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I just dropped the little lady off with her Youth Farm cohorts. For 3 days and 2 nights in WI at an Organic Farm - learning, farming, tending to resident animals, etc...
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This week, I got the call regarding her wait list position at the local Social Justice focused school - she got in! We've found that the Montessori style isn't working for her, so here's to a fresh start.
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I spent a lot of time doing face to face work with our guys at the shelter this week. It's been a mixed bag:
- Food Stamp guy, he's someone who isn't ready to make the changes to both get off of the street and to clean up his hustling ways.
- The Young Ones, one was upset in a defeated but still wanting to save face way about the fact that someone keeps stealing his plain white t's and socks out of the laundry. The other, doesn't look a day over 17, got jumped this week. He has a black and blue ear, a broken tooth and cuts on his face. And I can feel and see the kid in him coming out while talking to him.
- D, has been trying so hard to find a job. I've worked with him for the past two weeks, trying every thing we can. The only lead he has gotten is an interview at OCB this coming Monday.
- J, he and his brother were just involved in a late night police shootout. My boss noted that just a month earlier, he looked pretty young but in the past few weeks since the incident, he has let himself go and appears to have aged just since. I can see what he is saying. It's in his eyes.
- A, don't think he's ready to actually find a job. Maybe just kind of floater in the system,
I really like the philosphy of the organization - never to give up on our guys, work to empower them, understand that they may not be ready to make the changes needed to become stable/healthy/etc.. but be ready for them when/if they reach that point.
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I've reached the age where my patience for certain things has gotten considerably smaller - case in point, panhandling travelling kids. And this kind of stuff: http://community.livejournal.com/zine_scene/2498237.html
I mean seriously. I know I sound like a bitch, and maybe I am one but I just can't not feel annoyed. I got panhandled yesterday by some travelling kids, and you know, fine, I agree that to be able to do that is an awesome opportunity but on the other hand, expecting other people to fund it is ridiculous. And taking away from people that may need that 50 cents or whatever more is kind of BS. As far as the link goes, the person goes on how fun it is to be unemployed and broke then wants to beg some supplies or money from people - Huh? Come tell my guys how much fun you are having being unemployed and broke. Tell the homeless individuals and families in Philly how much fun it is. This crimethinc state of thinking bores the fuck out of me. One of my co-VISTAs (early 20's) just discovered Crimethinc so I was subjected to her thoughts of how amazing Days of War, Nights of Love is. I get the feeling that the people who work under the Crimethinc name don't known anything about struggling to keep their lives together financially, have not dealt with lay-offs in a dead economy and have no clue how it affects people, don't understand the cycles of poverty and how it affects everyone in a family unit, etc, etc, etc... College kid rhetoric just annoys and patronizes, it does't inspire. Revolution and activism on a community level or a smaller scale is more possible, some dreamy thought of revolution on a massive scale is just fantasy. <---All my opinions, of course.