Monday, August 16, 2010

Hola Casa Ita Ford!

I'm finally here!  We got to LA two days ago, but without the internet in our house, it's been difficult to update stuff and with all the excitement of being here and meeting with people, time has been rather scarce.  So I’m sitting in our local Starbucks, thankful for their newly added free unlimited wireless!  Yay!  It’s weird how comforting it is to be back in, as Dana says, Starbs.  From the paint color to the smells to the green aprons, the atmosphere brings back familiar memories of catching up with high school friends, morning coffee with Adam, and studying for classes and is able to transport me back to feelings of home.  I’m in love with the realization that this is going to become my home!

But before I jump ahead of myself…  After driving down in our fleet of rented Dodge Chargers (riding in style, right?) for all the LA and San Diego casas, Dana, Greg, Colleen, Paula and I arrived at Casa Ita Ford.  Our house is named after Ita Ford, a Catholic sister who, while serving as a missionary in El Salvador, was raped and murdered by a military death squad (when I learn more about her, I'll update you all!).  We were greeted by our land lady Celia, who lives in a house right in front of ours, so our house isn't actually on the street.  She quickly came over to introduce herself and make sure we are going to be good tenants.  She’s doing her part to a T to keep up in line, complete with a meeting the following day and a plethora of post-it notes scattered around the house with instructions for us on care and upkeep. During her meeting, she repeatedly referenced other JV years (we’re the 17th year of JVCs living in the house!) and their mistakes (ex: “those girls in group 15 thought it would be a good idea to sunbath on the roof, so now you can’t”, “that pot smoker in Group 5”, “the bed bugs in Group 16,” etc…).  Her semi-neurotic personality must be somewhat of a legend because when we went around to placement sites and met our support couple, they all asked about her with slight humor in their voices. This should be  a fun year!  Her dog, Trouble, also gave us a warm and noisy welcome.  After we got a little settled, our support couple, Brady, who served in LA as a JV about 5 years ago, his wife, Christina, a Los Angeles native who he met as a JV, and their 14 month old son, Ben (we want to make him a shirt that says "#1 Support Baby"), arrived with beer, pop, pizza and encouragement.  Their friend, Andrew, who actually had my placement 5 years ago, also came.  Andrew is a SLU graduate too (with a history degree!  crazy...) and after his JV year, he stayed on with DMS as a 4th grade teacher for 3 years, and recently transferred to work in a nativity school in St. Louis.  It was awesome to get to know them and hear about their experiences during their year, as well as knowing that they will be always present to provide us with support, encouragement, and prayers.

  {Casa Ita Ford!}

{Trouble... don't let his smile fool you}


Yesterday was a packed day, as we toured everyone in Casa Ford's placements, chose our rooms, and walked around our neighborhood a bit.
 

{Dolores Mission Church}
 
We began at Dolores Mission School with a presentation from Ms. Moreno, the principal.  She told us that to educate one student at DMS, it costs $5,600.  The highest tuition that anyone pays though is only $2,200 and only 7 families right now actually pay that. After a lengthy consultation with the family and the administration, a certain tuition is set for the family that reflects their needs and abilities.  Since some of the families in the school only have an income of around $15,000 a year, the lowest tuition right now is $20 per month.  Talk about quality education for all!
 

We then walked over to the church across the street and talked about the Guadalupe Homeless Project, a shelter, soup kitchen, employment help, etc.  80 men are able to be in the program at a time, for a maximum of 3 months.  Ranging from new immigrants to people who have been in the US for over 15 years, but are now homeless, the men literally sleep in the church, using the pews as beds, eat their breakfast and dinner in the school cafeteria, and are taken out to work sites to try to find employment during the day.  They are also offered English classes and other enrichment activities.  This reuse of space and resources is a theme that was constantly repeated throughout the day, along with an overwhelming strong sense of community.  As we learned the history of the school, church, and agencies, we kept hearing about programs that grew out of community need.  For example, the mothers in the community wanted a preschool for their kids, so when a priest won Jeopardy, he used his money to buy a house next to the church which was converted into a preschool.  Parents needed help understanding the process of how to get their kids into college, so DMS and Proyecto Pastoral (the agency Colleen works at) got together to work with parents to create pipelines for kids, outlining the importance of education and parental involvement at every step.  They also work to keep kids off the streets in after school programs, a newly created summer camp (started by moms and older women of the community this summer through a $10,000 grant from the city that they lobbied for), and by helping parents find money to keep their kids in Catholic schools through high school, in order to try to avoid the extremely high drop-out rates of public schools in the area, drug use (the school next to DMS currently has a horrible ecstasy problem), and gangs.
 

We then ventured to Greg's future placement, The Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice, which specializes in free legal representation, education, and advocacy for the low-income communities of LA.  It was the last day of work for the summer interns, so as a good-bye party for them and a hello welcome for Greg, we got to join in our their delicious lunch which included homemade carne asada.  There are such great benefits of living in a little Mexico :)

After our tour at Proyecto Pastoral, the director told us about a 12 hour indoor/outdoor music
fiesta/benefit/extravaganza going from 2pm - 2am in Downtown Los Angeles called the 1st Annual Visionary Sounds Music Festival Saturday.  We decided to venture out with another one of the LA casas and caught some of the later groups at La Cita Bar as well as scored some free Mexican sodas left over from afternoon parties.  Even though I had absolutely no idea what he was saying, my favorite group was Perrozompopo from Managua, Nicaragua. (According to Wikipedia he's one of the most influential up and coming singers in Nicaragua and most of his songs are calling for social change and discussing the political climate of the country.)  Supposedly they don’t venture out of Central America much, so we definitely lucked out!  I just wish I knew how to salsa dance so I wouldn't have looked like such a complete gringo.   

{I forgot my camera, but the lead singer definitely deserve a picture on my blog} 
 

{Image via: Perrozompopo}

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