Well, after several weeks of promising, here it is -- a real life update. The first thing I have to point out is that, despite those pretty substantial CIW updates and some flashy shots of my garden, I somehow lost the interest of my long-time friends, the Chinese commenters. I think we should start this post with a moment of silence in rememberance of the international hay-day of HFWD.
(Feel free to say a prayer or give alms here.)
ALLLL RIGHT - ON TO THE GOSSIP (not really... my boss, my grandparents, and at least one nun make up probably the majority of my audience, so this is really just going to be personal information with maybe a borderline cuss word or two)! I don't even really know how to dive into what's been going on here in Immokalee, because as usual, so much and so little seems to happen all at once.
I was going over some journal entries and blog posts from this time last year, and I was shocked to realize that the start of November basically signifies that I'm closer to going home for Christmas than I am to the end of August (when I moved here). Last year, this was a huge deal. This year, it's more like "So what? It was two months." I still feel like this year has barely gotten underway, and then I look back at last year and realize that at this point, I was using metaphors for descending down the easy side of a mountainous trek. What gives?
As much as this fall just feels like a continuation of last year, I’m starting to realize that it's a really different experience when I put my two year's side-by-side so far. By this point last year, I had spent 5 or 6 straight weekends crammed in the back (or behind the wheel of) a 15-passenger van doing CIW protests – in that context, it’s easy to see why I felt like I had made some mountainous achievements by early November. This fall, the CIW hasn’t had the same protest schedule (they didn’t give up or anything, it’s just something that fluctuates depending on the campaign), and so we’ve had a lot more free time and opportunities to ease into the year.
Another big thing that I didn't realize at the time was that the string of events and circumstances last fall lead to an immediate, involuntary cohesion of my housemates and I. Not only were we skimming around the metropolitan areas of Florida in a fleet of white vans, but we were also all working at the same school every day (as opposed to being splint into two schools, like this year). That meant that we had the same daily work schedule, had all the same co-workers, knew all the kids in each others’ classes, and spent about 50 straight hours together every weekend. We didn't really have much of a choice other than to act as a family unit, and so by early November, I felt like I'd been living with Margaret, Liz, and Alison for years.
This fall, things have progressed at what is probably a much more normal (and sane) rate. We’ve had a lot of time to settle into our own routines, and get used to living with new people. I would say that especially over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed this year’s house really start to settle into a true community, as opposed to just four people living with each other. Looking at it as a whole, two months is still making pretty good time for that type of thing – I guess normal just feels slow when you get used to the extreme.
Still, that’s not to say that nothing has been going on in the absence of CIW protests this fall. A couple of weekends ago, my mom made her second visit to Immokalee after having to travel to Orlando for business. She got to spend some time with my first-graders, stay at the luxurious Immokalee Inn for an evening, and even work on her tan at Fort Myers beach. That same weekend, the rest of my housemates whisked over to Miami for a couple of days to visit Adam and Nicole, the volunteers from our program that are stationed there.
Last weekend, I went with Margaret up to Orlando to help her baby-sit her niece and nephew while her sister and brother-in-law where in town for a wedding, and I even got my first trip to Disney-World out of it (sadly, that day involved her niece tripping and needing stitches, so Margaret and I wandered around Disney’s Hollywood Studios for about 5 hours with her one-and-a-half-year-old nephew). An added bonus on that trip was that my brother Pat was in Tampa that weekend for a wedding - he drove over on Saturday so that we could do all the things normal brothers do, like hang out in a hotel room that belongs to no one you’re related to, wander around an outlet mall, and each dinner with toddlers. That whole weekend pretty much gets filed into the rarely used "unconventional but totally awesome" bag.
But that’s not all! As we speak, my former housemate Alison is in town for the weekend, and she’s entertaining us all with stories of grad school life and cold weather in Boston (this weekend has been our coldest of the fall so far, but she’s just happy not to be wearing long-sleeves instead of gloves). Up ahead, the next month promises a trip to Fort Benning for the School of the America’s Protest, a visit from our program director (Ellen), and a visit from my other former-housemate, Liz. The latter is in town on the same weekend that her Bengals play the Steelers in December, so we’ll probably spend the whole weekend trash-talking and then (half of us) weeping – just like old times.
All right, before this gets too long, I'll throw in some general updates for old-times sake:
Morning jobs - this year I only work mornings at either Habitat or the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The "snow-bird" volunteers have just started coming back out in full force at Habitat, so the worksite is finally bustling again. I spent every Monday this past month learning how to roof from Lou and Martha, who are 80 and 70 respectively, and both far more nimble and knowledgeable on the roof than I am. Martha's also taking a few weeks off to train for her upcoming full Ironman (you know, a race where you swim 4.5 miles, bike 112, then run a full marathon). As humbling as it constantly is, it's awesome to really learn a trade that I could one-day use on my own house.
The CIW has been an incredible place to be this fall. Despite the lack of a protest tour, there's been some pretty huge news (check my last few posts if you haven't read them) this year. It's amazing to be around an organization when a decade and a half of hard work begins to pay off, and so I'm sure this year will only get more interesting as the new agreements develop.
After-school - This year has been a lot different, but I think that's in a good way. First graders are capable of way more thank Kindergartners (academically speaking), but there's also less of a grace period. In Kinder, there was a month or two where the kids were practically so terrified of a new environment that half of them barely spoke, and I kind of had time to get my game together. With First, we hit the ground running and never looked back. So far, the class still seems to be mostly in control, and I have way less days where I come home completely over-whelmed than last year. Some highlights of this year so far include:
-The girl who pees her pants AFTER she's already inside the bathroom
-The boy who thought the bathroom was sound-proof and decided it would be a good idea to go inside and scream at the top of his lungs for no reason
-The boy who decided to "play monster" and bit right into the arm of another girl, breaking skin and all
-The day that the children find out I had a mother, and then proceeded to ask me if she had any babies. When I told her that, yes, I was her baby, one boy responded "You was a baby when you were little?? .... COOL! ME TOO!"
Spanish - No matter what difficulties I come across, it's safe to say that I've learned a lot in the past year. I can mostly understand my first graders when they try to talk smack behind my back in Spanish, I can finally answer the phone and respond to conversations that I haven't initiated, and I can basically get across any major point I need to. That being said, there's a ton of work left to do. As I mentioned after Guatemala, one of the things that most shocked me from being there was how much of what I picked up came from just daily studying, a habit I still need to bring into my every day life. At this point it's a matter of not being happy with everything I've learned so far, but instead taking advantage of what time I have left in such a good learning environment.
And with that, most of you have probably clicked over to Facebook by now. My mom has done an excellent job of reminding me that I've really been slacking on pictures so far this fall, so check back within a week or so for a compilation of my most recent pictures (and some that I'm stealing from my housemates). As always, thanks for reading, for your emails, and for your comments!
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