Spring - Pay it Forward: Fall - Giving Back

When it comes to volunteerism, I've used lots of excuses to avoid showing up. With the Boys & Girls Club: I said Friday afternoons were a bad time because I had just finished my work week and didn't want to rush anywhere after wards. It also interfered with an occasional happy hour or date. The real reason I stopped going every week to assist with the knitting class was because the children there were difficult. Their playful traits were gone. They talked to each other very disrespectfully and did the same to me. The once a week interactions weren't enough for me to build bonds and I had the hardest time remembering their names. The young girls talked over each other, yelled to get attention, and really really tried my patience. I just couldn't make the connection. So I stopped going. On a good day I would tell myself that even if I didn't feel like it had been a positive day maybe one of the girls got a take away from it, but I was never convinced. I didn't see immediate results in improving the girls attitudes or their knitting, so I bailed. Maybe the guilt can't be read in those sentences, but let me infuse some here [guilt].

After my trip to Wyoming this summer with the Sierra Club, I signed up to Volunteer with Raleigh's Sierra Club's Inner City Youth Outings program. A program designed for Sierra Club volunteers to take Inner-City youth on nature outings. Yesterday, was the second one. The first one went off without my even second guessing why I volunteered, but yesterday made me wonder. In just six short hours I got complaints about one girl spitting on another, talking gossip about another, hitting, punching, pushing, talking back, I got head shakin', yelling, screaming, and an overall fear of a local park. Anytime we encountered another person on the trail one girl would say very very loudly, "Are they going to hurt me? I'm scared." I was out of my element. These tall and mature looking 11 and 12 year olds didn't know how to cross a stream or follow a path. Several times the question, "Are we lost?" was asked. If these truly were children half that age, I might understand but gingerly tending to the fears of a 12 year old about walking on the greenway was just a little more than I could handle. Not to mention that every dog that walked past us they had to run to and scream at and pet. Most the owners were great about this but I kept thinking, "Just ignore the dog." Wow - my attitude doesn't reflect a very "giving" spirit does it? My recollection isn't very empathetic. Well, these kids weren't nice to each other and totally avoided listening for the majority of the day - they pushed all my buttons and by the time I got home and talked to my brother on the phone I was thinking I don't ever want children of my own. Then I remembered that my cousins, when they were young, were never like that. The children I spent time with yesterday don't get the attention and discipline that my family's parental units provided. I hope they are at least getting the love, but I even doubt that. I wanted to show some love but the best I could do was let them stroke my hair and put their arms around my waist and give me hugs. I tried not to let them get to me but realized I'm not trained for dealing with other people's children. Sometimes volunteering requires some training. Especially working with children of which I don't understand where they are coming from. These kids don't trust anyone. No one is their friend. Every one is their enemy, and they've been raised to believe that other people hurt other people.

We had story time yesterday, after doing the stream clean-up, where each kid created a story about a piece of trash they found. Three of the four stories were about a girl needing medicine, not getting medicine and dieing without it. Disturbing - I know but either they couldn't come up with anything on their own and just repeated the story from the girl before, or these children's lives lack love, creativity, and inspiration.

It appears that these children don't hold grudges, so by the time we got back to the car they'd forgotten all the "rules" I had to enforce and were my pals again just trying to con me out of some pocket change. The main point is that they are still children and before my next outing, I'm going to try and discover how to communicate with them better because at this stage all I can do is play with them and give them my time.

Traffic

Yesterday I went to my first NC State football game and it was exactly how I imagined but bigger. The tailgating reminded me being at a music festival but with less ganja smoke and the crowd, well let's just say it felt overwhelmingly homogeneous. Maybe it's because everyone wears red to support the Wolfpack or because of all the men, but for a crowd of that size the diversity was low. To be expected; NC State is a predominately math, science, and agriculture college and the games draw alumni and current students - cheers! let the bud light and miller light overflowth. I did enjoy my company for the game. I've been growing closer to my dear friend Martha and yesterday I got to meet her mom, her sister, and her best friend. Her best friend is a Traffic Engineer and a pleasure to be around. Maybe she could do something about all the imbeciles that take Harrison Avenue to 40E everyday between 5-6pm ?!?! Truly a pet peeve of mine is when drivers don't use the length of the access ramp. I'm not sure exactly but I think the access ramp from SAS campus' exit to 40 must be at least three football fields in length and everyday I get behind some dumbass that brakes after the first 20 yards. Usually by the time I get ahead and make my way to the end of the access lane and merge to my right and then look in my rear view mirror I will see yet another poorly trained driver making the same ace move and witness the traffic as it backs up and down Harrison. If a Traffic Engineer were to study this phenomena I'm sure they would agree that less than 30% of all drivers know how to use a damn access ramp.