Working in the Projects- Days 1 & 2
So I work in the ghetto. Basically we go out and have tracking sheets with certain names and addresses of children we have to administer the surveys to. My partner and I got to the neighborhood and everything is falling apart...buildings that are just rubble, with broken windows...There was a security guard, and he's been watching us pretty carefully. We see drug deals though! Some highlights:
-30 year old men/women trying to convince us that they are 18 and we should let them take the survey.
-22 year old guy with dreads and gold grill with dice on it signing consent forms for all the neighborhood kids (I wasn't about to argue with him...) calling me baby
-Black lab barking viciously at us, a man stopping, getting out of his truck, and chasing it with a large piece of scrap metal. He smiles at us and goes on his way.
-Another intern claiming, "Cuba street is crazy. I saw Tupac."
Sad things:
-Today, while filling out paperwork, a 16 year old girl asked what the date was. We said "May 27" and she said "oh..its my birthday". She had a 1-year-old son.
-No one really seems to care that we are there. Well, they care about their money, that's the only reason they let us in. But people walk in and out of the apartments, parents, brothers and sisters, aunts, and don't pay any attention to the white girl on their couch reading their children questions about drugs and sex. I just feel like they let us do whatever we want as long as we give them their $15
Some other general highlights of Alabama:
-Finding the redneck beach. Old grandma there drinking a beer, smoking a cigarette, sitting in a lawn chair in the water. Oh yeah and her bellybutton was pierced.
-Saving a turtle who was trying to cross the road.
-Explosion went off at Walgreen's today and the power went out, leaving a bunch of us to hang out in dark Walgreen's.
-Damn Baptists won't open their pool on Sundays. We were sweating to death in the 90 degree heat so we had to resort to swimming in the fountain.
Alabama Pictures
-30 year old men/women trying to convince us that they are 18 and we should let them take the survey.
-22 year old guy with dreads and gold grill with dice on it signing consent forms for all the neighborhood kids (I wasn't about to argue with him...) calling me baby
-Black lab barking viciously at us, a man stopping, getting out of his truck, and chasing it with a large piece of scrap metal. He smiles at us and goes on his way.
-Another intern claiming, "Cuba street is crazy. I saw Tupac."
Sad things:
-Today, while filling out paperwork, a 16 year old girl asked what the date was. We said "May 27" and she said "oh..its my birthday". She had a 1-year-old son.
-No one really seems to care that we are there. Well, they care about their money, that's the only reason they let us in. But people walk in and out of the apartments, parents, brothers and sisters, aunts, and don't pay any attention to the white girl on their couch reading their children questions about drugs and sex. I just feel like they let us do whatever we want as long as we give them their $15
Some other general highlights of Alabama:
-Finding the redneck beach. Old grandma there drinking a beer, smoking a cigarette, sitting in a lawn chair in the water. Oh yeah and her bellybutton was pierced.
-Saving a turtle who was trying to cross the road.
-Explosion went off at Walgreen's today and the power went out, leaving a bunch of us to hang out in dark Walgreen's.
-Damn Baptists won't open their pool on Sundays. We were sweating to death in the 90 degree heat so we had to resort to swimming in the fountain.
Alabama Pictures