kill every plant I have the audacity to look directly at. It isn't that I don't like plants, because I do. I especially love flowers, which my mom will tell you is partially why I kill everything. I insist on trying to grow flowering plants on windowsills with far too little sunlight, which is why they don't flower and, in most cases, don't live. But I don't care. Why would I grow ivy when I could grow daisies? The answer, of course, is that I CAN'T grow daisies, but whatever. I have, on occasion, set my sights lower, like the time I got a cactus. I was assured by multiple people that I could not kill a cactus, which was the basis of my purchasing it. It seemed to do well enough in the week or so I had it in Virginia, and then I put it in a cup holder to drive it 20 hours to school in Minnesota. I mean, it was in a flower pot, so what's the big deal? Well, at some point during the trip, perhaps while veering wildly to avoid a median, or while flailing in excitement at seeing a taco bell, or while trying to unearth a case of CDs from underneath some bedding, the cactus tipped over and fell out of the pot. Since there was still dirt all around the roots, I figured it was fine and stuck it back in the pot and vacuumed up the rest of the dirt. Apparently this is NOT how you care for unearthed cactus, because it died. Only- and here is the really sad part- I didn't know it was dead. I thought it seemed to be getting smaller, but convinced myself that I was just imagining things. That is, until the day when a book fell on it and it literally collapsed in on itself, revealing an interior that was completely hollow except for a bit of opaque ooze that, to be honest, reeked.

Anyway, I love to care for things, but do not have a green thumb. My mom gave me 3 pots of flowers that have managed to stay green on my windowsill, but have ceased to produce flowers (the little jerks). A few weeks ago, however, I was given three little flower pots in a bag of donated art supplies from the preschool where I used to work. The art supplies are for my art group at work, but the flower pots, I couldn't help but feel, were meant for me. After all, what would 14 adults do with 3 tiny flower pots? They came with little cakes of dirt you soak in water to make expand and 2 packets of seeds. I was hesitant to get my heart involved in something I know will end in sorrow, but then decided to go for it. I took my paintbrushes out of my tall plastic cup and soaked the little cakes of dirt. When they had achieved regular dirt status, I filled up the little pots and planted a few seeds in each one. For several days, I dribbled just a little water into each one, remembering from my grow-your-own daisy kit (which I later killed) that new seeds need pretty damp soil (but not TOO damp, but how do you KNOW?) and I waited. And I waited. And then today, out of nowhere, were 13 tiny sprouts! There are 3 in one pot, 2 in another, and 8 in the other other. It is just so beautiful. Yesterday I had three pots of dirt, and today I have 13 teeny tiny living growing beautiful plants. Sprouts. Whatever they are. They are supposed to grow into mums, though I am smarter than to think I will ever guide them to that stage. I know that they will last a few weeks and then slowly, much to my dismay, begin to wilt and die.

One day I really, really want to have a beautiful garden. I want to have a yard with so many daisies that you could pick a bouquet every day and never know the difference. I want to have pink roses that grow along a blue fence and tomato plants that produce so many tomatoes that I and the hundreds of orphans I hope to raise will be able to eat them at every meal. Actually, while I'm dreaming, I'm going to go ahead and say that I want tomato plants that produce all year long. Why stop in August? Give me tomatoes in February! I want to grow fresh herbs to season all the food I make, and plants inside in pots- two for every piece of electronic equipment in the room. I know this will (most likely) never happen, but today I don't care. Today I have 13 plants that I planted and watered and love, and I love them all the more for their vulnerability and inevitable demise.

"nothing we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility" e e cummings

Community

2009-01-26T10:54:00.004-05:00

I've been meaning to write on intentional community for a while.

Living in community is one of the main reasons I chose to do MVS instead of the SALT program (which is a 1 year service abroad organization through the Mennonite Central Committee). In MVS, volunteers live together in a common space and share food, money, chores, sometimes a car, etc etc etc. I chose to come to Baltimore because our house is such a unique community. Instead of just having MVS volunteers, we have 13 housemates from 6 different countries. We have 5 refugees, 4 Mennonite volunteers, 1 Brethren volunteer, and 4 community members/ renters. We share chores, space, basic foods like flour, sugar, and spices, and of course our lives. When I have a hard day, there is always someone in the kitchen who will listen to me talk about it. When I am excited about something, someone will probably be in the living room to be excited with me. Community is a beautiful thing- when it works. But like everything else in the world, it doesn't work all the time.

Before there was sin in the world, God saw that it wasn't good for man to be alone. A lot of people take this verse to mean that God wants everyone to get married, but those people are idiots. Not everyone is supposed to get married, and marriage is not the most sacred institution or relationship on earth; one's relationship with God is. I think far fewer people need to get married and instead devote their lives to service and, yes, community. But I digress. I LOVE that after God makes (evolves) the world, the animals, and humans, He looks and sees that it isn't good enough to have just one person. It isn't sin that separates man from God or the animals, it's simply how we're made: we need each other. There is nothing wrong with feeling lonely. Wanting to be with others isn't weakness, it's instinct. Community is huge throughout the whole Bible. The Hebrews are selected and saved AS A PEOPLE. Jesus intentionally forms a tight-knit core group of disciples. Disciples are always sent out in pairs to go serve and heal and preach. The early church lived together and shared everything in common. Paul's epistles are written to entire church bodies and communities of believers. We were never meant to go it alone, and the gospel looks and feels different when it is lived out in it's proper context- that is, in community.

That being said, let me also say that community is really, really, really hard. Forming a "community" of a Bible study or even a group of friends while I was in college was an entirely different process than LIVING in community. Senior year I lived with 9 other girls, but I CHOSE those girls. We knew each other and made the conscious decision to live together. I did NOT chose the people I live with now, and to be honest, if I had a choice, there are some that I would not chose to live with. But I wasn't given a choice, I was given a family and asked to function with respect and even love within it.

I would say about 60- 65% of the time, my community is a good thing. When I'm cleaning the kitchen and someone helps me, even though it isn't their kitchen cleaning day, or when someone makes me tea because I'm sick, or teaches me to cook a food from their country, or shares a story about life before Baltimore, it feels like we really are one unit, here to serve each other.

But then there is that pesky 35- 40% of the time. The other times. The times when for the 6th time in a row I didn't use the last of the toilet paper, but the toilet paper is gone with no new roll in sight (yeah, the toilet paper fairy who magically replaces the roll when you use the last of it and leave the cardboard there? That's me). The times when no one communicated about using the car and now it's gone and no one knows where it is. The times when I just want to sit by myself and watch the Office online in my room and a housemate WILL NOT LEAVE or STOP TALKING about something irrelevant. Those times are hard. Really hard.

More than that, though, I've been shocked by how painfully lonely living in community can be. After all, loneliness isn't about being around people or not being around people; it's about feeling loved and understood and known and wanted. Living with 13 people doesn't mean that 13 people love and understand and know and want me, it just means they're obligated to give me phone messages and save me some of their dinner.

This community has not been what I expected or, to be honest, what I wanted. But more and more, at work and at home, I'm learning to die to myself and thrive on service. My life is not my own, and nothing drives that point home more than working 8 hours at a homeless shelter and coming home and having to cook dinner for all the volunteers and clean the bathroom, putting my needs and desires aside. I don't have the luxury of taking a nap or going to Starbucks or having cereal for dinner. I have certain obligations I need to do and certain relationships that I need to nurture, like it or not. Sometimes I do it well, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes other people in the house take care or me and nurture me well, and sometimes they don't. But for now, it works more often that it doesn't, and it's enriching, even when it's hard. And maybe that's all we can ask for.

Wow.

2009-01-23T14:56:00.003-05:00

There is no such thing as a normal day at this job. I mean, there are certain things that I do every day or every week, but there is never a day that is exactly the same as any other.

A few days ago, a female client of ours got $700 on a a food stamp card (which works like a debit card, but only on food). The average food stamp award for a single person is only $160 a month, but she hadn't received them for quite a while even though she was entitled to them, so they gave them to her all at once. She has been clean for less than a month, and she told staff that she was concerned she would use the card to buy drugs. My first thought was, holy crap, I knew this was a bad area but they sell COCAINE in the GROCERY STORE?, but that wasn't it. She was afraid she would sell the card, then use that money to buy drugs, which is apparently pretty common (reason #64 why I would be a pretty bad drug addict).

She and the rest of the staff agreed that the best thing to do would be to spend the money on the card so it would be less of a temptation. I had my car here today, so I was given the task of taking her to the store to spend the money. She was really excited about being able to get lots of "extras" to share with the house. The shelter is fully stocked with food, of course, but only basic things, and they're the same all the time. So, off to Save-a-Lot we go, her food card in my hand, to feed the homeless.

The main thing she wanted was crab legs. We got $45 worth (about 5 pounds). We got tons of chips and cookies and soda and pies. I threw in a few bags of grapes, apples, and bananas. We got about 6 boxes of "fancy" cereal (off-brand Lucky Charms, Cookie Crisp, etc). We also got a 10 pound bucket (yes, BUCKET) of chitterlings. Google it. Then guess which one of us picked THAT one out.

It was nice being out with her, walking around the store, talking about our families and what foods we like and don't like. She was surprised but pleased that I don't have kids. She has 4 and is currently pregnant. But at the same time, it just seemed so odd. I wondered what the cashier thought as I pulled the card out of my pocket and gave it to her to use to pay. Of course, the reason they switched to cards was to make it less obvious that people were purchasing food with government assistance, but they're still pretty recognizable (and the fact that they have "INDEPENDENCE CARD" written in big red letters doesn't really help). We ended up spending about $300, mostly on junk. I was torn between being excited for our residents, some of whom have spent years living on the streets, who now get to have special things like cookies and cake and soda and crab. Another part of me was thinking about the dead babies I saw in Kenya who had starved to death. From anorexia to involuntary starvation to compulsive eating to $700 in back payments on food stamps that need to not be spent on drugs.... we, as a collective humanity, have a pretty f-ed up relationship with food.

When I got back to the shelter, I went through the mail, which I do every day. I also alphabetize it every day, but the overnight staff always mess it up. WHY? I don't know. You should ask them. Anyway, today we had a letter from prison. I LOVE when we have letters from prison, because I get to be the one to answer them. Granted, it's with a form letter explaining that we do take ex-offenders and has numbers and addresses for them to use to get housing through us, but I still like answering them. I like reading them and feeling like I get to help a person I might never see.

This letter wasn't seeking housing, though. It was from a 58 year old man seeking employment. He didn't say how long he had been in prison for, but he did say he has his masters degree in social work. He also said he has schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder. He ended the letter with, "I need to get back to work. I am sober now for the long run. Starting over is hard at my age. Please help me." When I took the letter to my manager to ask what I should write back, she pointed out that his release date had already passed and that he hadn't left an address other than the one of the prison, so we have no way to contact him.

Educationally (which is probably not a word), that man is more qualified for this job than I am. Actually, he is probably more qualified based on life experiences, too, and would probably not have to use urbandictionary.com to translate the drug slang the clients use. But here I am, working, smelling the crab legs that a client is so excited to serve her friends. And where he is? I can't know.

Housing.

2009-01-15T13:36:00.004-05:00

I just got off the phone with a woman who was trying to reach our intake counselor, who doesn't actually work at this building. I told her she should call the main office and gave her the extension of the person she wanted to reach. She asked me if I could give her the name and number of someone who could help her if she couldn't get through to the first person, so I asked her what the call was regarding so I could know to whom I should refer her.

She told me that she had spoken with our intake person a year or so ago about getting housing and has been on the wait list. She is currently facing foreclosure on her house and just lost her job. She won't get her last paycheck from work until her eviction date, which is, of course, too late to stop the eviction from happening.

She was desperate; I could hear the sadness in her voice. I told her that there really wasn't anyone else for her to speak with, that the intake person is in charge of the wait list and all new clients. She asked what to do if the intake counselor didn't answer, and I told her to leave a detailed message, stating what was going on and emphasizing the fact that it is urgent, and that the counselor would get back to her.

She was persistent; I don't blame her. "And if she doesn't? What do I do? Who can I call or go to if she doesn't get back to me in time?"
I was silent. What do you say to that? This woman was asking me, point blank, how to avoid becoming homeless. What was I supposed to say? "Oh, I'm just a volunteer, I have a degree in art, I haven't worked here that long, I'm not a social worker...." I mean, what do you say to that?

I told her I didn't know who to call. I told her that the counselor WOULD call her back, that we understand that sometimes quick and decisive action is needed. I told her we would do everything we could to help her, and we will.

And if we don't? If we fail? If she falls between the cracks, and is literally left out in the cold?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

choices

2009-01-14T20:50:00.002-05:00

"Geography is no cure for what's the matter with you." -Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

I used to think that I needed to get as far away as possible from everything I knew in order to be happy. Throughout college, most of what I talked about was moving to a developing country when I graduated so I could start my "real" life. A lot of people, myself included, were quite surprised when I turned down an offer to teach English and art in Nicaragua in order to come to Baltimore. At the time, I couldn't really give a good reason for the decision, except that going to Nicaragua just didn't feel right. To be honest, if I could do it over, I might make a different choice, but I am also thankful for the opportunity to experience Baltimore for year.

A lot of what I'm learning here is what I don't want to do. I know now that I don't want to spend my life in the inner city. I know I don't want to be a social worker. I know I don't want to work with adults with addictions. It isn't that I don't love my job, because I do, I'm just not that good at it. I'm not cut out for this type of work- I am too trusting, too sensitive, and too naive. I know that, with time, these things would change, but I'm not sure I want them to. I LIKE that I'm a trusting and sensitive person. Naivete is perhaps a less desirable trait, but I have trouble seeing myself losing these things without becoming cynical and detached.

Some of the people I work with- most of them, actually- are fabulous at what they do. If, for example, a client's urinalysis comes back positive for cocaine, and I have a conference with the client and ask if they used cocaine, and they tell me no, and start crying, and insist it must be a mistake, I believe them. If one of my coworkers were to have a conference with the same client, they would be able to see through every lie they told and somehow get them to admit the type, amount, and location of every drug in their possession. I don't know how. They're just that good.

Earlier this week two of our female residents moved out. They weren't kicked out, and they didn't find permanent housing, they just left. Both of them had stayed in bed after 7am (which is against the rules) and so our manager had a conference with each of them individually. In the course of these meetings, she somehow got them to both admit that they had used drugs in the past week. This, by itself, is not grounds for being removed from the shelter, but it is a serious offence. The manager was in the process of discussing how to better address the clients' substance abuse issues, and both clients became frustrated and resistant. The manager said something like "do you really want to be here? are you ready for help? are you ready to quit using drugs?" and the women both said no. They threw what few possessions they have into garbage bags and walked out.

I was fighting back tears. I wanted to chase them into the street screaming for them to come back, pleading for them to give US another chance, asking them to fully consider the consequences of their decisions. I didn't, though. I sat at my computer and entered urinalysis results into the computer. Over lunch, the other counselors and I were discussing what happened. The consensus among the experienced counselors was very much that what had happened was a shame, but that the women needed to make their own mistakes, that they were not ready for help, and that we had done everything we could do. I hate that. I hate feeling so helpless, I hate working so hard and having everything I've done be so fragile, and I hate letting go of people I've come to love. But I also knew that the other counselors were right; I can't fix anyone, I can't force anyone into recovery, and try as I might, I can't love someone back to sanity or sobriety or happiness (though I plan on continuing to try).

Somewhat in line with the thought that moving far away would mean leaving all my problems behind, I used to think that only the hardest work was worth doing. I thought that, somehow, my life would only have value if I was working in the poorest country with the most vulnerable population doing the most draining work. I am now more than comfortable with the concept that some work is really just too hard for me. I would have been ashamed in college to ever say that a job- particularly a job serving people who are so often ignored and oppressed- was too tough for me, but guess what: this one is. Of course I will finish my year here, and I know I will be stronger for having done so, but I can say with confidence that this is not my calling. Nothing has ever confirmed in my love for and desire to work with children as much as working with adults and nothing has made me want to live in a rural area of an unindustrialized country more than living in the inner city. Thus, I can't really say that coming here was a mistake or wasted time, because I AM having confirmations of my vocation... just not for THIS vocation.

By the way, today, two days after she left, one of the residents who left on Monday came back, welcomed with open arms by staff and clients alike. And that, my friends, is an example of what will help me last here until August.

this is all i have to say about christmas.

2008-12-29T21:58:00.001-05:00

there's no place like home for the holidays...

2008-12-24T10:30:00.003-05:00

I've been working really hard at not referring to my parents' house as home, because it's not really my home anymore. When people in Baltimore ask what I'm doing for Christmas, I force myself to say "I'm going to my parents' house", because that's what it is. I don't live there anymore, I don't even usually sleep in the room that used to be mine anymore. I still have a lot of crap there, but it's really more of a holding ground before I get around to selling it (the stuff, not the house. I don't think my parents would appreciate me selling their house).

To be fair, though, it isn't really like Baltimore is home, either. As much as I love RHHP (the Reservoir Hill House of Peace, the awesome community where I live), it isn't exactly home. RHHP is very much a transitional community, in that it is a community that is constantly in transition, made up of people constantly transitioning. There are currently 5 volunteers living there (4 in Mennonite Voluntary Service, including me, and one in the Brethren Voluntary Service), 1 asylum seeker and 4 asylees (basically refugees who didn't go through a second country before coming to the U.S.) and 4 renters (people who live in the house and participate in the community, but aren't asylum seekers or refugees or volunteers). We all share meals and cups of tea and have conversations and teach each other to cook our favorite foods, but everyone knows no one is really ever there forever. Most of the volunteers are there for one year. The asylum seekers are there because, for them, it is free housing while they apply for asylum, and then cheap housing while they wait for their families to come to the U.S. The renters tend to be more long-term, but I don't think anyone really imagines themselves there forever.

For the asylum seekers especially, RHHP is not home. We have 3 people from Cameroon, one from Ethiopia, and one from Iraq. Last night as I was making cheesecake for work, the asylee from Iraq, was making his dinner. One of the asylees from Cameroon, came in and asked how we were and what we were doing. "I'm cutting onions," he said. "That's why I left my home. I come here and I cut onions. In Iraq I had 10 bodyguards and 2 cooks. Here, I cut onions." He said it to be funny, and we all laughed, but there was also a certain bitterness and sorrow to it. The asylee from Iraq is a doctor, in Iraq he was in charge of over 100 hospitals. Here he works off an on as a translator while he struggles to pass exams to become a resident in a hospital so he can practice medicine again. He has been in the U.S. for 2 years, and has been waiting for his family to come since July. He has 5 children, including a 2 and a half year old daughter. He is Muslim, so I don't think Christmas without his family will be especially hard. But I know it has been incredibly hard for him celebrating Eid, Ramadan, and other holidays alone. He is the only Muslim in a house of Christians. We talk about traditions and share meals and stories with each other, but the fact remains that he is here and his family is there and he has no idea when or if he'll see them again.

Christmas comes with a certain bitterness at work, too. We extended out clients' curfews for Christmas so that they could spend time with their families. This has been met with mixed emotions- of course people are glad for the extra time, but it is also a reminder that they are in their 40s or 50s and are subject to curfews, to room checks, to chore inspections. And of course, not every client has family in the area, and not every client with family in the area has a good relationship with them.

Who wrote that home is where they have to take you in when you show up? Was that Frost? We read it in my American lit from 1900- 1950 class, but I broke my back that semester and don't remember a lot of specifics. I do remember that line, though. It was about a couple living on a farm, and a man who used to work for them shows up, and they can't turn him away. I think the husband says to the wife something like "Why doesn't he go home?" and the wife says something like "Home is where they can't turn you away. This is home to him." And I guess for many of the people in my life, that's what the shelter or RHHP are right now. It's not home, exactly, but it's what you've got right now. It's where your stuff is, it's where you eat and sleep and wash your clothes. But isn't home more than that? I hope one day it is.

I'd smoke crack, too, if that were my year.

2008-12-19T11:51:00.003-05:00

We got two new clients this week.

I do all the intake interviews for the shelter. I sit down and take about an hour to two hours to get the medical, mental health, substance abuse, and homelessness histories of each new client. On Tuesday, I was doing the intake of a new male. He seemed very nice, polite, and intelligent. It wasn't until after he left and I was putting all of his information into the computer that I saw that he is a registered sex offender. Against children.

Now, I know we're supposed to love everyone, and as a Christian, I know that I have given up the right to judge people and to hate people. But I can't help but think about how if I were on the other side, if I were working with the children this guy has molested, how I would undoubtedly allow myself to hate him. He would be this abstract idea to me, just some evil monster. But I'm not working the kids, I'm working with the man, and it is my job to find him housing, health care, mental health care (LOTS of that...), substance abuse recovery programs, and anything else I can do for him. I'm here to serve him, to meet his needs, and to do it with love and respect. Like it or not.

Today I did another intake, this time for a woman. She is 41 years old, a recovering crack addict. She has been using crack since she was 18 years old. Her longest period clean was a year, and the last time she used was December 2 of this year. In April her mother in law died suddenly, in June she miscarried one of the twin babies she was carrying, in July her husband committed suicide, she lost her job, and became homeless, in December she found out she was HIV positive, and this week she gave birth to the other twin, a boy. He weighed 3 pounds, 6 ounces at birth. He is in the ICU, born addicted to crack. When he was born, child protective services took him into custody because they decided a homeless crack addict HIV positive prostitute wouldn't be the best parent. When they took the baby, she said she would kill herself, so they moved her to the psych ward. They said she couldn't have her baby because she was suicidal, and she was suicidal because she couldn't have her baby.

She was released into the custody of Project PLASE yesterday. I spent 2 hours this morning listening to her talk about her addiction, prostitution, the devastation of losing her mother in law, her child, and her husband, and the helplessness of learning her HIV status. I had to pinch myself as hard as I could to stop myself from crying in front her (I don't know why pinching stops me from crying, it just does).

I have never in my life wanted to help a stranger as much as I want to help this woman. I want her to stay clean, to learn everything she can about living with (not dying from) HIV. I want her to get housing, to get custody of her child (who currently tests negative for HIV, but we can't know for sure until he is 6 months old) and to be HAPPY. But I will do the same things for her that I will for the pedophile. I will work just as hard for him as I will for her, I'll pull every string I can get my hands on for both of them.

Love is a strange thing. Like it or not.

give me all your books. please.

2008-12-09T19:08:00.004-05:00

it happened sometime while making my senior show. something about spending 2- 9 hours a day drawing dead babies kind of depressed me (go figure) and i lost the ability to read. well, that is an overstatement, maybe. but i went from devouring all kinds of books- classics, political commentaries, poetry, novels, biographies- to reading, well... nothing.

lucky for me, i didn't have a lot of classes that required reading my senior year. a few short articles on Buddhist pacifism, an analysis of a video of me dancing, comments on other people's art... i could do that. but for some reason, anything that demanded more intellectual involvement than a collection of Get Fuzzy strips was just too much.

it;s gradually gotten better. i got really, really into travel books this summer (bill bryson, ayun halliday, j. maarten troost, rory stewart- would recommend to anyone) and, since moving to baltimore, have mostly been re-reading old favorites. i have to read before i go to bed; if i don't, i'm pretty sure the world will implode. i'm still a little bit uncomfortable sleeping by myself in this big room in this even bigger house, listening to the sounds of fights and sirens and gunshots, so i often read for an hour or two before i can fall asleep here. and i'll be honest: one can only read the collected works of e. e. cummings so many times in a three month period, and i have reached that point.

i have tried multiple times to get through this huge stack of liberation theology books, and i've started a tale of two cities about eight times, and the grapes or wrath about 47 times. and it isn't that i don't want to read these things- i do- but i just can't right now. after hearing horror stories of clients' lives at work, and dealing with fights and drug use (clients', not mine) and so much anger and frustration and poverty and cultural differences and barriers.... well, books of get fuzzy comics start to look pretty good.

but my friend bryan runck is really, really smart, and most stuff he says is true, and he and i used to talk a lot about how great art (and literature) doesn't need to be depressing to be good. a lot of great art is born in or because or in spite of pain, but there are some great works that are absolutely saturated with joy. there are a lot of really awful works that are about joy- or trying to be about joy- but that doesn't mean that ALL joyful art is bad. it's harder to say something profound about happiness. it's harder to make someone laugh and still have substance than to make someone cry with substance. and just because the big stack of books i have by my bed is depressing, it doesn't mean i have to read them and be depressed all the time. i'd rather read something and laugh.

i promise to read those books i have saved up, i'm just not at a point where i can right now. right now what i need are some books- GOOD books, with substance and charecters and things that matter- that aren't about death, loss, rape, poverty, powerlessness, or addiction. i know that they're out there. so why don't you think of the greatest funny book you know and tell me what the title is so i can read it? better yet, why don't you buy it for me or send me your copy? i would really appreciate it. and when i'm done, maybe i'll make you a happy drawing to thank you.

i've only made about 4 happy drawings in my life, but maybe i'm up to the challenge if it means getting some books.

race

2008-12-02T22:16:00.005-05:00

I have a lot of issues with politics, I'll say that right now. I don't mean with specific politicians or policies,(though I certainly have those too), I mean with the whole system. With all the assumptions and destruction and empire and killing and greed. So I write the following not as any kind of political endorsement or criticism of anyone. It's just some stuff that's been bugging me.

I'm excited that Barack Obama is our president elect. Mostly because he's Kenyan, but also because electing an African American president is a huge deal, and a very exciting thing. (N.B. I am aware that, biologically, he is as white as he is black. He describes himself as black, so I will, too. Race is a messy, complicated, elaborate and beautiful thing that I'm not about to try to dissect here). Anyway, being in inner city Baltimore when the first black president was elected was pretty great. The only white people in my neighborhood live in my house, and I'm the only white person where I work. When I take the bus, I'm the only white person on it (this has been true of EVERY BUS RIDE except for when I've gotten on with one of my white housemates). The excitement and energy of Obama's election was almost tangible, both on election day and the day after. "We did it!" everyone was saying. "We've arrived!" they said.

And on a lot of levels, I agree. CENTURIES of struggle led up to this election. It represents huge changes in the minds of many Americans. And I hesitate to say this as a rich white girl from the suburbs spending one short year in the big bad inner city, but it's been bugging me, so I'm going to. The struggle against racism is not over. We have not arrived. The black community has not arrived. Racism is alive and well, and (I think) the election of Obama needs to fuel the fight against racism, not be a signal to slow down.

If you ask me, the fight against racism will be over when racism is studied as a historical term, not a current phenomenon. Black people make up about 12% of the U.S. population right now. We, as a country, will have "arrived" when black people make up 12% of the seats in congress, 12% of the people in prison, 12% of the homeless population, 12% of students attending college. When 12% of the people on death row are black, and when 12% of people who die in gang violence, and when 12% of police officers, teachers, social workers, doctors, lawyers, and people in the armed services are black, then you can talk to me about slowing down. When 12% of the adhesive bandages reflect African rather than European skin tones, when 12% of make-up made by cover girl, maybeline, and all the others are made to match African skin tones, and when 12% of the hair care products on the shelves at target are made for African American hair, then maybe we can talk about this so-called "arrival".

Being white in this neighborhood and at my job has been, at various times, hilarious, hard, scary, and confusing. I don't think I'll ever get used to the things men yell at me as I walk home from work (anything from "Hey! A white girl!" to "what the fuck are you doing in this neighborhood??" and worse), and I don't know if I'll ever have a good response to those things. What am I doing here? I'm living here. I'm working here. I'm trying to be a part of and build community, to learn about poverty and race and homelessness and God. I'm here to experience this place. And that's just it, isn't it? It's an experience for me. Novel. Temporary. No matter how many friends I make here, how many times I eat chitterlings, no matter how long I stay here, I'll always be an outsider. So maybe I don't have any right, saying these things about race and struggle and accomplishment. I am, in all likelihood, as much a part of the problem as I am a part of the solution. And I don't know, I don't know what to do with that. I can't help where I come from, I can't help the way I talk, where I went to school, or what color my face is any more than my neighbors and colleges and clients can help those things in their lives. But what do we do? Ignore the differences? Embrace them? Laugh at them? Try to have them explained to us? Right now I stumbled through my days, doing any and all of these things depending on the situation. None seem to fix it, none are perfect. But neither are any of us.

it's not "ha ha" funny. peculiar, i guess.

2008-11-30T18:43:00.004-05:00

the more i hang out with people who have strong opinions on things- religion, politics, sci fi, etc- the more i'm struck by how much people agree. everyone who is extremely passionate about something, it seems, has the same core belief: that if everyone in the world was like them, the world would be great.

i hang out with a lot of pacifists, and they all seem to think that if they could simply get EVERYONE to be pacifists, the world would be pretty sweet. pacifism is one of those things that's a little bit tough to do when you're only one of a very few in a whole sea of people who think violence is a great (or at least acceptable) answer to most stuff. tough- but not impossible.

same with my socialist and communist friends. the problem, it seems, according to them, is not with socialism or communism (or capitalism to my capitalist friends, or democracy to my democratic friends) but with people who refuse to accept and work within the system. communism fails because people screw it up, they argue, not because communism is flawed.

i've been hanging out with more anarchists, and they seem to agree. the problem isn't even really capitalism or democracy, but the people who refuse to let go of capitalism or democracy.

and i do this too, no doubt. it's been pretty painful trying to find a faith community (or any community) i can feel at home in. basically i want a church that studies the Bible, but wants to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine. i want a church that believes in the laying on of hands for healing, but refuses to have an american flag at the altar (or anywhere else in the church). i want a church that practices social justice and encourages people to eat local, organic, and fair trade food, but also welcomes and loves people who believe the only food worth eating is fried in bacon fat. twice. i want a church that eats fair trade local organic bacon fat fried food. in short, i want a church made up of people exactly like me, who think like me, and want to do the things that i want to do. and that's just not right.

we are a body with many parts and many members for a reason. i think that applies to humanity as a whole as much as it applies to the church. it's easy to find people who think like i think, who do the things i do, who want what i want, but it just isn't right. jesus hung out with the prostitutes, lepers, and the poor people no one else wanted to hang out with. but he also hung out with the tax collectors, the rich people no one else wanted to hang out with. and he also hung out with the sadducees and pharisees, the self-righteous religious people no one wanted to hang out with. and sometimes (mostly to piss people off, i think) he hung with all of them together.

so here's the thing. i've found lots of churches that are willing to hang out with the homeless and the HIV positive and refugees, but they don't want to hang out with the conservatives and the people in the military. and i've found churches that are willing to hang out with republicans and televangelists and the wealthy, but they don't want to hang out with the anarchists and the homosexuals. and more than anything i've found churches that want to hang out with the white upper middle class democrat suburbanites, but don't want to hang out with ANYONE else.

so i think i'll throw a party. i'll invite my anarchist friends, and my pentecostal christian friends. i'll sit my gay friends next to my friends who protest at abortion clinics. my hiv positive friends will bring the dip and my vegan friends will dumpster dive for some bread to go with it. my parents will be invited, and i'll sit them between a creationist christian and a few mennonites, just to see how that goes. i'll have to strategically place the pacifists, of course, to try to prevent knife fights, and what food i serve will be tough. how do i feel the southern baptists and the freegans together? some people don't drink, some won't come if there is no alcohol. what kind of entertainment will i have? naked twister? a meditation hour? a documentary about the war in iraq?

maybe i'll just set a box of kittens loose in the room and lock the door from the outside.

expect your invitation soon.

poop. poopity poop poop poop.

2008-11-20T11:33:00.002-05:00

so. i get to work today, and ALL THREE of the toilets in the building have overflowed. like, into the hallways. and the BATHTUBS were backed up, too, and the dirty water and ALL THE POOP from the toilets were somehow traveling back up through the pipes and FLOWING INTO THE BATHTUBS as well as out onto the floor. so there was POOP on the floor, WATER AND PEE EVERYWHERE, and BATHTUBS FULL OF WATER PEE AND POOOOOOPPP. it was SO GROSS. we called the plumbers AGAIN (they were out here about 2 weeks ago) and he said there is a huge problem (no shit! no pun intended) and he has to get all these special equipment to find out what's going on and fix it. it involves sending a metal pipe thing with a camera on it through the system. that is one video i do NOT want to see.

so as the plumber is doing his thing, the fire alarm starts going off. we check to see if there is a fire, and there isn't, so we reset the alarm. and the it goes off again. so we reset it. so it goes off again. so we reset it. and that's what has been going on FOR THE LAST HOUR. and now the guy from the security system is here, and he thinks when all hell broke lose in the water system, some water (AND PROBABLY POOOOOOP) got into the fire/alarm system, and is making it freak out.

so as the fire alarm is going off, the fire department keeps coming out, and we're trying to call them to tell them that it is just a false alarm and there is no fire, just a lot of poop, but every time the alarm goes off, the phones cut out. because that's what you want in an emergency. no way to contact the outside.

when i said i didn't want a desk job, that i wanted to be involved in direct services to underprivileged people, this isn't really what i had in mind. i imagined more emotional fulfilment, more life changes, heart wrenching stories, and FAR LESS POOP.

2008-11-10T21:44:00.002-05:00

how does a pacifist celebrate veterans' day?

every one of the men at the shelter where i work is a veteran. both of my grandfathers were veterans. both of my brothers-in-law are veterans. so how do i celebrate them and their lives when i disagree with the entity that made them veterans?

it has sort of come up before. this summer i was all ready to stick my "when Jesus said love your enemies, he probably meant don't kill them" sticker on my car, but decided against it when i realized that said car would spend most of the summer in front of a veteran's home- a veteran who did NOT need to let me stay there. when questions about my involvement with the mennonite church have come up, it's been impossible to describe my attraction to the faith without mentioning the fact that it's a historic peace church. there has never been any kind of argument or fight (which is good, since i, you know, CAN'T fight) but it's something that has been in the undercurrent of my interactions with my brothers in law; it hasn't really ever come up with any of our residents because i don't think they know that mennonites are pacifists, and it hasn't been an issue with my grandfathers because they both died before i knew what a pacifist was. but one of my brothers in law was a marine, and the other was in the air force, and both served active duty abroad.

the issue of veterans' day reminds me of something my awesome friend brian (http://brianjgorman.wordpress.com/)'s genius dad (http://michaeljgorman.net/) said in a lecture he gave. he mentioned the french village Chambon-sur-Lignon which saved the lives of about 3,000 Jews during the holocaust. the citizens of the predominately christian village felt that it was their duty as christians- and humans- to protect the lives of other humans, so they hid them in their homes, churches, schools, etc. when the nazis figured out what was going on, they went to the mayor and demanded the Jews. the mayor responded by saying something like "we don't know Jews here. only people" (only i bet he said it in french). Dr. Gorman pointed out that the same philosophy can and should apply to us today. i don't know undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers, iraqis, mexians, or somalis; i only know people. i don't know gays or lesbians or transsexuals; i know people. i don't know criminals, murderers, rapists, inmates, or people on death row; i know people.

it's easy (for me) to apply the "i only know people" idea to people that i already want to love, people i feel are oppressed, people that Jesus loves and wants me to love, too. but the thing is, justice isn't just if it doesn't apply to everyone, and i would argue the same is true of love. i don't know veterans; i know people. that idea is easy to apply to my brothers in law, because i already know and love them. they seem like real people to me because i eat dinner with them and talk about horses with them and sleep in their houses. but for some reason the wider population of "veterans" is hard for me to love because i'm afraid that somehow loving them will mean saying i approve of choices they made/ situations they were forced into, and i don't.

but veterans' day isn't about celebrating war. it's not about celebrating killing. it isn't about glorifying slaughter or guns or tanks. it's vetarns' day, not war day. the same way celebrating someone's birthday doesn't mean i approve of times in that person's life when they stole or lied or cheated on significant others, celebrating veterans' day doesn't mean i approve of participation in war. it's no longer an issue for me. i know i can celebrate (and love) veterans and hate war, because i do. in fact, loving veterans means i hate war more, because war has put and continues to put veterans and would-be veterans in danger. if the people serving in the armed forces right now die in the line of duty, i'll never get to meet them, which means i'll never get to love them. if my sisters' husbands (God, that's such an awkward relationship to make plural) had died while serving, i wouldn't know them. my sisters wouldn't be married. i wouldn't have a nephew. i'm not ok with that.

so i'll celebrate veterans' day because i DO love veterans, and i hope to have a chance to love more in the future. i don't love them BECAUSE they're veterans, or despite them being veterans. i love them for who they are, not what they do or what they've done before. so yeah, i'll celebrate them.

happy veteran's day.

Dear Work

2008-11-06T11:12:00.005-05:00

remember when i was so excited about direct service to the homeless, building relationships, therapeutic art, etc? well, I'm still excited about those things. but let me tell you about my week.

Monday was fine. Of course, the boyfriend of a former resident came in, demanding we pay him $1,500 for his car that the former client totalled, threatened to sue us, and seemed about ready to snap and kill us all, but we dealt with it. Nothing too out of the ordinary.

Tuesday I came to work at 8, as usual, and had a 2-hour all staff meeting. It took 2 hours out of my day that I would have usually spent doing my usual work, but I spend at least 2 hours a day e-mailing people (or writing blog entries...) so it wasn't really a big deal. As the meeting was getting out, a client came in and said there was an emergency in the women's bathroom- and oooohhhhh there was. The toilet had overflowed- or perhaps "erupted" is a better word- all over the bathroom floor. And this was more than water, let's get that clear from the beginning. So, we're trying to stop the water, trying to clean up the mess, and trying to get the maintenance guy to come fix it. In the time it takes the maintenance guy to get here, the mess (which was CONTINUING to come out) had flowed into the hallway. The mainenece guy said he couldn't fix it so we had to call a plumber. By the time the plumber got here, the mess had crept into the dinning room and kitchen (yeah, THAT'S what you want near your food) and the men's toilet upstairs had also exploded.

As the plumber was leaving, a new client came in. Since the last client to leave was mine (please see last post to learn how excited I was about that happening...) the new client was assigned to me. So, we meet, and are talking, and he seems nice, but sort of "off". He seems incredibly nervous, agitated, even, with incredibly rapid speech, no eye contact, and lots of jittery movements. We sit down to do the intake interview and evaluation, and come to find out he has been in prison for the last 4 years for aggravated assault, was released three months ago, and has been homeless since then. He has bi-polar disorder, depression, adult ADHD, panic disorder, and anxiety disorder. Because he has been living "in the bushes" (his words, not mine) for the last three months, he hasn't been medicated for that time. Nice. Way to go, criminal justice system. Let's lock people up in institutions that only encourage violence and criminal behavior, do nothing to rehabilitate them, then send them out into homelessness. "Don't take drugs!" we'll yell as they leave. "And don't steal, either!". I hope the Baltimore police department and criminal justice system are pleased with themselves for the treatment of prisoners and the homeless (two parts of the population who are, like undocumented immigrants, anyone of Arab decent, gays, lesbians, and people who are funny looking, apparently exempt from human rights).

ANYWAY, lack of medication for such serious illnesses explained his behavior (and made me more than a little nervous). The intake process can take up to two hours, and after about 45 minutes this guy wasn't even able to stay in his seat. He asked if he could go outside to smoke, and I said sure, hoping it would calm him down. He wasn't gone for more than a minute when he comes back in, visibly shaking, and crying. One of the other counselors got to him before I did and asked what happened. I didn't hear his response, but heard her say "Who did? Who's out there?". She goes outside, and while I'm asking the client if he's ok, yells for the only male staff person present to come outside. I can hear lots of yelling and thumping outside the door. He goes outside, and then she starts yelling for me to call 911, which I do. Of course, I have no idea what's actually going on, so I am of little to no help to the 911 responder. Eventually she comes back in and explains what's going on. Apparently a drunk and/or high and/or crazy woman (not a resident) attacked my client while he was smoking, and then tried to break into the building. By the time the police who up, she's gone. They want a report from my client, who is clearly terrified of the uniformed officers (another testament to the treatment of criminals, suspected criminals, and the homeless, if you ask me). By the time they leave, my client is so terrified and shaken up that he won't even sit down to talk to me. He is just pacing back and forth through the office, and checking the windows. Great. Perfect. This is exactly the kind of thing that my 4 years studying art and a few days of training here prepared me to deal with.

I decided to let him go and calm down and finish the interview the next day; clearly nothing would get done if I had tried to do it then. By this time, it was about 3:45. I get off work at 4:00. I wrote a narrative on my client, and then left. On my way out, I realized someone- presumably the crazy woman, or perhaps my client, had peed in the entry way to the building. Which is just as well- not like our toilets were working.

Today I came into work, sat down to read the news on BBC.com as I do every day, and at about 8:03 had to go break up a fight between two female residents. Let me tell you, I don't really worry about being hurt by the male residents. Most of them seem to have a protective feeling toward me, which doesn't bother me, considering they're all about my father's age. Of course, there is the one male who stares at me way too much, and when I asked what he wanted for Christmas opened his arms wide and said "YOOUUUUUU", and the one who, while standing behind me, tried to caress my hair and neck, but OVERALL I'm not afraid of the males. The females, on the other hand, will rip me, each other, and any other person or thing that comes between them to bits. So that was exciting.

It's almost 12 now, and so far the fight (and resulting counseling session with one of the women), and an inspection by the fire Marshall, is all the excitement there has been today. Which is good, because if one more stressful thing happens, I might actually die.

I will conclude with a letter that I think sums up my feelings.

Dear Work,

Quit being so hard. Let's be honest: a year of service was a way of dodging adulthood, not falling head-first into a stressful job with long hours and (literally) no pay. Serving Jesus and "the least of these" was meant to make me feel good, not cry. I'd appreciate it if the sexual harassment, violence and threats of violence, drug use, and cycles of poverty and homelessness could stop. Thank you for your time and attention.

xoxo,
Maggie

happy halloween.

2008-11-02T14:14:00.002-05:00

Note: My work has a Halloween party every year, and encourages staff to dress up, so keep in mind that for the duration of this story (well, the parts that happened on Friday) I was dressed as a panda. It will factor in later.

So, as I said here a few weeks ago, I got my first client at work. He was pretty nice, a recovering crack and heroin addict, currently on methadone treatment. He is also an alcoholic, though not in recovery. He is 51 years old, African American, and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served for 4 years. He is HIV negative, and has been diagnosed with Depressive Disorder NOS and PTSD.

He seemed nice enough, though a lot of stuff seemed to be going wrong (in addition to, you know, the whole homeless drug addict thing). He had no family or friends he could stay with, and was living in an abandoned garage before coming to Project PLASE. He had pending charges of possession and loitering (which he neglected to TELL me until he had been with us a week). Actually, there was a lot he neglected to tell us. He didn't tell us he got take home does of methadone on the weekend, so he wasn't turning them in. (Methadone, by the way, is an artificial chemical thing that people who are attempting to get off of heroin or other opiates take. Heroin can sometimes actually change your brain and prevent it from making serotonin, which is partially why withdrawl is so awful and quitting so hard. Methadone, when taken every day, greatly lessens withdrawl symptoms, and helps the brain replace the chemicals it needs, which means the person has fewer cravings, since cravings are the brain saying "HEY I NEED THIS CHEMICAL TO FUNCTION". It is red, looks like cough syrup, and smells awful. A lot of the people at our facility who were dependent on heroin are now dependent on methadone. You have to go to a special clinic every day to get it, and it can be sold on the street, because if you take enough, you get high. The dose that people at our facility take just makes them real sleepy. There are lots of legal, moral, and medical issues and discussions about its use, which I'd be happy to give my opinion on, if anyone cares). ANYWAY, methadone is a controlled substance, so it is REALLY important the clients give it to us, because the controlled substances are signed in, counted every day, put in a lock box, etc. All prescriptions are turned in to us, in fact, and monitored closely (meds are a big part of my job). So, when we found out he had methadone in his room he hadn't been turning in, that was a big deal. Also, he had come back to our facility drunk multiple times (clients are not allowed to use ANY kind of drug or alcohol while they're with us). He was put on contract, and given a 4:00 curfew, which he almost never made. He missed every single one of his appointments with me (his counselor) except one. He lied about his pending legal charges, never brought in documentation of his DD 214, cash assistance, or substance abuse treatment history. On Thursday, he came in to the facility drunk, again (BAC of 0.2). That's a LOT of stuff to go wrong in a 2-week stay at a shelter. We called the VA, because they fund the beds of all the veterans, and told them what was going on (as we are legally obligated to do). They said they have way too many people waiting for a bed to continuing housing a person who is clearly not ready for help. They kicked him out.

It wasn't my decision to kick him out- I would have liked to try to work with him more. Even Project PLASE didn't really want to kick him out. PLASE's ideal plan would be for him to go to a 30-day in-patient substance abuse treatment program, but even if he did that, the VA wouldn't let us hold his bed for him, since so many veterans are homeless and need treatment that PLASE provides. So basically, he would just be homeless again after he got out of in-patient treatment. As it stands now, he's just homeless with no in-patient treatment.

So, it's Halloween. I was hoping to go home early (maybe around 2:30 or 3) to get ready to go to DC for the weekend. But I had to stay to have a conference and decide what to do with this guy. And around 3:30 he comes in, drunk again. We sit down and talk with him, asks what he needs, what he wants us to help him with. As usual, he says basically nothing. We tell him what the VA has decided, and he hardly reacts. When he leave the office, I'm sent behind him to go with him to his room to check for methadone and any other substances he shouldn't have; he had two bottles. I took them.

As I left his room and took the bottles to the office, I felt so, so awful. Here is this 51 year old man, a marine, being told that he can't take his own medication, that he can't handle his own life, and being kicked out of his likely last chance facility to find permanent housing. And the person who is telling him he has to leave, the person taking his medication from him, the person informing him that he is, once again, homeless, is me. A 22-year-old white girl just out of college with little to idea what she is doing, basic (at best) understanding of substance abuse and treatment, and no background in social work. Don't forget, I was also DRESSED AS A PANDA; add "irrational fear of pandas" to DD NOS and PTSD. Dammit.

This was the worst day I've had at work, one of the hardest days and things I've ever done. As I left work that day, walking (DRESSED AS A PANDA) back to my house, where I live with such great people, a house full of food and compassion and friends and love, I had the same feeling I would get every time I'd walk out of an orphanage in Kenya. That feeling of, sure, maybe I understand suffering a little better, but now I'm just leaving that situation, and all those people, behind. I'm going to my home, a better place, a place where things like homelessness and AIDS and orphans and drug addiction not only aren't seen, but don't even make SENSE. I leave changed, but with an awful, aching knowledge that I changed little, if anything, myself.

I cried the whole way home, as much for him as for the orphans in Kenya, for the refugees I now live with. What is home to an orphan? To a homeless addict? To a refugee? What is home to anyone?

DO NOT WANT

2008-10-30T13:55:00.006-04:00

I don't know what I want. That's kind of why I'm here in Baltimore doing MVS in the first place: because I don't know what I want. I don't know if I want to go to grad school. I don't know if I want to get married. I don't know if I want to live abroad. Taking a year to stall seemed like a pretty great solution leaving school, the idea being it would give me that much more time to figure out what I want.

I haven't, yet. But I am learning more and more what I don't want. I always knew I didn't want to wake up at 45 with a minivan in my driveway in the suburbs. I'm sure some people are or would be more than happy to wake up and find that as their life; I am not one of them. That sounds strangely like a white-washed picket fence hell to me, to put it bluntly.

Now I'm seeing that I also don't want to wake up at 32 in a "cute" or "artsy" but still technically-in-the-city neighborhood with a Prius parked in front of my townhouse. I KNOW a lot of people who have or would like this life, and a lot of people who are working towards it. And I see the temptation. I could get up early on Saturdays and buy vegetables and eggs from the farmer's market, I could drive my Prius to my non-profit but well-respected job, I could go to church on Sundays and gallery openings on Fridays. But I don't want that. When I imagine myself in that life, it's just too easy to see... I see myself in Gap jeans, with photos of kids in orphanages framed on my walls to prove, "See? I went there. That makes me a good person." I guess it just feels like it would be such a false life- that artificial, mostly-for-show, self-righteous string of semi-good deeds made to soothe my guilty conscience. It seems like such a half-assed attempt to feel good about my lifestyle without losing any of the comfort, ease, or glamor of an upper-middle class life. Please hold me accountable: I will never own dishes from pottery barn. I will never drive a Prius. I will shop at farmer's markets, but I will not act like that makes me a better person than anyone else, or that the purchase of one local head of lettuce off-sets every sin I've commited (food-related or not). Waking up to this life is one of my newest and strongest fears, because I can so easily see it happening.

The question becomes, then, do I want to wake up at 24 (or 32, or 45) still working a full-time, very difficult, stressful job for no pay? Maybe. Do I want to wake up at 24 (or 32, or 45) in Rwanda (or Bangladesh, or Laos) working in exchange for room and board and (if I'm lucky) vaccines? Maybe. Do I want to wake up at 32 (or 45, but Lord knows NOT 24) married with kids and NO minivan, NO picket fence, maybe a mud hut, some goats, and mosquito nets? Maybe.

I don't know what I want. But maybe I can narrow it down enough from things I don't want? Probably not. Thank God I have 9 months left to stall. Hey- I just realized- if I act fast, I could have a baby while under the MVS health plan! 9 months... do I want to wake up at 23 and a half with a baby and no home or job?

....maybe...... as long as said baby doesn't trick me into buying pottery barn dishes or a Prius.

addendum to cover my ass:
My not wanting to be 32 with a prius or 45 with a minivan does NOT mean I have any issue with individuals who are 32, or 45, or own a prius, or own a minivan. I fully intent to live to both 32 and 45, and look forward to it. I don't want a Prius (and the caricature of a life that I imagine would come along with it) because I don't think it would make me happy, not because I think it's wrong. Indeed, if people simply CAN NOT walk, or bike, or take public transportation, and actually NEED a car (which we can dispute later) I'd rather they buy a Prius than a hummer. I certainly have no beef with farmer's markets, I think they're great, we get most of our vegetable from one now, but it just seems so easily to slip into a cliche of doing all the environmentally sound things that are fashionable or make you feel cool or make your life easier, and stopping there. Again, I think it's great when anyone makes any kind of effort to limit carbon footprints, support conservation, etc, etc, but, for me, doing only the fashionable things would not work. Or rather, it would work, and it would work so well, and be so easy, that it is awfully tempting, and I don't want to fall into that. Please see this as what it is: a naive, idealistic 22-year-old trying to figure out who to be when she grows up. I know I can't know now who I'll be or what I'll want at any age, but don't tell me you weren't asking the same question when you were my age: Who am I? and perhaps more importantly, Who will I become?

2008-10-21T11:55:00.003-04:00

As things settle more or less into a routine here, living and working has become, well... routine. Things that seemed so exciting at first have turned into simple facts. At first, walking to work through scary neighborhoods was just terrifying, but then it became exciting. Now I'm struck less with feelings of awe and interest than I am with boredom and, at times, frustration. It isn't that I ever enjoyed seeing all the used syringes, broken glass, empty liquor bottles, etc, so much as at first it was new, and new things are always exciting (to me). I was struck, more or less, by the novelty of it all, and felt so fortunate to be able to experience a new and very different place. Now I find myself feeling angry at people leaving dangerous substances and objects on the street, disgusted by the amounts of trash, and both angry and disgusted with the people (usually young men) who yell things at me as I walk by their homes, businesses, etc. I find myself having conversations with these men in my head, yelling at them for suggesting the things they do, explaining that I have a degree from a very well respected college and have chosen to live far below the poverty line this year in order to serve the homeless in this city, explaining to them that I have every right to be in this neighborhood because I LIVE here, telling them that they can kindly go to hell, etc. etc. These mental conversation rarely use polite language.

Community living has also lost some of its initial charm. Like anything else, living in an intentional community is most trying when other things aren't going well. It's one thing for us to all get along (in the Voluntary Service unit, as well as RHHP residents as a whole) while we're all feeling fulfilled and loved and happy, but it is quite another to respect and respond to everyones needs when we just want to be alone, or to watch something on TV, or to use the computer, or to make food, or to take a long shower, or anything else that might (and usually does) clash with someone else's needs and expectations. But we're learning.

I guess I've been thinking a lot about times that I remember as being better and easier than life seems now. I miss college like crazy, especially having my roommate to talk to and hang out with all the time. I miss the feelings I had while living and working in Nicaragua and Kenya. I miss the feeling that I was experiencing and a part of something truly great, something that made a difference, something that would change me and the people I was working for and with.

When I'm honest with myself, though, I know that while I was living those times in college or Nicaragua or Kenya, I went through the same honeymoon-to-routine transition that I am going through here and now. Sure, most of what I remember (or don't, haha) from college are the nights going out to Froggy's or the cow, wine nights at the Tavern, whispering with Angela in the back of art lecture in Dittmann. But there were also so many nights I cried myself to sleep, was angry at friends, was up until 2 writing papers, spent hours and hours drawing dead babies... I just chose not to remember those times, because they weren't the ones that mattered the most. I remember taking long naps in the hammock on the porch in Nicaragua, walking through the village and hearing little kids yelling "Margarita! Margarita! Maggie! Hola!" and waving enthusiastically. I remember the mangoes. Oh God, the mangoes... and from Kenya I remember making balloon animals at orphanages, swimming in the Indian Ocean, going to prayer services where 4 or more languages were being used simultaneously, but I chose to forget the rough times. I have NEVER felt so lonely as I did in Kenya, I have never been so sick as when I had dysentery and an internal parasite, and I have never been so spiritually confused and angry as I was seeing the slums. But even the bad things that I do remember I tend to chose to view positively- the slums were horrible, but taught me to seek (and find) Jesus in the midst of living hell. The hospital with the dirt floor and dead children lying on cots and people openly bleeding from various wounds was disgusting, but showed me where my heart REALLY is when it comes to "the least of these" (far away).

So now as I stay awake, listening to gunshots and sirens, worrying that I'm not smart enough, strong enough, or good enough for my job or community, I remind myself that no time in my life was perfect. Weren't there tears? Wasn't there pain? Wasn't there horrible, horrible diarrhea? The answer is, inevitably, yes (though not to ALL of those questions in every situation). I also take comfort in the fact that, weeks or months or years from now, when I'm longing for the greatness of community and inner-city living and direct service to homeless, I will remember the good times more than the bad, that I will start to see the bad times as good times, and that I will appreciate all of the pain and anger and disgusting things as opportunities that shaped me into a more well-rounded person.

Maybe if I tell myself enough that one day I'll miss, or at least have learned from, the syringes and gunshots and cat calls I will be better able to deal with them now. You have to take the dysentery along with the mangoes.

addendum: if you have or are recently recovering from dysentery, you should not, under any circumstances, attempt to eat a mango. i'm am using that as a figure of speech. if you have or are recovering from dysentery, please eat plain rice, plain bread, and bananas. also, take as much cipro as you can get your hands on. try to be discrete about asking your kenyan host father for prayers about it because, culturally, you maybe shouldn't be talking to him about shit, least of all copious amounts of it quickly leaving your body. lastly, you should be lying down and crying, not reading my blog. thanks.

2008-10-16T13:08:00.004-04:00

this monday i got my first official client at work. well, i didn't realize he was going to be my client until yesterday, but he came on monday. i did his intake evaluation and mental health stuff and everything (still pretty sure there is a legal issue somewhere in that, but whatev) and we're off! he's officially a resident at project PLASE (http://www.projectplase.org/) and officially my client!

so imagine my excitement when he came (LATE!) to our house meeting yesterday, clearly intoxicated. well, ok, clearly to toni, one of the other counselors. i would have missed it completely. i'm terrible at telling when people are drunk (for many reasons we won't get into here) but toni is great at it. she asked him point blank if he was high, and he said no, he had only had a few beers, but hadn't been using any illicit drugs. he is in recovery for cocaine and heroin, and it is project PLASE policy that no resident use any drug OR alcohol while they are a resident, regardless of ANYTHING. so we had to talk to him, go over the rules, write him up a warning, move his curfew, and put him on contract.

it isn't my fault that he drank (especially since i didn't know he was my client at the time...) but i can't help but feel a little bad, and hope that neither of us screw up his life or the opportunity he has while he's living here. so many people get their shit together and are really able to take advantage of the multitude of opportunities they have while they're here... and so many fall again and again into relapse, refuse to take meds, move out or get kicked out, and end up on the street again. somehow my bachelor's degree in art and my 2 years of working at a zoo didn't prepare me to ensure that someone be successful here... maybe nothing could. but Lord knows i'll be doing what i can.

2008-10-10T12:19:00.003-04:00

this wednesday the "therapeutic art group" i've started at work had its first meeting. it's "therapeutic art", not "art therapy" because i'm not a liscenced art therapist. also, i feel things like glitter paint and salt dough christmas ornaments might have a place in therapeutic art, but perhaps not in art therapy.

anyway, i was really excited, but also nervous about the group. i've taught art a lot, but never with adults, and certainly not to homeless adults with severe mental illnesses and multiple drug addictions. but it was incredible. all i did was give everyone a giant, thick piece of white paper, some magazines, scissors, and glue, and tell them to make a "who am i" collage. i was afraid that they would mutiny, that they would see how silly and juvenile that idea is and refuse to do it, and then maybe attack me with the scissors. but they didn't! they starting looking through the magazines, cutting out applicable words and pictures. everyone kind of settled on a theme for their piece, and an hour and 20 minutes later when i said we needed to start thinking about cleaning up, they were genuinely disappointed. they said it was the most relaxed they had felt in a long time, that it was so nice to get to sit and be quiet and make things, focusing only on the task at hand. we then took a few minutes to explain the significance of what we had created, why we had chosen what we had. as they talked about having their children taken from them, about being prostitutes, about being in and out of rehab for cocaine and heroin addictions, about God and about family, they started crying. Well, three of the women did, anyway. And it wasn't just talking about their own pieces, people were crying as they listened to others' stories as well. it was so, so beautiful. after we were done, we all hugged. they wouldn't stop talking about how good they felt, and how much they're looking forward to next week. i couldn't, either.

when i got home, as we were finished up dinner, one of the asylum seekers (refugees) from cameroon came in, wearing a suit and grinning. his asylum had been granted that day, so he is now legally in the us, he can get a job and a driver's licence. after 8 months of basically not existing, having no income and no way to get an income, having no way to get home and no way to get his family here, after hours of interviews and hundreds of pages of paperwork, he has his asylum. to celebrate, i made him a burrito (uh, look, it's what we had, ok?) and sat and talked with him about the process and what he's going to do now. the next step, he told me, is to apply for his family to come over. he has a wife and three children, two boys and a girl. i asked about his children, and he got very quiet. they are 12, 6, and a year old, he told me. the youngest is a boy, and he left when he was just four months old. staring at his half eaten burrito, he said "but i don't know him. four months, that's it. now he is a year. i don't even have any pictures of him." i didn't know what to say, so i didn't say anything. i thought of my nephew, who will be visiting in a few weeks, on his 4-month birthday. i thought about how that might affect him, or the refugee from iraq who has a 2 1/2 year old daughter he hasn't seen in two years. "perhaps now they will come", the asylum seeker turned asylee said. "perhaps now i will ask for some pictures to be sent."

2008-10-06T22:06:00.002-04:00

tonight i went to an hiv class for work. i thought it was just a general information kind of class, but it was actually a workshop for people who have been recently diagnosed with HIV; it was still helpful, of course, very informative about transmission, treatments, etc, but i felt a little bit out of place. i did learn a lot, though, like how maryland has the highest rates of HIV of any state in the US and how most of those were located in baltimore. they even broke it down by zip code, showing where most of the infections in baltimore were located. the zip code at the top? 21217, where i live. the rates are between 13 and 15%.

during the workshop, though, something hit me. we have all these things of hand sanitizer all throughout the house where i work, people have to wash their hands before they touch anything, all our dishes are washed with bleach, stuff like that. we have several HIV positive and some AIDS defined residents, as well as several residents with other contagious blood borne and other diseases. i always assumed that all the hand washing precautions, the special little sleeve over the thermometer for taking temperatures, the plastic gloves i have to wear when doing anything medical with the clients, all of that, was to protect me (and the other people in the house without HIV or hepatitis or whatever else) from contracting those diseases. i thought it was a little silly, you know, since of course you can't get those illnesses from sharing dishes, bathrooms, etc, but i thought it was just a universal precaution to protect the healthy from the ill. tonight at the class, i sneezed, and i sneezed into my hand instead of my sleeve, like you're supposed to. "oops" i thought. "oh well". then i realized that every other person in the room was HIV positive. then i realized that all that hand washing, disinfecting, bleaching, plastic sleeves, and rubber gloves weren't to protect me. that's to protect them FROM me, from my germs. from the things i bring in, from the things my body can fight off. how stupid and upper class and privileged of me to assume that all of those things were for my benefit, and how self-righteous of me to be proud of the fact that i don't mind sharing dishes and cups and whatever else. it's not about me, it's about them. it's been a long time since i've felt so much shame at a realization of such a misconception, because it applies to so much else in my life. i've spent 22 years assuming it was about me, for me, because of me. i think i'm finally seeing that it's not.

i hope i haven't given anyone anything, because these people are quickly blurring the lines between clients and friends.

2008-10-02T09:54:00.002-04:00

so, work has remained enjoyable. last week was especially great, as i obtained several days' worth of food. first, i was given a 50 pound bag of potatoes, because the shelter had 3 and couldn't eat them all before they went bad. then, i was taken out to lunch with all the other volunteers, which was quite exciting. i got a brownie for desert, but it was actually 2 separate brownies, both huge, so i saved one. when i got back to the office, my boss gave me a doughnut. well, first she just offered it, and i said no since i was full from lunch and had just eaten a brownie. but she was quite insistent, so i finally took it and wrapped it in a napkin to save with the brownie. then one of the clients came in (one of my favorites) and asked if i liked pie. i thought he was just curious, so i told him yeah, i love pie. he pulled a little boxed cherry pie out of his bag, and put it on my desk. then he saw that i had, in addition to the pie, a doughnut and a brownie, and he scowled at me and said "eat something healthy!" and pulled a banana out of his bag and added it to my stash. then yesterday i was put in charge of organizing and re-stocking the food pantry here, and got to take home a giant bag of dried cherries for my efforts (they have the STRANGEST random canned goods here, i swear...). then this morning the same guy who gave me the pie and banana gave me some of his hot chocolate. basically, the point of this entry is that it would be foolish to think that walking a mile and a half to and from work every day would result in weight loss. this job is going to cause me to gain weight, and i'm not sure i'm going to protest. after all, we can't really afford luxuries like "food" right now, and i'm prepared to accept whatever i can.

the clients here are just incredible. i thought that it would be hard to be a caretaker (of sorts) for these people, but i find they take care of me as much as i take care of them. my favorite client and i have had multiple conversations about relationships and love and marriage, and he always calls me mags and sweetheart. reading over that, it could sound really creepy, but it isn't at all. he's in his late 50s and isn't flirting, it's very much a fraternal/paternal kind of thing. he is the oldest of 5 boys and always says how he wanted a little sister, how he would have treated her like a queen. i am more than happy to fulfil that role for him. the clients are also always telling me to be careful, and saying the worry about me walking to and from work. these fears are justified, but mostly it makes me feel loved. nothing makes me feel loved like knowing someone is thinking about me and concerned for me, you know? of course, their fears also concern me, since if anyone knows what's going on in certain neighborhoods as far as drug use and crime, it's our residents. when they say to never walk down linden, even in the day, because the gangs there are out all the time and armed, i'm going to listen. linden is the next street over from mine, by the way.

the job isn't perfect, of course. for one thing, it's really far from angela. for another, i don't get paid (i was, obviously, aware of this fact before starting, but i guess it didn't hit me until now. today i bought a diet coke on the way to work, and it was $1.50, which means i worked 4 hours and 42 minutes to earn it. 4 hours and 42 minutes for 20 ounces of diet coke. that's 4.25 ounces i earn an hour. so i won't be buying a whole lot of diet cokes. but that's ok, i'm not here for the cokes. as i resist coke-a-cola, my clients will resist cocaine, and we'll drink hot chocolate and eat pie to make it through together.

work work work

2008-09-24T19:56:00.002-04:00

so far, the adjustment from school life to work life has been a little tough, but not horrible. it helps that my job is amazing. here are some of my favorite perks:

-conversations with 56-year-old homeless crack addict veterans about why i don't have a boyfriend (now there is a conversation that could go on for days...)
-being called "doll baby" by elderly black women
-cross cultural experiences, like eating fried chicken necks (surprisingly good!)
-educating baltimore's homeless population on the differences between mormons, mennonites, and the amish
-having work pay for me to take classes on addiction, HIV and AIDS, and psychiatric drug distribution/monitoring and having it count towards my work hours
-seeing someone who has been living on the streets, taking and selling drugs, and working as a prostitute for 20 years move into permanent housing
-getting 50 pound bags of potatoes for free

i'm sure there will be more. i was pretty scared when they said i would be working as an advocacy counselor at a transitional homeless shelter that specializes in people with a dual-diagnosis of both a severe mental illness (or multiple illnesses) and substance abuse issues. but it has been amazing- only 2 people sent to the emergency room in the past 2 weeks! i guess in this line of work, we count that- and everything else- as a blessing.

charm city!?

2008-09-15T17:06:00.005-04:00

So, I've moved to Baltimore. I had previously only been to Baltimore 4 times- twice to go to the aquarium, once to go to a red hot chili peppers concert, and to be there when my nephew was born. I grew up only an hour away, but never actually visited Baltimore because I was lead to believe that Baltimore was dirty and dangerous and that I would be shot on sight, more or less, if I ever dared enter the city limits.

I have never been more convinced that those things are true than over the past 6 days.

I moved in on Wednesday, to a large Victorian mansion in the Reservoir Hill neighborhood in northwest Baltimore (clue: northwest is the bad part). Don't get too excited about the mansion, though- it IS awesome, but it is infested with mice and cockroaches and has no ac and a lot of it is falling apart. It really is a beautiful house, though, and I share it with about 14 amazing people, including refugees from Cameroon (three of them! we are little Cameroon) and Iraq. I live on the third floor with 3 other girls who are also doing Mennonite Voluntary Service. We have room for another volunteer, AND we have a guest room, so please keep Baltimore in mind as you plan your travels! Just make sure you arrive and leave in the daylight. And have a gun. And several dogs.

No, the neighborhood isn't THAT bad. well, ok, it is. We live in the blue light district. There are these big poles with blue lights every few blocks that have cameras on them that show people at the police station live video feed of what's going on. That's how much crime happens here- they videotape it (likely while eating pop corn and ice cream sandwiches) and then, occasionally, send officers. Our house was broken into 6 times last year, so it now has bars on most of the windows and big, scary razor-looking things on the gutters to prevent people from climbing them. We have a small parking lot behind our house, and we frequently find used condoms and syringes back there. Last week, a girl was mugged as she brought her bike into the house, literally AT the door step. There are plenty of drugs and prostitutes to go around, and from the roof (which we can get to from the attic and see a LOT of Baltimore- very cool) you can watch the bigger-than-squirrel-sized rats play in the dumpster across the street. A few blocks away the neighborhood gets even rougher, and the Iraqi refugee who lives in our house says that area makes him homesick because the amount of boarded up and burned out houses and trash in the street makes it look like Iraq. I now call it the Iraqi district in my head.

I started work today, and when I told the people there where I lived they were astounded. They promptly changed my work schedule from 9-5 to 8-4 so I would never have to walk home in the dark (the walk takes about a half an hour). They also said to never, ever walk down Linden street, even in the daylight, because the gangs there are active all the time, not just at night. That's the next street over from mine.

So, it's a new experience, on pretty much every level. But I keep reminding myself how lucky I am to be here. The other night I didn't want to go to bed just yet and I wandered into the kitchen where I was able to talk to some of the refugees about their home countries and what they think about the U.S., what they like and what they miss. I haven't had a lot of opportunities to talk to people with experiences so different from mine before, and it is so exciting and enlightening. Work seems like it will be great, too. Today was my first day, so I didn't do much. I will be working as an advocacy counselor at a transitional housing facility for formerly homeless men and women. The house I will work in specializes in people with mental health issues. It is home to about 10 men (all veterans of the U.S. armed forces) and 4 women. I know this will be a huge challenge for me, but I am really looking forward to working with and getting to know the residents.

So, this year will be strange. I'm not allowed out after dark, and if I find myself already out when it gets dark, I have to find a cab willing to take me home. Apparently many cabs won't take us home at night because they refuse to go into this neighborhood after dark. I will be working to help people get their lives together, preparing for jobs and paying rent and all of that, which I feel very ill-prepared to do. I live in little Cameroon, next to the Iraqi district. Yes, this year will be strange. Strange but awesome.

2008-08-30T19:32:00.001-04:00

part of me knows that $1.85 is too much to pay for the espresso brownie at starbucks. another part of me knows i would pay much more than that. i wish they put less crack in those :o(

2008-08-27T14:19:00.003-04:00

Growing up in my family, the love of reading was just as much a given as converting oxygen into carbon dioxide. My father is a journalist and both of my sisters are currently writers. Even though one of my sisters and I both have dyslexia, the we still caught the reading bug. We just caught it at 7 instead of 2 like my oldest sister. My parents' house is full of books, with one room's walls entirely covered by built-in bookcases. To my knowledge, no one really reads any of these books anymore (with the possible exception of my mom, who still looks up things in our 1994 edition encyclopedias because she thinks "to google" is an R-rated verb) but I think we all like knowing that they're there.

The tendency to collect and hold on to books is in my blood, and my room at my parents' house is just as full of literature as any other room, if not more so. I have one free standing bookcase that is overly-full of books, a row two and three deep along one wall, and 3 more full shelves in the walk in closet. As part of my move in September, I have started trying to cut down on my possessions. Clothes were fairly easy- anything that didn't fit or I hadn't worn in a year was gone. I only need one pair of jeans. I only need one black shirt. I can let go of the clothes. Books were not so easy. I decided to go through them this past weekend while I was home alone (with the dogs) while my parents were at the beach. I poured myself some red wine, turned on some Shostakovitch, which felt appropriate, and dug in.

Books aren't like clothes. You can't ever outgrow certain "children's" books, and even if I haven't read _The Secrert Garden_ in a year (or 8) you'll have a tough time getting me to let go of it. My sister was telling me that when she went through her books to cut them down to the essentials, she only kept ones that she would purchase again if she were to loose everything in a fire. I've thought about it a lot, and I think if I were to loose all my books in a fire, I would only replace a few of them. I would buy a new Bible (hopefully the same edition as mine so I could still know where everything is). I would buy _The Irresistible Revolution_ by Shane Claiborne, and I would buy _The Old Man and the Sea_. I would hope someone would give me the complete set of classic Winnie the Pooh books, but I wouldn't buy it myself.

Lucky for me, my books were not all lost in a fire. Rather, I vowed that i would keep only what i could fit on my one bookcase (which is well over 6 feet tall) and nothing more. I ended up breaking them into categories, and then arranging the categories into (what I felt was) a logical order. At the top is poetry and classics, heavy on the poetry. The classics I kept were largely from Hemingway, Dickens, and Steinbeck. The next shelf houses the most influential books from my classes at college, from the politics of human rights to environmental political theory to liberation theology. These flowed easily into all the other liberation theology I have purchased, which flowed nicely into more or less "applied" versions of these books, like _Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger_ and _Practical Justice_. These transition into (and this only makes sense if you're me, which I am) travel books, including a Swahili- English dictionary I stole from the Reston public library. Actually, the travel section could just as easily be the Africa section, except for one book on the politics of Central America that I read during my breaks in the back room one summer at the zoo. From there we go to the memoirs of several people who worked with international humanitarian groups and true-life accounts of child soldiers, which leads into what I called in my head "regular good books". In this section I grouped authors together, which means one shelf is almost entirely taken up by Toni Morison and Chaim Potok. These section is also home to several children's or young adult books. S. E. Hinton makes an impressive showing. From these we have "funny good books", where Dave Barry, Christopher Moore, and Nick Hornby all make impressive contributions, numbers wise. The bottom shelf is books about horses and books about art. Art could have fit in well with my books from college, but to be honest, several of them were just too tall for that shelf. A few things I managed to save from selling by giving them to my nephew (who better enjoy those Beatrix Potter books I adored so much as a child) and the rest- five giant bags full- are heading to the used book store.

I think the books I'm giving away are almost as interesting as what I'm keeping. For example, those bags contain three copies of _Emma_ and two of _Oliver Twist_, neither of which I have ever read. There are several books on Hindu mythology, and at least 5 on the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. What can I say, I had some interesting phases in junior high.

I love every single book left on that book case. I will probably pack only the essentials to Baltimore (the "fire re-purchase" books, plus a few others but I like knowing the rest of them are there, waiting for me. In all likelihood I will only end up selling the rest at the end of this year, hopefully in preparation for some exotic several-year trip in a developing tropical country, but I'm not ready just yet. In this strange time between adolescence and adulthood, between the sheltered suburbs and inner city Baltimore, college and a "job", I don't yet know how to define myself, and I'm happy to let my bookcase do that. Poetry, politics, theology, travel, and young adulthood mixed in- I'm all there. I know I will continue to cut titles, and even entire sections (because let's be honest, the horse section can't last much longer) but for now, it's where and who I am.

2008-08-21T15:27:00.003-04:00

let me run through my day for you so far.

7:15 am: Maggie wants to sleep until her alarm goes off at 7:30. Jack wants to yell what can only be assumed to mean "THIS BABY IS EQUIPPED WITH LUNGS AND ABLE TO YELL! HEY EVERYONE! I LEARNED HOW TO YELL! HEY! HEY! HEY EVERYONE!"

8:10 am: Maggie wants to watch saved by the bell. Jack wants to throw up on Maggie.

9:15 am: Maggie wants to take a shower. Jack wants to cry. Maggie finishes shower, picks up jack, who promptly throws up her. Again.

10:15 am: Maggie wants to watch E.R. Jack wants to scream.

11:30 am: Jack continues to scream. Maggie wants to die.

11:45 am: Jack finishes eating, is burped, and falls asleep for exactly 5 minutes, then resumes screaming. Maggie tries to decide if she should kill Jack or herself. Realizing Jack would be much, much more missed than she would be, she decides she should be the one to go. Then Maggie realizes Kristen might be mad if she leaves Jack unattended and in the same room as a dead body. Maggie takes Jack to the mall.

12:45 pm: Jack wants to sleep, but only if the stroller is moving. Maggie wants to try on a dress. Maggie puts on dress in dressing room, but the stroller is stopped, so Jack wakes up, and, of course, screams. Maggie leaves the store, embarrassed. Jack falls back asleep.

3:30 pm: at the library to use internet. Maggie wants to either surf internet, take a nap, or call her college roommate and cry and miss college. Jack wants to yell.

Jack always wins. Always. the "i'm 8 weeks old, bitch!" is a trump card that i simply can't compete with.

------------------------

this is a really exciting time for my friends and i. we all just graduated college, and are all doing really different things. some are going to grad school, some are getting jobs (or trying to). some got married or are getting married. one is in the peace corps in Kazakhstan, one is teaching in english in tanzania, one is teaching english in france. in september, i'll be moving into a community house owned by the north baltimore mennonite church. the house is currently home to about 12 people. there will be about 4 volunteers thorough the mennonite voluntary service (like me), a few boarders, and a few refugees from places like Iraq, ethiopia, and camaroon. I'll be working as a personal advocacy counselor at a homeless shelter in the city.

i'm really excited about my "job", and even more excited about my house and housemates. my friends are also excited about grad school or jobs or marriage, whatever they're doing. i'm excited. i really am. but as i prepare to enter this semi- "real world" where things like health insurance and dinner and transportation are things no longer handed to me, i can't help but miss school a little bit. i'm realizing, thanks to jackson, how incredibly selfish the last 22 years of my life have been, especially the last 4. the reason it's hard for me to stop everything i'm doing and ignore what i want to tend to the needs of someone else is because i've never had to worry about anyone but myself before. i know it's good for me to learn to be more selfless, especially since i'll be taking care of (adult) people at the shelter next year. i don't expect they will need or ask me to wipe their butts or feed them breast milk (God, I hope not) but i know that there will be times when i'll want to sleep (or eat, or go home, or call my roommate and cry) and they'll need something, and i will have to forget about what i need or want and take care of them and their needs. that's what my job will be, that's what i WANT my job to be, i WANT to take care of people. i'm good at it and i enjoy it, but holy crap, sometimes it's draining.

i keep thinking about my senior year in college. i keep remembering "beer, backrub, and bachelor" nights where my friends and i would drink beer, give each other backrubs, and watch the bachelor online (God, i could go for a good backrub). Or nights when we'd go out to a bar and come back slightly inebriated, arguing about if i should write on that guy's facebook wall again (the answer to that question is ALWAYS no, but unfortunately, angela was never once able to convince me of this). i'll miss waking up on saturdays at 11, looking over and seeing my roommate on her computer, getting up and playing on the internet, then lazily walking to the cafeteria for a brunch of scrambled eggs, pizza, and diet coke. i'm going to miss staying up til 2 and writing papers. i'm going to miss having access to amazing art facilities and incredible faculty. i'm going to miss knowing about 40% of the people i see, by face if not by name. i'm going to miss living with my best friends.

actually... i already do.

and again, i'm excited about this new chapter in my life, and i do love taking care of jack. and leaving school doesn't mean i've stopped learning. for example, i have learned that i don't want kids for at least another 43 years, and i will learn how to get around on the baltimore bus system. but i still can't help feeling while i'm trying to convince an 8 week old that he really, really will be happier if he stops spitting out his pacifier, and look ahead to a life where i am expected to be out of bed before 10 EVERY DAY and to never wear my pajamas to work, i can't help but feel a little sad about the life i've already left behind. maybe we're never ready to move on. maybe it's better to leave while i still like it, to keep college as a happy place, full of good memories. maybe it isn't all downhill from here. maybe i'll like grocery shopping.

i don't know, though. i'm going to call my roommate; she knows most stuff.

effective birth control

2008-08-14T21:17:00.002-04:00

i'm working as a live-in nanny this summer for a baby who is currently 7 weeks and 1 day old. the baby doubles as my nephew, and my bosses double as my sister and brother-in-law, something that is convenient for me. i think if it were a "real" job, sending the mother texts like "your baby is broken- scream button stuck" while she's at work would be frowned upon.

anyway, i've been thinking of posting about this job for a long time, but every time i sit down to do it, the baby freaks out, or the internet (which is wireless stolen from the neighbors) breaks, or it's after 9:30, which is pretty much when i pass out.
it's just as well, though, since my days currently consist of dodging projectile spit- up, warming up and testing the temperature of breast milk that is not from my breasts, and living in constant fear that i will loose the one binky that jackson actually likes. also, i have incorporated words like "binky" into my everyday vocabulary, which is, i think, a substantial transition in and of itself. one of the strangest things is that when i take him out in public people think he's my baby, what with him being strapped to my chest in his "snuggli" and all. the thing is, i look a lot younger than i am. (case in point: i was carded for an R-rated movie. at age 22. which means they thought i was 16 or younger. WHEN I WAS 22.) as a result, i get some funny looks when out with jack. that kind of curious, pitying, judging look reserved for unwed teenage mothers and people who dress to match their pets. because of that, i've taken to wearing my ring on my left ring finger, but turned upside down, so it looks like a wedding band and not a $15 ring from amercian eagle with a horse shoe on it. i also frequently consider screaming things like "YEAH, YOU WATCH YOURSELF!" or "IT HAPPENS MORE EASILY THAN YOU THINK!!" at teenage couples i see holding hands in the mall; they're the ones who give me the best looks, this combination of fear and "that will never be me" self-righteousness. sure it won't, sweetie.

anyway, so that's how my life is going right now. i'm lucky if i brush my teeth before 11 and shower before 2. my day centers around breastfeeding (uh, again, from a bottle, not my breast milk) and diaper changes. i get really excited about things like going to the post office (CONTACT WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD!!!) and when i can make this 12 pound person burp.

it's mind-numbingly boring most of the time, with interjections of ear-splitting screams. i get really lonely, and really, really frustrated sometimes. but the thing is, a 7 week old can smile, and when he looks at me and smiles, i almost re-consider my plan to leave him on the front porch with a sign that says "free". of course, when he's screaming and refuses to be consoled, my plan becomes leaving him on someone ELSE'S porch with a $50 taped to his chest.

all in all, though, it's more than worth it, and i'll seriously miss him when i move out in september into a house with 12 adults and no binkies or snugglies. i doubt anyone there will cuddle with me while we watch er (from 10- 11 and, if we don't fall asleep, 11- 12) and not laugh when i cry at the sweet episodes of "the office". but they probably also won't make me wipe poop off thier asses, so maybe it's an even trade.

well that stinks.

2008-08-12T20:06:00.003-04:00

since coming home from kenya i've made much more of an effort to be socially conscious in my purchases. things like making a strong effort to buy certified sweatshop free clothing, or, more often, second hand clothing, helps me not feel like my gap jeans are laced with the blood and sweat of Chinese children. things like that. it's a fuzzy line, though, as to where "socially conscious" becomes "trendy and stupid".

one decision that continually baffles me is the choice between buying the cheapest possible toiletries (because spending $20 for foundation when the same $20 could vaccinate a child against 5 preventable childhood diseases is wrong, regardless of how glowing and flawless it makes my complexion) or buying, say, $9 organic, fair trade shampoo (because then i know it's not in a bottle made in Vietnam by exploited workers, put in said bottles in Bangladesh by underpaid children, after the chemical runoff from the grown ingredients and all the byproducts are dumped into the amazon (or whatever the hell the process is before it gets to target)). i don't know. this makes it very, very stressful for me every time i run out of shampoo or soap or toothpaste, because lives depend on my hygine choices- sometimes the lives of CUTE CHILDREN, or worse, HANDSOME MEN. i generally try to work it out so i can buy organic, fair trade things when they go on sale, but that doesn't always happen.

so, anyway, long, boring story short, i went off the organic deep end this summer, plummeting head first into a deep, deep pool of organic aloe vera and carefully cultivated lilac and rose hips (which was sticky). i bought a bottle of organic, fair trade, hemp and orange all-purpose "magic soap", made by dr. bronners. i bought it BEFORE i went to the company website and read that the formula was developed after the original dr. bronner escaped from a dutch insane asylum; i wouldn't have bought it if i knew it was crazy soap. i was seduced by it's claim to be 18 kinds of soap in one, including shampoo, body wash, dish soap, and toothpaste; clearly this was a product that could change my life, so i bought it, and it is AWESOME. it smells great, and i feel clean, and i love that it is organic and fair trade and family owned and the highest paid employee at the company makes just 5 times the amount of the lowest paid employee. at first i thought that was a lot, then i learned that in 2000, the average u.s. CEO made over 500 times the amount of the lowest paid employee in the company; suddenly, i could respect a cap at 5 times the amount.

not all such adventures into the large, hemp-scented world of organic toiletries were so glorious. i tried organic toothpaste, Tom's of Maine, specifically, which was awful. it was advertised as being "spearmint" flavored, but really was simply "bland white paste" flavored. i used it, because it was expensive, but let's just say i wasn't kissing anybody that month. um, or really any of the past few months. but i digress. i did give the organic toothpaste another try, though, and bought nature's gate brand peppermint flavor, which tastes much better, but, i later realized, is not fair trade (like Tom's) or give any of its proceeds to wilderness conservation (like Tom's). dammit.

so anyway, the biggest plunge i took was in switching to organic deodorant. risking that my hair might be slightly less supple and shiny is one thing, but risking becoming a stinky, sweaty mess is quite another. still, with some research claiming that the active ingredient in antiperspirants, aluminum, can lead to breast cancer, and the fact that all the other funky chemicals in there are bad for my armpits (and other living things), and that they're manufactured God knows where by Lord knows who being compensated in Jesus knows what way, i decided i might as well try. plus, one was made by Toms, a company i already respected, and it was rose and honeysuckle scented. now, if there is anything i'd like my armpits to smell like MORE than Secret Platinum Protection Powder Fresh, it is roses and honeysuckle. so i bought it. and you know what? i'm a stinky, sweaty mess. i smelled like roses and honeysuckle for about 56 seconds, but then the sun came up, and it all went to hell. even though the container says the formula now contains hops (uh, isn't that a main ingredient in beer?) and that should help me smell better, it did not.

this wouldn't be SUCH a big deal, except i also forgot my razor at my parents' house, and now live at my sister's house. so i haven't shaved in a few days. so i'm getting a little hairy. and am now stinky as well. so, yes, in one weekend, i went from someone who dabbled in burt's bees lip balm to a full, all out, lentil eating, Birkenstocks wearing, henna hair dying, stinky, hairy, dirty hippie. it was a short but painful fall.

to be fair, though, i don't actually have Birkenstocks, i wear chocos. and i'm not dirty, i use dr. bronner's magic soap.

on riding

2008-08-09T17:42:00.003-04:00

When I was in junior high, my mom said that the only time I ever sat up straight was when I was on a horse. I started riding when I was 8 and rode every week, sometimes several times a week, until I graduated high school. I leased my first horse, Dusty, when I was in seventh grade. Later in high school I began to show horses, usually a temperamental chestnut quarter horse named Kirov. He had a violent temper and, as a result, had his own field separated from the other horses and a stall in an isolated part of the barn. He had no fear of anything or anyone, would jump anything you put in front of him, and throw any rider he didn't like. We were a great team.

I know that riding is a privilege usually reserved for the upper crust of society. I know that, stereotypically, it the sport of stuffy upper class British men or, worse, spoiled American tweens. Although my parents did make me work off many of my lessons by cleaning stalls, cleaning tack, and doing other various chores at the barn, it was really more on principal than out of necessity. Over the years my parents must have spent thousands of dollars on riding lessons, boots, brushes, tack, show fees, leasing horses, and, of course, every saddle club book ever published. When I think about the money that was spent on my hobby, I can't help but cringe.

At the same time, it is hard for me to classify riding as a complete waste of time and money. In high school, I dealt with self-esteem issues (like everyone), depression (like most people), and an eating disorder (like all too many people). Riding was one of the only constants in my life, the one thing that I did all the time, and one of the only things I did well. I slouched while sitting, standing, and walking because I was scared and shy and ashamed of who I was, but I sat up straight on a horse because it was a place I could feel confident, comfortable, and strangely enough, safe. I had to respect myself while riding because a horse won't respect a person who doesn't respect herself. I learned to be confident and commanding while maintaining composure. It is difficult to get a 2,000 pound animal to do anything, let alone take make an circle with an exactly 30 meter diameter, jump a 4 foot fence, or bend his neck at a perfect arch; riding takes strength, determination, and self-assurance. Riding taught me patience and to put my needs and desires second to the needs and desires of someone else. Many mornings before 7:00 I ignored my own hunger to feed 35 horses breakfast, many evenings I sat pulling briars out of my leased pony, Yankee's, tail until my fingers bled. I learned that the sport is more than the glamour of showing and jumping; like anything, you have to shovel a lot of shit to get anywhere worthwhile.

I stopped riding when I graduated high school, but not for long. I rode again the summer after freshman year, although my beloved Kirov had died of intestinal cancer. I instead leased a massive, barely broken draft cross named Ranger. He was... difficult. After that I began riding at school as well, taking lessons from a trainer north of the twin cities. It felt good and right to be in the saddle again, to forget everything else going on in the world and my life and focus exclusively on the task at hand. That's another thing about riding: it forces you to focus, to really, really concentrate, because the last thing you want to be thinking about while in mid-air over a jump on a horse is English homework or some guy. Of course, accidents happen even while focused, and on February 20, 2007 I was thrown from a horse. He was a giant, gorgeous bay gelding named Dante, perhaps 4 or 5 years old. He was a good horse, but feeling anxious, and as we cleared the last jump of a course he started bucking. I sat two of them (thank you very much) but was thrown over his head by the third, landing flat on my back in front of him. I broke my back in three places and ruptured a disc. It hurt.

But even this I count as a blessing, because at no other time has my strength been tested like that. After some time bedridden, and some time in a ridiculous brace, and some time in physical therapy, I'm (more or less) recovered, and evermore thankful for my life and mobility. I was inches from being paralyzed, and now often find myself checking buildings for wheelchair access, wondering what my life would be like had a landed just a little differently.

I've only ridden twice since the accident, due to financial reasons. It is harder and harder for me to justify spending so much money to feed and care for and ride animals when humans around the world starve to death. I can't bring myself to fork over $60 for an hour of riding when that amount of money give 60 people clean water for a year (http://www.bloodwatermission.com/). But I still don't regret the time and money spent on my behalf to ride horses, because it has made me who I am and taught me things I don't know that I would have learned any other way.

Today I packed up all of my riding gear- my boots, chaps, helmet, pants, show shirt, show coat, brushes, boxes, crops, etc- to give to lift me up, a therapeutic riding program for kids with developmental and/or emotional disabilities (http://www.liftmeup.org/). I will miss riding, but can no longer justify it to myself (especially since my income next year will be (ta-da!) $50 a month). But I sincerely hope that my boots and spurs and tack will be used by some other kid who needs them, not just to have fun, but to learn about hard work and self respect and caring for living things. I also hope they make the kids who are physically able clean the stalls and throw hay once in a while; it's good for them.

montana night

2008-08-09T17:17:00.005-04:00

"I hear these put three times the amount of tar in your lungs," she said, with more than a little pride in her ability to take her own life in her hands.
"I just think they taste good. Like herbs," I said, still secretly wondering if I was doing it wrong.
We sat for a few silent minutes, admiring the Montana stars at midnight and the mountains we couldn't see.
Taking a drink, I said, "I feel like we're twelve, sneaking cigarettes and beer in the backyard," knowing full well that at twelve I was far more interested in early American poetry and the U.S. equestrian team than alcohol, that I hadn't had any alcohol until I was a month away from 20, and this was only my second time smoking cloves, having smoked hookah twice before that. I never smoke or drank at twelve, and she knew it.
She stayed silent. We had been friends since we were six, but I was suddenly unsure of myself, wondering what, exactly, she had done at twelve without me.

artist statement

2008-08-09T17:09:00.005-04:00

It's been twelve months since I left Kenya and there in the fourth week I saw the first and only dead body I've ever seen-- a child. On a cot in the Kakamega public hospital (not the one for white people) I think he starved to death. So skinny and dead. Oh god oh god he's dead that one on the cot he's dead muffled Kiswahili skinny dead.The day we took the babies to the clinic I picked the chubby baby because I needed one to be healthy and I needed to hear she was going to be OK and carry her out and feel better but they said no, this one, she's not fat because she's eating, she's fat because she's being eaten. Parasites, they said, that whole big belly of yours full of worms, all 20 pounds of you were parasitic worms and you weren't OK and I'm sorry I'm so sorry I chose you to take to the clinic and I'm sorry I never knew your name and I'm sorry that you're not OK.

I'm sorry, Bonnie and Maxwell and Ben and Luvembe and Wyclif and Steven and Eric and Issac. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left you. I'm sorry all I ever gave you was a soccer ball. I'm sorry I didn't give you the candy bar the day on the street when you were high. I was so scared. You're twelve and I'm scared. I'm sorry if you're dead now and I'm sorry I don't know if you're dead. And baby Joesph with the yellow hat, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I put you down I had to leave we had to leave I had to leave Mathare. And baby Nakariah from Huruma-- Huruma, it means Mercy-- they call you and orphan but someone had to put you in the dumpster where they found you. Who, baby, who? And Kathleen stared at the chest of that boy she held and told me over and over she had to watch his chest to see if he's still breathing is he breathing he's not breathing and that one, that one is dead now, I'm quite sure of it.

30,000 every 24 hours. 20.83 a minute. I made 25 a minute so I could stay ahead of you but 2,460,000 more starved to death in the two months it took me to make this one day.

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