asakiyume | Entries tagged with civic stuff

Back in one of my Egipto entries, I said in a comment,

I've been thinking that rather than focusing so much on Nazi Germany and how things fall apart, we ought to be looking at how places recover. No two situations are the same, and we might not be able to put into practice anything of what we see, but just for the sake of remembering.

Because descent into awfulness is one story, but recovery from awfulness in another.

Here's an example of working to recover from awfulness--it's an exhibit called Rostros del Pacífico Sur (Faces of the South Pacific--meaning, in this context, Colombia's southern Pacific Coast) that we came across at the Gabriel Garcia Márquez Cultural Center. It's was part of a campaign that's been ongoing since 2010 called "No Es Hora de Callar" ("Now is not the time for silence"), which aims to give a voice to survivors of sexual violence.

The photographer Juan Manuel Vargas spent a year getting to know women in the Tumaco region of Colombia, one of the poorest parts of the country, and one that suffered a lot during the guerrilla conflict. The exhibition features his portraits and quotes from the women. (Here is a Spanish-language article about the exhibit in El Tiempo)

Here are some of the photos:

"Tumaco has a new generation, which dreams with hope"

"Society makes us believe that a group of women, poor and Black women, we don't have a right to be heard. Today we are telling them that they were wrong."

"We work for a better country," this barrier announces. The Rostros del Pacífico Sur exhibition is one way Colombians are doing that.

And here's another way--"Let's go vote!"
Simón Bolívar's house was not the only tourist spot closed for the first round of the presidential elections. (This photo is Waka's, not mine.)

Current Music: Decemberists: Make You Better
Crossposts: https://asakiyume.livejournal.com/901582.html

Wakanomori got some pictures that capture the spirit of wanting better and trying hard that we could sense even standing just at the edge of Egipto.

Here is graffiti saying Egipto vive, right beside the church:

(click through to see it bigger)

And here is a shot up the hill that he got before we were warned away--you can't maybe tell, but on the right is a bright and hopeful mural, and straight ahead is a painting of a bird in flight.

... And those promised thoughts. This was a comment I left in the last entry. It was saying why it took me so long to post that last entry, how life can feel just generally. One of my friends suggest reposting it as an entry itself because, she said, it might resonate for people:

It's taken a long time to post this entry. I nearly didn't last night, either. I've been (like most people I know) oppressed by the news, had my mind in a vise that won't let me think about much else. There's a not insignificant amount of self-loathing that goes along with all that, as all the people saying "If you ever wondered what you'd do in Nazi Germany... now you know" have made me pretty aware that what I would have done is only slightly north of F-all. My stories from my trip feel stale in my head, are a product of privilege, and seem irrelevant and escapist.

But mental incapacity and self loathing, not to mention obsession, are pretty useless states, and some part of me believes it's not pointless to talk about people going out of their way to be thoughtful, even if (especially if? I don't know) it's people in a rough neighborhood being kind to clueless tourists.

... This is both an apology and an apologia for this post. I know you didn't ask for either; I just am latching onto your comment as an excuse to explain. Maybe this comment is what I should have posted, but then I wouldn't have had an excuse to put in photos.

--and look, I managed to slip some photos in all the same.

I guess if people in Egipto can paint "Egipto vive" and can protect the stranger, I can keep... doing my small, small thing.

Crossposts: https://asakiyume.livejournal.com/900562.html

Esmeralda Santiago is a writer I hadn't heard of before a couple of weeks ago, when J, one of the teachers at the educational program I volunteer with in Holyoke, said she was coming to give a talk at Holyoke Community College. "I was hoping you could talk her up in your creative writing session and get some of the students to come."

He handed me the sheet on her, and wow:

Esmeralda Santiago grew up in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico in a one-room shack with a dirt floor and tin roof. Her family moved to New York when she was thirteen years old. The eldest of eleven, Esmeralda learned English from children’s books in a Brooklyn library. A teacher encouraged her to audition for Performing Arts High School, where she majored in drama and dance. After eight years of part-time study at community colleges, Esmeralda transferred to Harvard University with a full scholarship and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1976. Shortly after graduation, she and her husband Frank Cantor founded CANTOMEDIA, a film and media production company that has won numerous awards for excellence in educational and documentary filmmaking. With the publication of her first memoir When I was Puerto Rican, the Washington Post hailed Esmeralda as “a welcome new voice, full of passion and authority.” Her first novel, America's Dream, has been published in six languages and made into a movie by executive producer Edward James Olmos. Her second memoir, Almost a Woman, received an Alex Award from the American Library Association, and was made into a Peabody-award winning movie for PBS Masterpiece Theatre’s “American Collection.”

( It gets long )

The people from my class who went--three women (one in her late 20s, one in her 40s, and one in her 60s) and one man (in his 30s), all Puerto Rican--loved the talk, and I did too. And I felt a swirl of gratitude and pride, pride because if I hadn't persuaded them to come, they wouldn't have gotten to, and gratitude, because if it wasn't for their coming, I wouldn't have probably gone.

It was a Good Experience.

Esmeralda Santiago
(photo source: centerforfiction.org)

Crossposts: https://asakiyume.livejournal.com/893664.html

Lucio Perez came to the United States from Guatemala in the 1990s, undocumented. He's worked here peacefully ever since and never been in any trouble, but he came to the attention of ICE in 2009 when he and his wife stepped into a Dunkin Donuts, leaving their kids in the car. Charges against him were dropped but--well, you can guess how the story goes. He ended up scheduled for deportation in October 2017. Instead, he took sanctuary in an Amherst church and has been there ever since.

Photo of Lucio and his daughter Lucy, taken by Sarah Crosby for the Hampshire Gazette

The community has rallied around him and his family, but life has been very tough for them--emotionally, because the family only can visit three times a week, but also financially, since he obviously isn't able to work at his previous job.

As one way to earn some money, he's been offering group and private Spanish conversation lessons. Although it's not something I could afford to make a regular habit, I took one of the private ones--it's money toward a good cause and beneficial for me, too.

( more about the lesson )

Current Music: Valerie June: Workin' Woman Blues
Crossposts: https://asakiyume.livejournal.com/888750.html

A few weeks ago, my neighborhood had a bunch of KKK newspapers dropped in it. Very upsetting. So, a group of us in town organized a community picnic so everyone in town could reaffirm what sort of town we want the town to be.

Here's a video** from the event. You can see me attempting a bean-bag toss I designed. (I was going to make it an eclipsed sun but decided on a sunflower instead.)

Watch on YouTube

(Here's a picture of just the bean bag toss, after i finished painting it. It has a black piece of tissue paper that hangs down behind it to make the hole look black, but wind has blown it up in this photo)

And here are two views of a mural whose painting I oversaw. That was the most fun: talking to all the kids, parents, and grandparents who participated in the painting.

Last but not least, a local paper's photo essay from the event. The town, like much of the rural New England, is very white, but even very-white New England is diverse if you have open eyes. My neighborhood includes people from Cambodia, Brazil, Romania, and Croatia, and the apartments nearby include families whose first languages are Chinese and Spanish. Religiously, the town is home to people of numerous Christian denominations as well as Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, and areligious. In terms of sexual orientation and gender, my near neighbors are a lesbian couple with three teen and young-adult children, and there are several other same-sex couples in town, as well as transgender and genderfluid folks. It includes active-duty members of the armed services, civil-rights activists, people who've been in the region for generations and people who arrived in the past ten years, farmers, tradespeople, professional people, stay-at-home parents, artists, people coping with chronic illnesses and disabilities .... in other words, it's a diverse community, despite the dominantly pale faces it puts forward, and people enjoy it that way. So the KKK can go elsewhere in search of recruits or people to intimidate.

**If you have a Youtube account and feel inclined, you could give it a thumbs up--currently it's got as many negative votes as positive ones (which is to say, one each, heh).

Crossposts: http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/873250.html

Last week I went to the graduation of one of the high school students I'd been tutoring. The high school she was at has a history of low performance, which probably contributed to the huge joy and sense of celebration in the air for this ceremony. Everybody was really, really rooting for these kids; each one represents a huge victory for everyone--the kids themselves, the families, the teachers, the whole community.

That sense of community spirit! The very young mayor of the city was there, and when he got up to speak, a girl sitting in front of me--maybe eleven or twelve years old--said to her older relative with pride, "Do you see him? He's our mayor." I have never lived in a place where a little kid would be that enthusiastic for a local politician.

Afterward, I had to walk a few blocks to get to where I had parked, and on my way back I couldn't stop smiling. A guy coming the other direction said to me, "God bless you sister," as we passed, and I did feel blessed.

Crossposts: http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/865060.html

When I started off on LJ, I created a super-beautiful, idiosyncratic password that gave me pleasure to type. When I re-started a DW account, the password I created was ... way less beautiful. And yet it turns out that I feel just as happy to type in the DW password and to write an entry or read other people's entries as I did/do to type in the fancy-special password.

... I guess it doesn't hurt to make marvelous passwords that you love, but on the other hand, it really is just a password, and it's getting on the actual site and doing stuff there that's The Thing.

This video is unrelated to passwords--it's Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner reading one of her climate change poems. The words are beautiful and heartbreaking, but also hopeful: They say you . . . wander rootless with only a passport to call home, and when she read it in 2014 at the United Nations climate summit, she got a standing ovation; people were very moved. Watch all the way through.

Watch on YouTube

Crossposts: http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/864297.html

It was one of the women at the jail who first told me that middle school and high school kids film their fights with their phones and then post them on Youtube. Then last week one of my high school tutees was talking affectionately about one of her younger sisters. "She's so bad," she said, laughing, and showed me a video on her phone of her little sister and another girl fighting. They had hands in each other's hair. "Ouch," I said, "that looks like it hurts!" "She's so bad," my tutee repeated, shaking her head and smiling.

I went online and found other videos, with breathless remarks from the person doing the filming. None of the ones I happened to look at were cases of someone being beaten up (though I'm sure that happens too), and none of them were mass melees (though same). These were ... well, in some cases they seemed like duels: there were seconds hanging back on both sides, and the fight was very short, and then it was like the seconds decided it was over. And in other cases it kind of reminded me of training? Like, instead of boxing or mixed martial arts, you're doing homemade fighting.

And the people filming. They seemed from their voices and their excitement levels so YOUNG. "Come on, hurry up, Celie! Somebody grab my sister!" exclaims one kid, and then, "Come on, fight fight fight, yo!" And in another video, a similarly young-sounding kid (a boy whose voice hasn't changed yet) shouts out advice ("keep your head up"), and when one of the fighters says "I can't breathe!" he calls out for everyone to stop. The girl says, "This asthma," and the kid says, "I fucking hate asthma too."

I know there are way worse fights. I know people get really badly hurt--I've seen scars my students in the jail have. That's not what was going on in the videos I happened to see, though.

I remember one of my other high school tutees, a *tiny* girl, talking about finally having to fight someone to get people to stop taunting her. I couldn't believe that having a fight would do that--I would have thought it would just escalate things. But apparently not.

Me, I'm wrapped in a floor-length robe of ignorance, with a fluffy hat of ignorance on my head. I don't have any summarizing statement to make or judgment to pass, beyond to say---I mean, maybe this is picking up on the high spirits of the people making the videos? and the casual attitude of my student?--but I felt surprisingly un-bad about the fact of the fights. I don't want kids to be ganged up on and beaten up, and I **definitely** think there are other ways to settle differences or strut your stuff. But ... maybe this is one possible way to settle differences and strut your stuff that isn't as bad as all that if all parties are willing? I don't know! See above: ignorance.

a fight

Current Music: Florence + the Machine: Only if for a Night
Crossposts: http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/863371.html

Today is town meeting in my town. I started to drive there--I'm all upons my civic duty these days--and then I turned around and came back. Why? Because I actually hate town meeting. Not the part where people get a chance to speak for or against something--that can be interesting. No, it's the part where people shout yay or nay to vote on things. Eleven years ago on this very day, I wrote an LJ entry about it.

I like a secret ballot. I **LOVE** a secret ballot. I am intimidated by public shouting and think there may be other people like me. I don't think who-can-shout-the-loudest is the best way to determine the outcome on issues of importance to people in town.

... I got home, and the wood thrush, who has returned to us, was singing.

Have a picture from yesterday: water, sky, something thin and green connecting them.

Crossposts: http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/861986.html

Last week, both with my high school tutees and with my students at the jail, I asked them to pick one of four pictures from Humans of New York to write about. The assignment was to tell me about the person in the photo, then to ask that person some questions, and then, in that person's voice, to answer the questions.

from the photo essay book Humans of New York

from the photo essay book Humans of New York

I got two deeply contrasting stories about this man from my students at the jail. One saw him as an "intelligent graduate, following his big New York dream ... which is to play in the Apollo" to become a musician--but with a safety job as a lawyer. The other--an older woman, who's been homeless herself--saw him as homeless. The questions she wanted to ask him were very practical: would you like a home-cooked meal; would you like a hot shower and a place to sleep; can I give you ten dollars "for something positive not negative."

Her answers almost undid me. She imagined him saying [paraphrasing], yes, I would love a home-cooked meal, as long as you let me do the dishes; yes I would love a hot shower, but only if you let me clean up after myself; a place to sleep on a couch or the floor would be great, and any amount of money would be appreciated. She finished with "I just wanted to thank you for being kind and offering all that to me."

Current Music: Los Rakas: Lluvia
Crossposts: http://asakiyume.livejournal.com/861238.html

For 16 years Irom Sharmila tried to use the moral suasion of a hunger strike to gain the repeal of a law that granted the military impunity in her state of Manipur, India. It didn't work: she was reduced to the role of icon and symbol, going through the same motions year after year, without accomplishing her goal, while meanwhile her life slipped away.

Then last year, she did a remarkable thing: she ended her fast and declared she was going to enter politics to try to accomplish her goal that way. There are segments of the population who haven't been happy about that--they preferred her as an inspiring icon on a shelf; they don't want her "dirtied" by politics. But that hasn't deterred her. She's formed her own political party, People's Resurgence and Justice Alliance, and among the other candidates on the slate are Najima Bibi, the first Muslim woman to run for office in Manipur. Najima Bibi is an advocate for women's rights and the founder of a home for destitute women. Erendro Leichombam, another candidate, has worked for the United Nations Development Programme.

Erendro Leichombam, Irom Sharmila, and Najima Bibi, PRJA candidates

Source: Hindustan Times

Writing for firstpost.com, Amukhomba Ngangbam says,

The party's poll plank is based on three pillars - incorruptibility, people's voice and hope for change. The party's campaign style is different from the conventional big rallies, fanfare and flags. It's a door-to-door campaign, where party members visit houses and spend 10-15 minutes talking to available family members about Manipur's issues, the family's problems and the party's objectives.

Unlike other parties, which distribute cash during election campaigns, Sharmila's team seeks donations from the people.

Amukhomba Ngangbam, "Manipur Election 2017: On last day of campaigning, Irom Sharmila goes door-to-door in Thoubal," firstpost.com, 6 March 2017.

To get from place to place, Sharmila has been bicycling:

Source: Hindustan Times

For a campaign symbol, they have been handing out whistles, with the idea that people can be whistleblowers.

Photo: Oinam Anand, for Indian Express

Manipur has layers of colonization and marginalization and corruption and political and other violence stewing in the pot, and what seems like a good idea to an outsider can be recognized as a disaster by someone in the know locally, and same in reverse with bad ideas, so I have no intention of commenting on PRJA's platform and what will work out best for Manipur.

However, I think candidates talking one on one with people is an excellent thing, and I am very happy for Sharmila in a personal way, as I think being in the world, meeting people, and trying to accomplish things with others is also an excellent thing.

The first round of elections is tomorrow! Whatever happens, I wish all the best for Sharmila as she takes on new tasks and challenges.

This one is on rebellion as mental illness: "How to Be a Better Dictator: Much Madness Is Divinest Sense."

It is so much easier to help patients who already accept their own insanity: they are far more amenable to replacing their bad thoughts (“I’m unhappy because society is so unfair; only revolution can make me happy”) with good ones (“I’m unhappy because my brain chemistry is broken; I know this must be true because only a person with a defective brain could be unhappy in a society as wonderful as the one I live in. Only submitting completely to treatment will make me happy”).

I am having trouble posting--not technical trouble; inside-my-head trouble. Nothing is in my Goldilocks zone. It's either too one-thing or too another-thing. WELL GOLDILOCKS, I'M ALL OUT OF LUKEWARM PORRIDGE SO YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO ACCEPT THIS.

Sound One is the dawn chorus of fishes, which

ann_leckie reblogged on Tumblr. How about that! Fishes sing to greet the day, just like birds. I am sure there are places where people set out in boats before dawn to hear those songs.

Sound Two is the woodcock. He's doing his mating call (peeent, peeent) and his mating dance (a twittering, spiraling flight up into the air) already, earliest I've ever noticed. One of my favorite memories is going out with the healing angel to witness the dance. The woodcock is such a sweet, shy, dorky-looking bird; I'm glad his mating ritual is such a grand display.

The thought has to do with law-breaking and hypocrisy. I wrote a whole entry on this and then deleted it. Here's the executive summary: There is not a driver I know (including myself) who doesn't sometimes drive faster than the speed limit. This is, however, a crime. People's excuses for their behavior fall into the everybody-does-it category, the the-posted-speed-in-this-area-is-ridiculous category, and the I-normally-don't-but-today-I-was-late/it-was-urgent category. Whatever. The point is, people are willing to break that law for, essentially, no good reason whatsoever. It's not like exceeding the speed limit offers the possibility of freedom from a life of hardship and deprivation. Nope. People just... do it. And yet speeding--especially if you go considerably above the speed limit (which, admittedly, not everyone who speeds does) makes you an actual threat to people--like, your likelihood of killing someone goes up. You know what doesn't increase your likelihood of killing someone? Crossing a border without papers in hopes of gaining work. So. No one who speeds should ever use "but they're breaking the law" as a way to condemn undocumented immigrants.

How's that for mood shift! Goldilocks has her head in her hands. Sorry, kid.

Current Music: Los Rakas: Lluvia

I'm making a T-shirt. On the front it will say, "I was a stranger" and on the back it will say "And you welcomed me." I haven't finished it yet, however, so I just carried a sign that said "Welcome Refugees."

I took a bunch of pictures, but this is my favorite:

This woman's message, at Alewife Station (on the way into Boston), was very moving:

"I am: Arab Irani American"

This looked like the rugs you can see in the prayer room of a mosque. They're set out by a statue of Phillips Brooks, an Episcopal clergyman.

"All Muslims are terrorized by this presidency"

A game of hat-steal going on

There are some more here.

Current Music: Imagine Dragons: Radioactive

Very moved by all the photos and reports I'm seeing from all over the United States and the world, and I'm very, very grateful to family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers who are out there. Thank you, everyone.

The work I've started to do with the kids in the nearby city led me to this video on gangs from the National Gang Center. Although it's got some drawbacks (the overall analysis strikes me as... obvious? But what do I know; it may be that these are points that bear stressing), one VERY strong thing it's got going for it is the comments from actual former gang members: powerful and heartbreaking, not to mention enraging on the young people's behalf.

Raul, for instance, describes being in fifth grade and having a teacher catch him rolling a blunt and telling him he had to leave the classroom.

We started exchanging words, and then she's like, "You're not gonna do nothing 'cause you're a little kid; you're not that type of kid." I told her, "You want to go there?" and she's like, "You want to try me?" So that's when I decided to get a book, and I threw it at her. And then she called the cops, and then the cop came and put me in handcuffs.

That's right. He was in fifth grade and he ended up in handcuffs. A ten-year-old child.

Marion describes how important a father's love is to a young man.

Not having my father around was a very hurtful thing because, you know, you want to have your dad and your ma around, but especially dad, because that's your biggest role model, your biggest idol as a child. That's the one you look to to teach you how to do different things as a man to become a man. So, me not having that around kinda like pushed me out to get the love from guys in the street. Not to say that it was necessarily that positive love that you look for, you know, that you want, but I was talking to a man, and any time a man can teach you something, a child something or a young man something, he's going to pay attention.

Karlo describes having to take care of his little sister.

It was just me and my little sister. I would just try to provide for my sister 'cause my mom was never home. So I'd cook for my sister, I'd clean for my sister, you know, wash her clothes, I washed my clothes, and just stuff like that. You know, we just started growing up together. And I mean, it was hard for us because sometimes we didn't have food in the refrigerator, and that's why I started selling drugs and doing what I did.

Iris talked about losing her love for school. (You can't see this in the still, but she has the most expressive face. There are her words, but then her face says even more.)

Elementary school? I used to love school. I used to always wanted to go because I didn't experience it while I was little, while my mom was locked up. So when I used to go to school every day I liked it. And then, in middle school, that's when I didn't like school, like, I don't know, me and school don't get along. I didn't like school, I didn't like the teachers, I didn't like nobody, you know? Like I always wanted to be by myself. The teachers didn't care about me neither. They used to tell me I wasn't gonna be nobody. They said like, "You're just gonna be nobody. You're gonna be pregnant, you're gonna have kids." I'd just be like, "Okay."

Karlo describes the guy--a gang leader--who took him in when his mother kicked him out:

There was this one time when me and my mom--she was just fed up with me. It was during Hurricane Ike, and my mom kicked me out the house, you know, and I ain't have nowhere to go. I just had a backpack on my back and a duffel bag, and I seen the leader out on the corner street, and he was smoking a blunt and stuff, and he was like, "Man, where you from?" You know, I never met him or talked to him or anything, and he's like, "Where you from?" And I'm like, "From Houston," and he's like, "No, I'm saying, what's your bang," and I'm like, "Nah, I don't bang nothing."

The guy asks him about his bags, and Karlo says he's been kicked out and was heading to the park, and the guy invites Karlo to stay with him:

He's like,"Well, you could stay in my house if you want. I got an extra room." And I'm like, "Man, I appreciate it," and he let me inside his house. And we was going to the same school, too, so we would go to school together in the morning, and I would hang out with him at lunch. He helped me a lot ... With him, it wasn't always just about gangs, you know. He gave me advice, like, "Man, why you stop playing baseball?" You know, like, "Why don't you try harder in school?" "Why won't you get a job," You know, like, "Don't mess with these drugs." That's why I appreciate him, you know? Because he brought me from nothing to where I am right now.

So, yeah. When parents and teachers and society at large aren't doing what they're supposed to, and someone comes along like that--I'd join a gang, too, in that situation.

The good news is that only around 10 percent of kids who join gangs stay in them for more than three years. All the young people in this video have left gangs and are doing good things with their lives right now.

I've started volunteering--just a little bit--helping high school kids with essay writing, both at my town's high school and in a troubled school district nearby. The kids at my local high school are relatively privileged (but still so various--one told me about moving from Maine, another about his Soundcloud page, another about being the child of Indian immigrants), the other are in a program for kids struggling to graduate for one reason or another.

That second bunch of kids--I love them so much already. They've picked some excellent research topics. One wanted to write about how miscarriages affect fathers (his girlfriend had a miscarriage). Another wanted to write about school lunches. Another, with Tourettes, wanted to write about Tourettes. Another wanted to write about the effect of cellphones and other electronics on kids in elementary school.

I want these kids to have the same chances that the kids at my local school have. They have so much good stuff to share with the world.

Here's the mighty Connecticut River. Just across it, over there, is where those kids go to school. See the water spurting and pluming through the dam? The city generates electricity from that.

Here are geese in the shoals.

And here's the view further down the river--well, two weekends ago. Most leaves have fallen now.

>

Here is graffiti under a bridge that crosses the river. Do you see the "RIP" on a piece of wood in the foreground? The dates were 1993 to 2016. My younger daughter's age.

Wake up, this graffito tells us. Are you sufficiently awake?

At the jail where I volunteer, there’s a small bookshelf next to the front desk that says “free books/libros gratis.” It has a varying mix of picture books through middle-grade books, and I try to drop off books there periodically.

So I was really excited to learn about An Angel for Mariqua, a middle-grade book by Zetta Elliott about a girl whose mother is in jail. Mariqua lives with her grandmother now, and she’s angry at everyone and everything, and also lonely. Then two good things happen. An old man selling carved Christmas figurines at a roadside stall gives her a beautiful wooden angel, and Valina, a high school student, takes an interest in Mariqua. Two sorts of angels.

Here’s the scene with the old man:

Even though it had been raining for most of the afternoon, the man wore no raincoat. Instead he wore a woolen poncho that had tassels along the edge. Bands of blue, red, yellow, and green ran across the man’s shoulders and met in a V near his waist. Even though it was cold and rainy outside, the stranger looked warm and dry. Mariqua thought he looked like he was wrapped up in a rainbow . . .

Suddenly one of the man’s hands appeared from underneath his rainbow shawl. His fingers were the color of caramel. He picked up one of the small wooden angels and handed it to Mariqua.

“For you.”

Mariqua held the angel in her hands. A long blue dress with golden stars had been painted on the angel’s wooden body. Two wings curled away from her narrow waist like petals on a flower. They, too, had been painted gold. The angel had thick black hair and deep brown skin. She had a tiny pink smile on her face.

Mariqua doesn’t have the money for it, but the old man insists she take it.

Mariqua’s first encounter with Valina involves Valina yanking her back onto the curb when she attempts to dash across the street. Valina’s quick move saves her from being hit by a bus—and then Valina calls her on her bullshit, as the saying goes, when Mariqua is rude in response:

“I just saved your life and you can’t even say ‘thank you’? Well, forget you, then. Your scrawny little behind can get hit by a bus, for all I care. And here--”

She thrust the wooden angel into Mariqua’s chest. “Take your stupid hunk of wood. Bad as you are, you need a guardian angel looking out for you.”

But then the next day at Sunday School, Valina encourages the teacher to let Mariqua be the angel in the nativity play, even promising to help Mariqua learn her lines.

The story follows their growing friendship, deepening as Mariqua gradually realizes the situation of Valina’s mother. By the end, Mariqua is able to offer Valina love and support when Valina needs it most. It’s a beautiful scene. And Mariqua sees her own mother in a new light, too.

I encourage anyone who’s interested in the issues of parents in prison, families disrupted by incarceration or in books by authors of color or indie books to give it a try. It’s a lovely book. I can’t wait to leave it at the jail, where hopefully someone like Mariqua can pick it up. But I may have to get myself another copy to keep. It’s a good book.

An Angel for Mariqua by Zetta Elliott.

You have to get a document signed at an activist organization in the center of Springfield. When you get to the destination, you see that there's no on-street parking. The organization is located next to a condemned building. Behind the condemned building there appears to be some parking, but it looks full. There's a Burger King across the street--one could park there. Further ahead, there seems to be a parking lot.

Do you (a) attempt to park behind the condemned building, (b) park at the Burger King, or (c) drive toward the parking lot?

If you choose (a), you discover it's full. You have to make a 36-point turn in a small space and exit, whereupon your choices are (b) and (c).

If you choose (b), do you (d) buy something at the BK (y'know, to make it legit that you're parking there) or (e) go straight to the activist organization? If (d), congrats, you get something yummy to eat. Now you're at (e). Hold that thought.

Or do you--as I did--choose (c)? If so, you discover that it's a permit-only parking lot for the nearby community college. However, there are **lots** of open spaces. Do you (f) park there anyway, or (g) go driving further afield?

If you choose (g), you get pretty far down the street and see that there's no place available AT ALL EVER. Oh, wait, but here's a charismatic church's parking lot. You could park here; it's not Sunday. If you choose to (h) park here, you have a long walk back to the activist organization (e).

I turned back around, however, and decided to park illegally in the community college parking lot (f). If you choose this, you observe that there's a parking lot monitor on duty. Do you (i) revert to (g) or (b)? Or do you (j) slink out of the car thinking, "Whatever, man, just ticket me." Or do you (k) decide to approach him and ask if he knows a place you could park legally? (Why would you do this? just do (b) and get the Burger King food! But (k) was my decision.)

"Well, you're obviously a student here," the guard says. Confronted with this misapprehension, do you (l) correct him or (m) let the misconception stand? If you choose (l), I can't imagine what he does. Does he blow up at you? Tell you to park at the (b) Burger King? Or maybe say, "Allll Right, JUST THIS ONCE you can park here"? Who knows. As you can tell, I went with (m). He told me where I could go to get a parking permit.

"But what about right now?" I said. "What should I do right now? With my car?"

"You can leave it here while you get the permit. But by next week they're going to be ticketing."

So that brings me to (e). I hadn't had a very good impression of this activist organization up to now, but when I got in the door, I was greeted by a whole bunch of really engaged, friendly seeming people, mainly people of color, not crusading white folks, which is appropriate for the location, and there were all sorts of useful-seeming handouts in pockets on the walls, and I got a very energetic, positive feeling from it. Which goes to show you how different an in-person impression can be.

On my way back, I didn't see the parking lot attendant, so there was no need to dig myself deeper into deception. I did, however, overhear this conversation:

Woman, rolling down car window, and directing her remarks to a guy who was helping repair the parking lot fence: "Don't be trying to pretend you don't know me, and then come round trying to kidnap my baby!" The guy said something I couldn't hear, and then voices rose, and I was thinking, "Yiiiiikes," but then the woman in the car was laughing, and the guy was smiling, and then the car drove off so . . . all's well that ends well?

I got a copy of the reply Head Start sent my student. Here's most of it.

It concluded by thanking her for writing and wishing her well on her HiSET (GED) exam.

**so happy**

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Asakiyume mita

Entries tagged with civic stuff

making things better

In Egipto--and some thoughts

Esmeralda Santiago

A Spanish lesson with Lucio

B'town one-community, no-hate picnic

Blessings

password

fights

Not at town meeting

The man with the chair

Irom Sharmila's new life

Also, the latest in osprey_archer's posts from the Society for

Two sounds and a thought

Copley Square Protest, Boston

Full heart

I'd join one too

across this powerful river

An Angel for Mariqua, by Zetta Elliott

An afternoon choose-your-own-adventure

Quote from the letter