Wandering around the neighborhood on foot lends a sort of familiarity to everything. I become a familiar face to the people just as much as they become a familiar face to me. What never becomes familiar to see though are the drug deals and needles that lay in the street, marring the innocence of the children who grow up here. I sat on my porch today, watching the family across the way (must learn their name) work on their front garden. The older little boy mimed his father’s every action, except in classic little boy form he somehow managed to be more of a hassle than a help. Picking up dirt he tossed it into the air and waved his wide open arms around in jubilation as the clods came tumbling back into the mound that his father slowly and methodically raked out as a flowerbed. Stumbling out of the front door next were the two little girls, they hurried about after one another in a frenzy of Spanish and English as they sucked their lollipops and fell in line with the other younger girls, strolling their streets—soon to be following in their mothers’ faithful footsteps of neighborhood guarding patrol. A kitten peeped out at me from underneath the family’s van. This kitten is a never ending story of adventuring; I really hope that it does not find its end under the tire of one of the teenage boys’ cars as they zoom through the neighborhood. Its little eyes searched, inquiringly, into the street, peering at everything with its yawning innocence just waiting to escape to our side of the street until…GOTCHA! The littlest girl hurried out to the kitten with arms spread hoping to have it leap into them. This endeavor was all but futile as the kitten, in its own form of spazy grace, skedaddled away toward the porch. Dad was on it, though, and he quickly harassed the kitty with a spurt of hose water, making it once more dash out into the trimmed grass with a stream of children on its tail. What I last saw was all of them huddled over, looking down into a corner of bush and porch waiting and wishing for the hissing kitten to come out to them. 2 little girls, roughly 8, one boy about 5 one about 3 and another neighbor friend (boy) about 4 all waiting. Night time came around and found me sitting on my couch reading Colette and brushing up on my Spanish. Mary came round to give us our schedules for orientation…I really wish it all would start already. I am getting tired of this useless feeling. Brendan collapsed upon the couch next to me we went over some Spanish words together, in a half-hearted/ humbled attempt to prepare for our students. Antonina and Megan are much fun. Antonina’s roommate has yet to get here; Sean just arrived from Boston and seems to be all sorts of “still waters run deep”. Now I am off to bed. While brushing my teeth some yells burst out of the night air. It’s crazy how the environment that you live in (i.e. the rough neighborhood that is this hood) can make everyday sounds take on a whole new meaning. Perhaps, if I heard this sort of yelling in Santa Cruz I would think little to nothing of it, but here—in a place where a girl was stabbed a night ago and a man was shot before then and there are gang initiations and drug deals a block away from home—things certainly do go bump in the night.

Watsonville

There is a beautiful kind of rhythm within this community. Every morning, the same men come out to
the plaza to sit and be amongst the friends, a tradition which I am sure they have held fast to over many years. The weather is slowly turning to fall now and the school children are really in a full swing as they run around Main Street searching for good food to fill their aching bellies during the lunch time break. Many of them will not return to school, I have learned, instead they will goof around with their friends, running in and out of the pedestrians on the street, exchanging their uniforms for their street clothes. The fog rolls in at the faithful hour of just after five and I walk home to get another layer of clothes on. Passing by the Plaza I see those men there, scuffing the ground with their rugged, worn cowboy boots, tipping their hats in the direction of the sun, making conversation with their wrinkled hands as they switch from getting up to take a stroll to meandering back to their benches. It is interesting to see the generations here: the older men walk proudly and stiffly, having known hours of manual labor. They wear their jeans synched tightly around their waists and their shirts tucked in. Their hair is short and their feet are covered in tough leather cowboy boots. They look like they have walked out of a western, or out of Mexico. I wonder what they were thinking as they peered over to us, talking amongst themselves in waves and sweeping arms as trying to get a hold of what the group of newbies were doing in their neighborhood. I wonder how much work and sweat and love and discipline those wrinkled, tanned eyes have seen. They wear their hats with the same amount of pride that the younger men wear their baseball caps. It is a part of their identity, their heritage. Walking back from the library today, I, for the first time, was alone and found myself becoming very introverted. I didn’t look up to see who was coming at me or where I was, my feet already knew the quickest route home. I didn’t wonder what the sirens were racing toward or what the mother pushing her baby thought of me. I only looked up once to see the teenagers giving publicity to the dream act (the excited car honks caught my ear rather). It’s starting to feel like a community that is not just tolerating me with squinty curiosity, but is welcoming me into their daily routine to see the honesty and wholeness of their world. One thing I know, when I leave here the word community will have a completely different meaning. Tonight, it is quiet out and I am very exhausted, no children screaming or dogs barking or cars racing. All there is, is silent fog rolling across the valley as one by one porch lights turn off and everyone falls into the same sort of sleep.