At Wilson, we talked about the death penalty. Colman is against the death penalty, and spoke about a slightly mentally retarded boy that was a minor and was spending time with a couple people who did some bad things and these people--a soldier and another man--killed two people after robbing them. He was judged to be one of those who had a main role, and was put on death row, still only a minor, and a low enough IQ to be considered slow. Colman got in contact with him while he was waiting for his execution. He learned that this boy, James Roach, had learned to read, and was teaching other inmates how to read. His skin was yellow because he didn't get to go outside enough. He asked Colman to attend his execution, but he didn't go, because he was against what was going on. Several years later, after Supreme Court Rulings made it illegal to sentence a minor or a retarded person to death, he met the governor of the state at a party, who was trying to promote his education program of the state. Colman told him that he sentenced a great teacher to death.
Two people in the class had family members that had been murdered. Jasmine, a girl that sat behind me, spoke of her uncle who was killed by a racist white man. The man plead insane, and escaped death row, she said. She said she was for the death penalty because it should be a life for a life.
Another student, I think his name was Andrew, said that his brother was murdered last February. He said the case was still open--they were still investigating, that thought the police had originally said he had committed suicide, they had found evidence that there was foul play. The difference was that Andrew didn't think his brother's murderer should die. He felt forgiveness was necessary and that we should not kill because it wouldn't bring someone back to life if we killed another person. It was hard, but really good to hear these perspectives. In my high school, I knew one person that had had a family member murdered. Here, there was two in a class of 25 students.
I met Tony at the bus stop on the way home from Wilson High on Thursday.
Tony is a worker at Safeway grocery stores, has a granddaughter at Wilson High School, and likes to wear the art of knitted scarves. He has done some sort of work with the people who put out those huge bins in the corners of parking lots, by helping the people receiving the items inside. He has compassion for the people who donate, those who volunteer to give it away, and those that receive it. He rides the H4 bus home at night, and knows which drivers will take a smoke and leave the people who want to get on the bus in the rain and which won't. He knows where to get new microwaves when the young workers at the grocery store accidently blow up the other one. He was very intelligent. When he said he worked at Safeway, I thought me meant like a program for schools, or for homeless people, judging on his knowledge of the programs going on around him.
Friday brought a different sort of schedule. I had spent Thursday afternoon hating bureaucracies because they require you to get your fingerprints done and TB tests to be taken to volunteer in a classroom. I emailed Colman about my frustrations, and he told me to show up at the school and just present myself to the point that I wanted to be there to help. So I did--I took the bus to Garrison Elementary and went in, but the man that I wanted to speak with wasn't available--he was working on report cards, so I left my contact information and told him I wanted to get in contact with him.
Then I rode a different bus home. The funny thing was that I didn't know how I was going to get home, so I decided to take the bus toward Fort Totten, to see if I could find to bus to Brookland from there.
On the way, I met Connie. She's a great grandmother, a retired lady with family all over the place. She has lived in DC all her life, and has a passion for children. Connie can always tell when someone moved to DC from some place south like Brazil, because she said one girl wore a thin jacket with a flowery dress in January. She said she'd always wanted to learn how to knit (I was working on Jasmine's scarf).
She was very kind, and I could tell that she cared about people in the community. She had an air of kindness, and concern. One young mana and his two children got on the bus, and she asked him how he was doing, she said that his mother had died recently and she was happy that he and all his siblings were staying together. I told her I lived in a suburb of Cleveland where there wasn't much diversity in the schools, then she told me that one of her sons lived in Wisconsin, and people always thought he was a football player because he was tall and black, and asked him for his autograph. She said she'd never seen a small town with so little diversity.
I got home and then putzed around for awhile. I contacted Emily to see if she was going contra dancing and then fanagled around trying to figure out how I was going to contra dance if I didn't have a ride, and ended up getting ahold of Ryan and going over to their house for supper and a ride.
I rode the Metro to Takoma Park and got there early. I had a lot of energy, and sat in the living room, knitting and talking to Fraya, who is Ryan's adopted daughter. She's sixteen and is mentally-disabled, likes shiny things and coffee pots. She really liked my circular knitting needles, and pulled my scarf off of them (which was fine) and then would suck on them and wiggle them it the air.
After awhile, dinner was ready, I got my needles back and continued to work on the scarf, and we had Tempheh (?), blueberries, brown rice, salad greens, peppers, and then later there was smoothies and muffins (from the dumpster). There were long discussions going on, because there was a prospective housemate, named Abi, looking at the home to see if she wanted to move into their intentional community. I met Adam, Jeff, Brett (who I had met last week), Rob, Mikyla, Noah, Megan (Mikyla and Noah are her children), and Mark, as well. It was great to know their names. People often mistake me for being part of the community when I am at the house--like last Sunday, and also yesterday, Abi thought I was part of the house. Brett is doing an internship in the White House, Mark is a reporter, Adam is going into Acupuncture, Ryan is a physicist (I already knew this), Megan is a nurse practitioner.
Contra dancing was a blast. I rode with Ryan, Brett, Mark, and Abi to the contra dance and then it was a blast. I get better every time. It seems shorter every time. I like dancing with the older men because they are intelligent and don't make weird eye contact. I danced with one guy, named David, who owns a music shop. It made me excited, and we waltzed and then talked about it. It was great. He's my facebook friend now! Dumpster diving was successful. We got bread, cheese, naan, mini pita breads, bananas (out the wazoo--an entire box full), organic apple slices. . It was great. Salsa... mmm.
I slept at their house. It was chilly, and I had a lot of blankets, but for some reason I didn't sleep very well. But either way, I got up the next morning, but was well-greeted, and offered coffee, which I accepted, and had a good cup of it, and then took the things that I wanted from the dumpster run in my bag and walked to the metro. It was snowing a lot, and I was in a really good mood. I kept saying "Good morning!" to everyone, and it was really funny how much snow heaped onto my head during the walk to the metro. When I put my sole dollar onto my card, there was a couple nearby that looked a little unsure about the machine, but they said everything was fine, and they were waiting on the platform when I got up there.
They asked me which Metro stop to get off of to go to the Portrait Gallery, which I went to with Andrew for the city scavenger hunt, so I told them, and even said where they should get out, and which way it was from there. Then we talked about everything--they were from South Africa and the U.K., which I could tell from their accents. They had toured through all the big sites in the cold frigid air. We talked about weather in London and Ohio, and DC. Their names were Allen and Marie. They were very sweet.
I walked home and cleared the steps, the back porch and sidewalk and the front sidewalk all the way to the bus stop off with snow. Too bad it kept snowing. and kept snowing.
The bus that we took to Target later in the day was twenty three minutes later than expected. I was afraid for getting back to the house late, because I was going to call Zach at three. We got back at 3:15, with everything we needed, and it was all good. I had a battle with the local access number, and eventually I just called the one through my phone, and it made sense. Then Zach and I got to talk. He originally said at the beginning of the conversation that he wanted to talk for twenty minutes. But we actually talked for fifty-four. Because my card had enough money.
And it was wonderful, and I miss him so much. There's really not words to describe how much it meant to be able to talk to him. The interesting part of all of it is that he got malaria this past week. It got really bad and he was sick to all get out, and went to the hospital and recovered, but I could still tell that his lungs were infected--he told me so, and he also was coughing a lot (which made me want to cry). And he lost twenty pounds. But he said that he spent the entire week thinking, and learning. He said that he's been studying 1 Corinthians, and related this passage to what he felt--"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put my childish ways behind me." (13:11). I could tell.
God's will for things always ends up better than what I imagined it to be. When Zach left for training, I thought that he would come back a little better, more mature, and then he'd go off to Africa and change a lot. He came back from training, changed, but in a really good way. Better than I expected. This is God's will for his life. I'm so excited for him. Now that he's in Africa, he's growing so much more, and I wish I was there to see it, to know what was going on, and I wish that I understood everything that he said, but I also know that when he gets back it will be better than what I expected, and God will keep working.
The last thing we talked about was communication. This was the hard part. What's cheap in America is expensive in Africa, and vice versa, so it's hard to send letters. But he told me to email. He also said that we can talk about all this for months and months when he gets back. The way he said it was hard. It made me really sad, but at the same time, it helped me prepare for the future. I can still write letters if I want. I will, I think. And send him some sour candies, and attempt to find something that resembles Mountain Dew so that he can enjoy it. It's just really hard to figure out what would be perfect to send.
But when we ended the conversation, even though I was sad, I could tell that he still knew me, and even though I was silent on my end of the line, he said, "Now I know this is the part you hate." Then we said Goodbye. And I was sad, but I trust god for our future, and I know that everything is going to be great.
Six months is not very much in the scheme of life. And I can't wait.
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