Neil's blog

Bye Gina

2007-05-12T19:47:00.000-07:00

Nowadays as soon as I enter the Opp Center and walk into the kitchen, I get some sort of news or another from Ellen. It's almost like she's waiting for me to get there just so she can tell me whatever it is that there is to say. One time it was the Jesse was no longer working there. This time it was much bigger: Gina has left the Opportunity Center and has started a new job.

This was a huge shocker. Gina was unquestionably the heart and soul of this place. It will never be the same without her here, in my opinion. As I've said before, to me she is the ideal person to work with homeless: tough but sweet, respected but friendly. Apparantly she took a job elsewhere for more pay. I can understand that, and I felt that people around the Opp Center did too. "Gina wasn't gonna be around forever" I heard one client say. George said he would have done the same thing if he was in the same position. Overall I felt that there was no resentment about it, just understanding.

Peter, the head of the center was around and I wanted to ask him about it. He didn't say much, but I did get Gina's number from him so that I could call her and say goodbye and wish her luck. Peter expected to find a replacement in a week. But honestly, there's no replacing Gina.

Other than that things were relatively calm. Not a lot of food available today, mostly just pastries and ramen. The supplies were awfully low... no sugar for coffee, not hot food to give out, etc. I helped George for a little while and talked more with Ellen. She told me about her 25 years teaching kindergarten and how she finally left over "philosophical differences" with the principal. Although it's cool to hear about her life and I think she's a good person, there's definitely something off-putting about someone continuously talking about all the good they've done. They are clearly reaching out for praise, and though I usually oblige, I definitely am resolved not to be one of these people. To me, the ideal is to serve, to do good, because that is one's nature. I want service to be in my core, to simply walk the walk and let everything else take care of itself. Like a rose which gives lovely fragrance... it gives something wonderful, just by its nature, effortlessly, unconditionally.

Harmonica Man

2007-04-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

This week I arrived at the Opp Center and immediately got the news from George that Jesse will no longer be working in the kitchen. Unlike the last time where I heard a staff member had gone to jail, this time it was good news... Jesse had gotten a permanent job with the Church as a painter ("buildings, not pictures" was Gina's comment). I felt happy for the guy but was a little sad that he wouldn't be around anymore. It also meant more work for me during my shift, which I hoped I could step into.

George and I did a full cleaning job of the kitchen. We closed the doors after kicking everyone out (which was hard to do since people cling to the place and often spend the whole day there, like a cafe). Once they were out George mopped while I cleaned all the counter and table tops. It was pretty hard work, and by the end of it I was tired.

After that I just hung around the kitchen serving black rice/spanish rice/pasta plates and also chatting with people in the courtyard. I ran into one guy named Bob. I'd never met him before, but he seemed like a very nice guy, one of those mannered and together people who you wonder how in the world they were homeless. As I was serving Bob a plate, he mentioned that he wanted help looking up a video on youtube, which I told him I'd do. We went into the computer lab and he handed me a card with a youtube video URL. I typed it up but unfortunately the flash plugin wasn't installed on the lab machine, and since you can't download anything on these machines, we were out of luck. This was my first encounter with the restrictiveness of the lab machines. A lot of the clients have been complaining about being blocked from a lot of content. I understand why they do this, but youtube? These people aren't reading slashdot, they just want to check email and be entertained. It brings to mind a message on the bulletin board I had seen some previous time I was in the lab, which said something like "Are you upset/frustrated with the restrictions on these computers? Then call this number to join a petition to allow for your rights to all parts of the web". Doesn't seem so bad of an idea anymore.

So unfortunately Bob couldn't watch the video. It turned out that it was a video someone had taken of Bob, who was a blues musician. Bob plays harmonica outside some restaurants in the area as a regular gig, and he wanted to check out a performance someone had recorded of him. I wanted him to see it as well... you could tell it was a source of pride for him. And the caption for the video said "...Just close your eyes, turn up the volume, and listen to some of the best New Orleans blues harmonica alive". I was very impressed and told Bob I was going to watch it as soon as I got home. I also told him I'd print out some copies of the URL which he could hand out on strips of paper to promote himself, which I'll bring to him next week. He smiled and thanked me 5 times.

Food And More Food

2007-04-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

When the Opp Center is busy, as it usually is on weekday mornings, there is almost non-stop action. All kinds of stuff is going on... the kitchen is buzzing as people saunter to the counter for food and plates are being warmed up in the oven and microwaves, the lounge and computer lab are full of web surfers, the courtyard is littered with groups of homeless people chatting, sitting around in the sun, etc. As I make rounds around the center, I say hello to the people, chat here and there with those who are up for it. Many of the clients know recognize me; though they don't know my name I got a lot of "hey there you are! Haven't seen you in a while around here!" comments, which feels nice. I like feeling a part of this place, and the people knowing me has a lot to do with that.

That also is true with the staff. Besides Gina, I'm now also pretty comfortable with George and Jesse. Although sometimes I have to swallow my pride and do menial undesirable tasks at the request of George and/or Jesse, overall we get along fine and I believe I have their respect.

A elderly lady, Ellen, was at the center today as a morning volunteer (on her way out as we got there). Ellen is sort of a fish out of water, a suburbanite Jewish elderly lady serving food and fraternizing with rough-edged homeless people. You can sense athe gulf when she interacts with people. Anyway, Ellen gets to talking to me about her story: she's a Holocaust "survivor" and her family escaped Nazi Germany when she was 4 years old. In reality, she never really saw much because her family "ran early" and avoided the struggles of many other Jews in Germany during that time. She framed her experience as a Holocaust survivor as a a bridge by which she relates to the people who come to the Opp Center. I thought it was a little naive, especially since she had basically avoided real trauma and instead had an immigrant experience. She brought up her experience frequently, saying how she understands discrimination, etc.

I worked in the kitchen for a while, making laundry soap bags, and handing out food. We had some hot food: fish fillet, pasta, and chicken wontons. Good stuff. Then some Stanford students came out with a bunch of sandwiches, chips, veggies, and a big tub of orange juice. So right after a lot of the clients (mostly the males) had just feasted on fish, then got right back in line for ham and turkey sandwiches. When I mentioned this to Jesse, he just looked at me and shook his head...

I had a run-in with one of the clients, Anthony. I was behind the kitchen counter and he had some food on a plate. He picked off the food and slid the plate to me a sort of rude way, and told me to throw it away. I told him he should do it himself, but he just walked away. Later on, I asked him why he walked away and he said, "Do you know who I am? I'm Anthony. Don't talk to me like I'm a child." I just told him I meant no offense. I am happy to serve him; in fact, that's why I come to the Opp Center, to help him and others out. But I will not accept disrespect silently. That's the message I hope to somehow get to Anthony in the future.

Another female client, who I call "diva" saw me and said "Hello Prince!" Diva is homeless but tries to dress stylish and walks around with a phone headset in her ear. She calls me Prince for some reason, and took me to meet another volunteer lady, who seemed sort of confused about why we were being introduced. I was confused to, but I think Diva just wanted me to meet this volunteer because she was brown, like me. A Opp Center love connection.

Diamond, another client with a perfectly shaped afro and who wears a bunch of jewelery around his neck and hands, was chatting it up with me. He and Jesse often talk about this or that sermon that they heard in Church. It's fun watching them, they get really animated about the sermons. Whenever I ask Diamond how he's doing, he says "I'm blessed".

Opp Center Feb. 21 - Spiritual Warfare

2007-02-21T17:00:00.000-08:00

This is my first posting of work in the Opp Center of the quarter. I've been sporadically going to my Wed 10-12pm time slot but I'm now going to try and get back into it regularly. I've also started, with Dawn, a computer skills training course in the computer lab. That runs on Mondays, and we had our first class last week. I will describe that in a soon-to-come post.

Today I came in and got to work in the kitchen. George was working there and shortly after I got there Jesse came in. George is a chubby black guy with short hair who mashes his words together, making it sometimes really hard to understand him. He had me get to work serving up some vegetable rice and pasta bowls for clients. It seems like Whole Foods comes a bit earlier in the morning on Wednesdays, and this food I was serving was some of what they brought. There were also nice bread loaves, bagels, and the usual fare of ramen and coffee, etc.

After the food, I helped Gina with laundry... I washed a bunch of towels that I guess were for the kitchen. I got my first chance with the laundry room, which is awesome. It was also my first real introduction to Philip, the guy who runs the opportunity center. He seems like a nice enough guy, maybe a little too business-like. I think Gina is the ideal personality for a place like this... a big heart, sweet person, but commanding of respect and stern when she needs to be. I also find it interesting that Philip, who seems to be of African (continent) descent, is managing a place with many African Americans as the needy clients. I wonder if some of the clients think, "hey, how did this African guy get to be the boss here? Don't they have it worse than me?"

The most interesting part of the shift was after I put the laundry in. Me and Jesse started talking religion and spirituality. Jesse is a big black guy with dreadlocks to his shoulders. He has a ghetto way of talking and a real raspy voice. In other words, a person you wouldn't expect to be into spirituality if you first saw him. Anyway, we got into it because he was talking out loud in the kitchen about how he had seen this video in church the other day. The video showed young children strapped with bombs and given guns talking about how they hated Americans. I gathered that it must have been something about radical muslims preparing for Jihad. He stressed how shocked he was to be seeing young kids who "were just ready to die" and "they weren't just thousands, this was millions" and "they were not playin'". After that we got to talking about how those kids got that way and that their minds must have been manipulated at very impressionable ages. He was reading a book called "Spiritual Warfare" and when I asked him about it we got to talking about religion. We talked about how minds can be poisoned to do and think evil things... I mentioned the horrific stories of Japanese soldiers in the Rape of Nanking. He told me the story of how he used to be homeless and a "nobody" and how one day he believed that the Holy Spirit entered him and rose him up to get his life together. He made some pretty deep comments about how he tries to "observe his anger" and can feel it rising inside of him and how he now tries to fight it.

We talked about religion and he said that "the world needs God more" and I countered by saying there's too much talking about God and how "we need to stop talking about God and start being God". This was a part of a series of statements about how I thoughtGod was inside each individual. I saw that it was hard for Jesse to accept that... whenever he talked about himself, he would insist that it was Jesus or God (something external) coming to him and releasing him from his actual bad self. We both agreed that religion wasn't in the Bible (which he had with him), that the book was just words and that real religion was experiential. He said emphatically, "you have to SEE Jesus" and talked about how one of the clients had visions of future events and that that was a gift from God to prove that God had come to him. He said something similar had happened to him, that he had experienced time when he knew God was present, like when he was on a bus recently and wanted to say something to a neighbor but held his tongue. Then that person made some comment that invited Jesse to say what he wanted to say... he interpreted that as God stepping in and requesting him to say what was on his mind.

My favorite thing that Jesse said was how he likened his spirituality to playing the Mario Brothers video game. He talked about how when he started playing the game he couldn't jump properly and couldn't "dodge things" but thanks to Jesus he could now play the game of dodging the evil inside of him effectively. He now had control over the game (himself).

When I was signing out, Gina repeated how I was a good and natural volunteer and that she liked that I had no agenda. As it happens, that's exactly true, and I told her, "my agenda is to serve." She said that's great and thinking that I was something special asked if I had a girlfriend. When I told her, she said "well that's good, and she's a really lucky girl". Yes she is!

Opp Center Week #7 - Kitchen Drama

2006-12-10T11:07:00.000-08:00

Working in the kitchen at the Opportunity Center is really intense, and this week was no different. When food is around, you see a different side of many of the homeless people. They turn from private, mysterious loners to aggressive, greedy, pushy consumers. This pattern is not across the board; some clients are quite calm and even considerate when food shipments come in. But the majority of the clients let their hunger empower their greed. This week I got a taste of it.

Since Gwendolyn left, I have been helping out George in the kitchen. George is himself homeless, but somehow got the job of running the kitchen. He is generally a good worker... though he doesn't keep things as clean and organized, he is generally on task and responsive. I would say he does a satisfactory job. One thing he does not have that I liked about Gwendolyn is that he doesn't pay attention to the details like she did. For example, small things like presenting the food nicely and keeping the counter clean make a big difference on how the clients treat the food and the kitchen in general, in my opinion.

Anyway, today we got a big shipment from Whole Foods. Several boxes of sushi, pastries, salad containers, cookies, and even a few sandwiches which are the gold standard. George starts putting out the sushi and I set out some pastries. George is not particularly concerned that people aren't asking for the sushi, but want to see what else is there. He just continues to pile up the sushi in a way that says "I am telling you what you're going to get, and right now it's sushi." Not very welcoming. He probably wouldn't have even put out the pastries had I not.

At some point a client asks for sandwiches, which he swears he saw in the cart as the food was coming in. He keeps asking George to look in the boxes for the sandwiches. George insists that there aren't any. Do you want sushi or not? The client keeps persisting, and so does George. I know something is up because I was pretty sure I had seen the sandwiches in a box myself. When I get a chance I ask George why he isn't giving out the sandwiches. He says he's saving them. When I ask for who, he says himself.

My first reaction was that that was completely unfair and selfish, but I didn't raise an objection. I'm not really sure if Gina knows/should know about George hoarding the best food for himself, because I wonder if it's something that is taken as a given. After all, George is in need as well. Regardless, George has his backpack in the back counter and is stuffing it with sandwiches and other choice items when no one is looking. There is also one of the clients on the other side of the counter who he hands a big garbage bag and keeps handing him food to put in it as he sort of stands off to the side, trying not to be conspicuous. I wonder if he is a hoarding partner, or is simply helping out a guy he knows.

Also noteworthy was that I got yelled at by a client today. It was the loud-mouthed lady whose name I don't remember at the moment. Anyway, she asked me for the margarine tub, insisting it was in the fridge. I looked there once, and didn't see it. She persisted that it was in there, and I told her it wasn't. Then I checked again and found it on one of the harder-to-see shelves. When I gave it to her, she yelled out "this is what a college education gets you!" and other such lines. Another client tried to stick up for me and to calm her down, but loud-mouth continued to yell and called her a bitch. I didn't take much offense, even when Gina came by and asked me if I was ok, as volunteers may take that sort of thing harshly. I said I was fine. Looking back on the incident, my only regret is that I didn't thank the woman who had tried to stick up for me.

Night Outreach Walk

2006-11-20T09:04:00.000-08:00

This week I missed my regular slot again due to comps, so I decided to "make it up" by joining the Night Outreach gang on Friday night. It was a small group: myself, Erica, Alex, Miles, and a MS student in Education whom I don't remember the name of. Let's call her Jen. None of us brought food and only Miles had a dining plan, so he went to a hall to load up on food that we could hand out. While we waited for Miles the rest of us started talking about our experience at the Opportunity Center. I got the feeling that not everyone was getting the exposure that I was... Alex mentioned how she files mail a lot during her shift, often because it's just not very busy. I consider myself lucky for having a pretty busy shift.

Miles comes back with bunch of food, including a couple burgers, hotdogs, and donuts. We all get in Erica's car and drive into downtown Palo Alto. Typically the group splits into teams of 2-3 and take areas of University Ave. to find people. Since our group was small, we split into two and took opposite sides of University. I was with Alex and Erica, two veterans of the night walk. Since this was my first time, I thought I'd let them take the lead, but they didn't seem to want to assume that role.

We ended up serving three people, Tom, Victor, and Wally. Tom wasn't very talkative, but the other two were. Victor was an older guy who had lived in Palo Alto for many decades. He took an interest in where I was born, because he said that a lot of people say they were from the Bay Area but aren't really. He said it was rare to hear of someone who was actually born in Montain View, which I guess makes sense. A lot of people think of themselves being from the Bay Area but aren't really from here, mostly because so many people come here from outside. But Victor just seemed to be proud of calling himself a Bay Area native. He was also quite polite. He asked each of us seperately our background. He asked me what I thought were differences between Berkeley and Stanford students. I told him it may be because of the bias that I wasn't really seeking to serve while at Berkeley, but it seemed like the students at Stanford are ironically more enthusiastic about service, such as the Night Outreach group. He said he agreed, that Stanford students are more generous. I wouldn't say I agree for sure.

Next we met up with Wally, a guy originally from Detroit who had come to California looking for a job. He complained about how expensive it was to live in Palo Alto, and that the $600 he had come here with had gone very quickly because renting a room was almost double from the $20 or so he would pay back in Detroit. He said he was planning on returning. When I pointed out that being here has its benefits, especially weather, he agreed, then added in my ear that the women here are better looking as well. He seemed very upbeat for being obviously poor and unhoused. One noteworthy point is that each of the people we served were very gracious with the food we were giving them. Unlike at the Opp Center kitchen where it's a mad grab and people get pushy, when on the streets these same people become a little more appreciative. When I handed Wally a hotdog, he unwrapped it and immediately started eating it. It was clear he was hungry. But then shortly after he stopped eating and told me that I had accidentally given him an extra weiner, and offered to give it back. I was blown away. Someone in such need practicing equity! I told him to keep it. It turns out that the weiner accidentally slipped out of the bun of Victor's hotdog, whom we had served earlier. I felt terrible for Victor, but we couldn't find him to give him more food and apologize.

On the street that night there happened to be a group of Hare Krishnas who were chanting. Our group had all met back up and were talking to one homeless guy when they came by. I explained what they were doing to the rest of the group, none of whom were familiar. The homeless guy we were talking to started getting into a spiritual discussion, expressing his belief that atheists were ignorant. I find it very interesting that most homeless, people who have so little, have such strong faith. I guess it makes sense because they need something to keep them going.

As we were walking back to the car, Miles, another veteran of Night Outreach, was telling his stories for the night. He had met with a woman whom he knew from before, who was drunk and wandering the streets. He recalled how she had not said a word to him for the longest time until one night some time ago when he met her on a walk he had gone with crutches due to a hurt leg. I told him it was definitely the heart that he showed serving even while hurt that probably got her to open up. Anyway, Miles was saying how on she was now a few months pregnant and struggling to find a place to sleep on a regular basis. Her boyfriend was demanding she sleep with him in exchange for letter her stay at his place, and though she told Miles she was determined to not go there, Miles sensed that she was resigned to going back there simply because she had no other choice. Very sad. Jen mentioned how it was so hard to hold back helping these people more than with the food we were handing out... that one person had given her the impression that she wanted Jen to put her up for the night. Jen said it was a good thing she didn't come with her car or money, since it makes it easier to say no.

I'm continuously impressed with the Stanford students I come across from this group and in general. They just seem very sincere and enthusiastic about service. Between this group and Engineers for a Sustainable World and a couple others that I have come into contact with, it just seems like there's a lot of energy towards doing good.

It made me think about something Paul Farmer talked about when he came to Stanford recently. Most research institutions like Stanford or Harvard (where he's from) are set up to do about 2/3 research, a little less than 1/3 teaching, and the rest service, in terms of resources allocated, etc. Essentially, these institutions are really set up well to create knowledge (research), and disseminate it (teach), and that's what they are good at. And these are great things. But he was saying that there must be a model change/paradigm shift to include service into the fabric of what the institution does, to allow students who are interested in service (and there are a lot) to become agents to effectively serve instead of simply going abroad with some program and being a "spectator to poverty." To train these students, a change in thinking must be made by the research institutions in their role in serving humanity. I found it encouraging to hear such a prestigious person making this challenge, and hope Stanford hears it.

Opportunity Center Week #5 - STOP

2006-11-20T08:06:00.000-08:00

This week I wasn’t able to make it on my normal Wednesday 10-12 slot due to comps. I instead dropped in on Friday to meet with the STOP people who were going to be holding a computer lab workshop later in the day. When I got there, the girls from STOP had set up a table where they had bread, cheese, meat, chips etc. for a sandwich “picnic”. It was awesome. All of the members of STOP (Students Taking on Poverty) were younger girls. They looked very innocent and bright-eyed and shy, but they did a great job serving. I learned a little bit about STOP talking to them. They are a new organization who was looking to do various service activities. This picnic was their first event. They have a person who will be coming in to give workshops in the computer lab. I’m not sure what they will be teaching, but Dawn and I plan on meeting up with him to discuss working together to build our tool to help clients connect to employers online.

I met up with Gina who was in the clothes closet helping some people. We started talking about my exams. She really seems to have an interest in my program, asking me often about what I'm studying and how it's going. Apparently her husband is also an engineer. Earlier she remarked to me how personable and social I was, which was a sharp contrast to her husband, who “wanted nothing to do with” the Opportunity Center. Too bad. I think he would be proud of how Gina conducts herself there. Gina also mentioned how she had considered, at some point, pursuing a PhD in philosophy. I would not be surprised one bit, she seems more than capable.

When I asked her how it went with the Wednesday rush without me this week, she mentioned that Gwendolyn was no longer working in the kitchen. She said something about how the organization she was working for redeployed her or something, but I couldn’t really follow. When I think about it now, it seems possible that their past issues may have played a role.

Right as I was leaving, I helped a young girl and her mother unload a bunch of toiletry supplies into the kitchen store room. Apparently this girl had run a drive at her junior high school to donate the supplies to the Opportunity Center. What generosity and initiative from the young girl. I was really impressed and told her she was really awesome for doing such a thing. When I was her age, helping others was one of the last things on my mind.

Opportunity Center Week #4 - Jackpot and Cadillac cont'd

2006-11-20T07:41:00.000-08:00

Today we got a "jackpot" delivery from Whole Foods, as Gwendolyn referred to it. Several boxes of pastries and packaged vegetables and dips, and multiple boxes of sushi. There was also an enormous box of really tasty red and green grapes. Because of the huge windfall, we didn't even regulate on the sushi... it was a complete free-for-all. After the rush, we still had tons of sushi, which we put in the fridge.

When I came in today I found that the computer lab had been set up, and people were inside using it. I was very excited and wanted to spend some time in there in case clients needed help. I told Gina, and she said it was fine for me to hang out in there. When I told her I'd also help Gwendolyn out in the kitchen if she needed it, she said it wasn't necessary and that she wouldn't need any help. I found that comment a little weird, since during the rush time, there's no way Gwendolyn could handle things alone. Anyway, one comment led to another, and eventually Gina went over to talk to Gwendolyn about how I will now be working in the computer lab instead of the kitchen, and that Stanford volunteers are not supposed to be helping her out because they work with the Opp Center and not Gwendolyn's organization, etc. It was all pretty unnecessary, and the episode made it clear to me that Gwendolyn and Gina had some issues. I could see that, since Gwendolyn seems a little hard-headed, much like the lady Thelma in New Orleans that was very set in her ways. Things seemed to be getting territorial at the Opp Center between the kitchen and the rest, but I assured Gwendolyn that she should just find me if she needed help.

The computer lab is really nice. The computers have fast Internet connections and they are set up nicely in a room with tables along all of the walls. In total there are about 7 machines, like a real computer lab. I hung out in there for a while, and told the people in there to ask me for any help they needed. But I was surprised to see that people knew what they were doing. I didn't get the sense that anyone who was using the computers needed any help/training, but I guess more investigation will be required to determine that for certain.

Cadillac was around so we started talking some more. He started telling me more about his family and his background growing up in Texas, which seemed pretty normal. He had a father that he looked up to and respected, lived in a house with brothers and sisters, etc. I don't think I got to understand how he became unhoused and living in Palo Alto. He mentioned that the land his family owned in Texas has an oil rig set up on it, and the oil company maintains the equipment and gives the family money for the oil extracted. Caddy gets checks every once in a while for about $22. That's really low, and I wonder if the family is being taken advantage of.

Continuing with the theme of spending money on unnecessary items, Cadillac showed me the paperwork for his novelty license plate, "OG Raidr", which he hasn't been able to claim because of unpaid parking tickets. Caddy has a trailer or some storage container attached to a truck, which is his main possession. He talked about how he has all of his clothes arranged in shelves in the trailer for easy access. He said he chooses to live in his car instead of with a sister and her boyfriend because if he goes there to charge his cellphone, they would make him pay part of the power bill. It's interesting how people living on the line economically pay attention to every penny of expense.

When I asked him about how/where he sleeps, he talked about a time when he used to sleep in the little corner behind a Carl's Jr. drive-through window. He joked that it was a good spot because he would get a wakeup call when people came through for breakfast. He now sleeps in a supermarket parking lot, where I presume he parks his vehicle. He said he had relationships with most of the workers at the market, who all know him and let him be. He did have to avoid a certain supervisor, however, that gave him a hard time. I wonder if homeless people ever get a good night's sleep when they're always on the lookout for someone harrassing them or telling them to move, since they have no property of their own. I wonder if they even know what it means to have a good rest.

As I was getting ready to leave I saw a long line outside the clothes closet. Apparently people were waiting to get winter coats that had been donated. The jackets were nice, hooded with the water-proof microfibre like material, and thick. They were all identical, black jackets. I smiled to myself thinking that the homeless in PA will all be wearing that jacket this winter, almost like a uniform for "Team Homeless." I wonder if they would respond to that idea with pride or shame.

Opportunity Center Week #3 - Cadillac

2006-11-19T23:50:00.000-08:00

Today was another very busy day in the kitchen. It now is clear that Whole Foods does a regular delivery during my shift, and that draws a rowdy mob to the window. Most of the clients know that the food's coming in so they hang around, waiting.

Typically Whole Foods gives us several boxes (about 2 hauling cart fulls) of pastries, packaged fruits and vegetables, dips, and soup, as well as fruit on occasion, and of course, sushi. We lay the pastries out on large cookie sheets for people to just come and pick up. Sushi is dealt out by us by hand, since it is a hot ticket item and we want to prevent hoarders. Each person only gets a single sushi pack. One lady asked if the fish on her sushi could be cooked in the microwave. Although it seemed to work, the kitchen ended up smelling for a while. We decided to not make a habit of cooking people's sushi for them.

Today I got to spend some time with Cadillac, who had dropped into the center. I first met Cadillac a couple weeks ago at a Night Outreach event on campus, called "dinner with the homeless." Dave "Cadillac" Wormley and a few other local unhoused individuals came in and gave their stories about what it meant to be homeless. Caddy asked a series of interesting questions to us (the students) including "what would you do if you were homeless right now?". The best I could come up with was to contact friends/family near whereever I was for immediate help. In the medium term, I would stay with a family member until I found a job, which would be my first priority since it will allow me to get on my own two feet.

The other big idea he brought up was that he wanted to set up a system to connect unhoused but skilled people like himself with potential employers. For example, Caddy is a bicycle repair expert, and he would like to publish that for private or business people to see. The group brainstormed about potential solutions, and we considered the idea of possibly designing a web-interface, as well as working with Craigslist. Another volunteer, Dawn, was really enthusiastic about making it happen, so she and I will begin a needs-finding investigation to see if we can come up with a solution that works for the local unhoused individuals (as well as potential employers).

Anyway, Cadillac was there today during my shift, so we starting talking about what's been going on with him. One thing I noticed immediately was that he seemed different than he did at the dinner, where he seemed a lot more formal and proper. At the Opp Center, where he's in his element, he was much more loose and open. We talked about his cell phone, which he really seems to prize. He recently purchased a headset for it, which he was proudly sporting, and talked about how he wanted the wireless kind but couldn't afford it. Although it seemed to me that he wanted to buy it anyway. He also showed me all the features on his cell phone, where he has subscription to ESPN content. He can view all kinds of sports stats, news, and even video highlights all on his phone. I thought this was all crazy given that he doesn't even have a home, but I held back my judgements. The easy reaction is to call Cadillac wasteful of his resources since he's poor and should have better uses for his money. But I think it comes down to human nature. Rich and poor, all people are irrational to some extent, lack discipline. I think that Cadillac having sports on ESPN or buying beer (which he had in his bag) are just ways for him to feel more normal or satisfy his own guilty pleasures/psychological needs. I think he's smart enough to know when to draw the line, so I think it's ok.

He also talked about his family, which seems pretty big. Most of it is back in Texas, where they even own property that his father had passed down. He spoke about his family and his father with a lot of pride. It also was apparent that Caddy is a pretty intelligent guy. His nickname "Cadillac" comes from the fact that his father drove one and so did he, and he knows a lot about cars in general. He also knows a lot about bicycles. Currently he is working as a bicycle repairman, from what I understand. He's been fixing bikes for 30 years, and it is clear that he knows what his stuff. I take him to see my bike and suggest improvements. He talks about re-painting it and also ways to get a chain guard on it, which I was told by the bike shop was impossible without paying a lot of money. I hope I get a chance to get Cadillac to work on it for me.

I hung out with Michael for a while. He's just a quiet guy who everyone seems to respect. He also seems really smart, almost like he's educated but just decided not to try in life. When I ask Michael where Rodney is, he tells me that he had broken parole earlier and was now back in jail. I was taken aback by that a little. This was a guy working with me, and though I thought he was a little shady, found him to be pretty nice and would probably have trusted him. Apparently he got caught stealing.

While me and Michael are talking, an older guy in a wheelchair named "Quasar" comes up and starts chatting with Michael. Quasar has a boombox and is playing some 60s Temptation-style music. Really nice stuff. It looks like he records radio onto a cassette for his own use, something I used to do a lot when I was young. Anyway, he has this song that Michael's "just got to hear" by the Dramatics. I don't remember the song's name, but it was really nice. I throw in that the Dramatics did a song with Snoop Dogg once, "Doggy Dogg World". Michael doesn't believe me, but we get it verified by someone else.

Opportunity Center Week #2 - Kitchen Duty

2006-11-19T23:46:00.000-08:00

This week I helped Gwendolyn in the kitchen for most of the day. Gwendoln is a short-haired, no-nensense black lady sent from another local service organization who apparently will be running the kitchen during my shifts. We were serving burritos that we would warm up in the microwaves, pastries, and the everyday noodles, oatmeal, etc. In the middle of the day we got a bunch of stuff dropped off by Whole Foods: salads, fruit bowls, rice bowls, and the grand prize, sushi plates. Apparently they are a hot item at the center. I was shocked at how much really high quality food they were just giving away... these are items yuppies in PA routinely overpay for at the market. It felt great seeing the clients take the food. I got the impression that some of them come to expect to get such luxury items... not very humble or grateful.

Towards the end of the day Gwendolyn and I are talking about how a few of the clients come in and just eat all day. She was bothered by these people and showed frustration at having to serve them. Then she got into how she herself had been homeless for 7 years, so she knows what it's like to be in need. That's why she had little tolerance for the greedy people. The conversation got emotional and she even shed some tears relating her story of her past. As I could not possibly relate, I just nodded and tried to understand. Still, I personally do not feel compelled to treat the greedy clients different than the humble ones. But since I was in Gwendolyn's kitchen, I didn't want to undermine her. For example, at one point she told people we were "out of water" because she was tired of clients taking the jug she would fill from the sink tap and pouring a bunch of it into their own large containers. I thought this was ridiculous, given that there was a faucet right there in the kitchen. But not wanting to cross her, I turned a few clients down. Later, I regretted it when Gina came by asking why clients were being denied water.

One client picked up a burrito from the tray and while unwrapping it asked me what was in it. When I told him it was bean and cheese, he suddenly got mad that there was no meat and threw it in the trash. I told him he shouldn't be wasting food like that, and he said that he couldn't put it back since he touched it. I told him with some firmness that that's fine, but next time ask before touching the food. He sensed that I was upset, but I told him I wasn't mad at him, but mad that food had been wasted. He thought for a while, then came back and thanked me for "putting him in his place." He said I was right, that he shouldn't be wasting food and sometimes he needs someone to be firm with him on these sort of things.

Opportunity Center Week #1 - Orientation

2006-11-18T18:15:00.000-08:00

This will be the first of a series of posts about my volunteer work at the Palo Alto Opportunity Center. I signed up for the work through a group at Stanford called Night Outreach, which I originally saw tabling on campus when I first started school. Night Outreach refers to a weekly walk on Friday nights where students gather some food from their dining halls where they have meal plans and go out on University Ave. and hand out meals, spending time with the homeless and trying to connect. I thought the idea was cool, though I found it a little odd that the walk was on University Ave., where it is super rich and not a place where I would guess a lot of homeless/needy people would be hanging out. Why don't they walk in East Palo instead?

Anyway, at the first meeting, I also signed up for two hours of volunteer work at the Opportunity Center, which is a new drop-in center off of El Camino near the Palo Alto Caltrain station. My thinking was that this would be a great way to engage with the underside of my local community, and to bring in some regular service in my schedule.

Below is what I wrote to Paul, the president of Night Outreach. Paul is a really mellow guy, a grad student in philosophy who is exploring spirituality. At the first meeting everyone was asked to describe someting unique about themselves as an icebreaker, so I talked about my Vipassana experience. That piqued Paul's interest, so we later met to talk about religion and spirituality. But that's for another blog entry. Here is what I wrote to him about my first week:

As I'm approaching the opportunity center, the first thing I notice is that the building is really nice. It is clear that it is newly built. When I got to the center I asked to speak with Gina, who is the volunteer coordinator for Stanford and also runs the day-to-day operations at the center. I expected Gina to be an old lady, but was surprised when I saw the young woman behind the desk.

Gina is amazing. She's that rare person whose heart is so big that you can just feel it by being around her. She seems middle aged, with straight black hair and baggy skater jeans. She had that rare ability to command complete attention/control/respect of the people at the center while at the same time being loved by everyone. Although she has to be disciplinarian sometimes, you can tell that the people at the center really appreciate her. For example, when I would be talking to her, if a client approached and asked her something, she would say something like, "excuse me, I'm having a conversation with Neil right now. You are being rude. I'll be with you in a minute", and then quietly ask me to continue. And the clients, often big gruff men, would comply comepletely! This sort of command and assertiveness (but without any anger or hate) is what impressed me most about Gina. And unlike others, she has that unconditional compassion for the people. She's not there just because it's a job. I get the feeling that she would work there for free and nothing would change (if she's not already doing that).

Before I even get to introduce myself to Gina, someone in the common area yells that someone is having a seizure. I follow Gina outside and help the man up. I'm told to walk with him to the exam room and stay with him. The man's name is John. He is pretty new to the center. I got to talking with him and made my first connection. He had lived in SF (not Tenderloin) for a long time before coming down to PA. I got him an orange juice from the lunch truck parked next to the center and talked with him in the sun. I told him his breathing was erratic and he should take deep breaths. He said it helped. Some time later, merely hours after suffering a seizure, he was smoking a cigarette. When I asked him about it he said, "I can't quit" and shrugged his shoulders.

I got a tour of the facility and met the kitchen staff. I noticed that there was a computer center but it wasn't hooked up... I hope I can get a chance to teach basic skills to some of the clients.

Most of the rest of the time I spent talking with Rodney (a staffer at the center), Michael (a client, black guy with a bad leg who limps around), and the regular health worker/nurse Diana. We were just cracking jokes, laughing. It was fun. I asked Michael if he would like it if I could teach him how to use a computer in the lab. He replied that he doesn\'t know how to read or write. That caught me off guard completely. I came back by saying I could at least teach him to play games, just to pass time.

Exit Interview with myself

2005-10-27T22:48:00.000-07:00

The last couple days were relatively uneventful. Here is a brief highlight reel:

There is a family of dolphins on the Seabee base that I finally went to go visit. Their story was pretty remarkable. They were a group of 8 trained dolphins that had their marina flooded during the storm surge, putting them out to sea. Being domesticated, they were sitting ducks out in the open water so there was a frantic search during the days following. Sure enough, a search team found them all together with minimal injuries. They are currently being kept in what seems like really cramped conditions in 5-foot deep pools on the base premises, but I think that they looked pretty happy. Their trainers seem pretty nice.
Along with Red Cross volunteers, there is a group of Scientologists staying at the shelter. I finally approached one and asked the "volunteer minister" about why they were in MS. She said that the Scientologists believe their religion has something to offer people who have recently been involved in highly traumatic situations, like Katrina. Their "technology", called Dianetics, is supposed to be an effective way to cope with the mental shock. I further engaged her in the basis of Scientology and tried to get at what the religion was all about. My conclusion was that it was it was a complete clone of Hinduism. There didn't seem to me any unique aspect to its teachings. One of the books talked about how Scientology was influenced by the teachings of the Vedas, but it was a better solution to the problems of the "rampantpoverty" in India that Buddha later attempted to eliminate by "civilizing the continent". A bunch of balderash. I didn't really want to get into it with the lady so I just left her telling her that the only difference I could see was in the name.

The day before you leave, volunteers are required to go into HQ and "outprocess". Part of it includes an interview with a Mental Health counselor, who assesses whether you had suffered any sort of mental trauma from the experience. I wanted to get the thing over with asap, so I gave her a bunch of generic answers. But I wanted to record some of my actual feelings to the questions, which will mostly be of benefit to me (so please skip if you are not interested in my personal reflections, which is understandable):

Q: What did I learn from this experience?

Several things:

I don't like blogging

It was a worthwhile experiment to have this blog for my trip, but in general I'm not happy with it. I had an idea of using it to log episodes in my adventures, but I found that simply relating the events was somewhat empty without adding my own thoughts/emotions. Yet I wanted to avoid that as I'm always weary of revealing all my thoughts which may be misconstrued or offending to others. I'm also sensitive to the proliferation of blogs today and the myriad of opinions they release to the blogosphere pawned off as news or fact. Finally, the scariest thing of all was that often times during my day I would think about what I'm doing and how it will be framed into my blog later. I believe Sameer touched on that idea in his own blog. That's a problem to me because I don't intend the events I record here to be some sort of play or performance. That would totally taint the service experience.

In general, I'm torn between defining this blog as an online diary and a dry timeline of my life. Neither is that appealling to me, so until I find a balance I'm discontinuing this blog.

2. I am weak, weak, weak...
...mentally and spiritually. This experience has exposed so many of my deficiencies, which I don't care to elaborate on here. I'm plenty aware of them, and that's all that matters. I feel that I have so much room for improvement, especially in terms of my approach to giving. I haven't cultivated the ability to give with a pure heart, and thus I still have an empty feeling after this act of service. Right before I left, I tried a couple other experiements in giving to see how I felt. I tried to pull the Nipun-like "give away all the money in my wallet" act, but I couldn't find anyone who would accept the money (about $80, and I had to give it indirectly by asking other volunteers to find a worthy cause to put the money towards, since I wasn't going back out to the field). Next I spontaneously gave a way a bunch of clothes I had brought on the trip (including a few items I was particularly attached with) to a volunteer friend who was working at a Red Cross shelter that was trying to gather some supplies for its residents. I could lie and say it made me feel the joy of oneness with humanity, but it really didn't.

Probably the single greatest inspiration in my adult life has been the teachings of Swami Vivekananda. I have the 8 volume set of his complete works, but it was taken me a year (and counting) to put down just the first volume. His message just really resonates with me, and I find myself reading a chapter, thinking about it for a few days or even weeks, then going back and re-reading, etc. Just a very deep message. Anyway, after bittersweet experiences such as this I am always buyoed by his message:

"Freedom is never reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself."

"To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverence, tremendous will. 'I will drink the ocean' says the persevering soul, 'At my will mountains will crumble up'. Have that sort of energy, that sort of will, work hard, and you will reach your goal."

3. People in the South need sustained aid.
I've mentioned it in a previous post, but people here are just plain poor. Hurricane or not, they need help. Driving back to the kitchen from our run one night, Jo said something interesting: this place has been struggling since the South lost the Civil War. You can trace their plight to the 19th century, when their economy was entirely dependent on slave labor. Since then they've been behind the rest of the country in terms of creating economy and have never caught up. For example, I still have little idea of what people did for work around Bay St. Louis. My best guess is that they worked in the tourism industry at the casinos. But there is no real opportunity here. This year I got to know a new area in Computer Science research: IT for developing regions, which targets rural areas in third world countries. After visiting MS, I think there needs to be IT for developing (United) States too.

Q: Do you think you made a difference here?

A: Honestly, not really. My work wasn't critical... The operation would have carried on fine without me.

Q: In what ways could Red Cross ops improve?

A: There were a lot of things I had a problem with in the way the operation was run. You would be a fool to come here and see what's going on and not be a little concerned with the inefficiencies and misjudgements. I will say to RC's defense, though, that disaster relief in this magnitude is a very difficult undertaking, and I commend them for all of the work that has been done. Clearly they are providing essential aid for many people, and more than that extending a hand of compassion to people who have seen more hard times than most in this country.

I think the deepest problem is the attitudes of the volunteers. In general the spirit is not selfless, it's selfish. People are grumpy, they fight and argue, talk behind backs, complain about this and that including the clients, charge up unnecessary personal conviniences on the free Red Cross debit card, etc. People forget what they're here for, which is to serve. The pure spirit of service is just lost. People are all good hearted and they should be commended for their efforts, but they are expecting something in return which taints the whole act. I believe this is an unsolvable problem for the RC. They are too big and rigid an organization to influence the attitutdes in a uniform and lasting way of all its volunteers.

Q: What's next for me?
A: Easy. I've had an intention of going on Vipassana mediation retreat for some time now. Hopefully this winter.

Farewell tour and New Orleans

2005-10-25T07:51:00.000-07:00

** Note: I realized recently that I had set my blog to not accept anonymous comments to my posts. I have since turned that setting off, so feel free to comment without having to create your own account. Thanks to Choks for pointing that out.

Today was my designated "day off", along with Paul, Catherine, and George. The four of us decided to take one of the rentals out to New Orleans to check out the city. But since it was no more than an hour away, and there wasn't much to do, we were going to leave in the afternoon. That left the morning to work. I decided to ride on 3059 with the morning crew so that I could say goodbye to some of my people. Jo, the lady who I have been training to take over for me, called me a "good man" for doing it, because the morning driver Thelma was getting on everyone's nerves and no one wanted to ride with her. I don't think I've ever been called that before in a serious manner. Jo's a very interesting lady, and I'm going to miss her. The fact that I had her respect meant a lot to me because she was an accomlished volunteer herself. Back in Missouri she cooks all of her food from scratch, including churning her own butter and grinding her own wheat. Her husband's an engineer for a NASCAR pit crew. These are just some random facts to help me remember her.

The farewell run was nice. The few people that I had "bonded" with were very warm. Most shook my hand, gave me a "God bless you" and told me they really appreciated me coming down. MS Baa gave me more beads and a hug. She told me to "stay focussed and on the good path". Just like my Baa would say.

New Orleans was really interesting. It is right on the Misssissippi River, which I expected to be much bigger (it was no wider than the mighty Sacramento River). They skyline was nothing fancy. Most of the buildings downtown didn't seem that badly damaged at all. The Superdome had a bunch of visible water damage on the roof, but in general it looked decent. It was also not nearly as large as I thought it would be. Apparently the French Quarter had recieved a foot of water, but that was about it. About 35% of the businesses there were open. But almost all of the bars and restaurants on Burbon street were open. In general it didn't seem too damaged. Jo had told me that New Orleans had gotten it much worse than Gulf Port, but I haven't seen the destruction at the level of what was back at Bay St. Louis. Driving up to the city, you could see destroyed buildings and smell some mold, but it wasn't flattened like it was in Waveland, for example. I think that the higher population density in NO meant that more people had been affected (and much of the area's population were elderly, something like 50%), but the damage to the area itself was probably less severe than Mississippi.

The Fench Quarter had a very unique feel. The streets had interesting architecture with a look that you would expect to be similar to a city in France. There were mostly standard souvinier shops, and a ton of bars and places to eat. We stopped at one bar that had live music. The band was really amazing... the electric guitar player and singer (who played trumpet for some songs) were awesome. They played some BB King, but they also seemed to perform a few songs they wrote about the hurricane (it was hard to make out all the lyrics). One really nice, emotional song had the chorus "Louisiana! You're gonna wash us away... you're gonna wash us away..."

One store we walked into was particularly noteworthy. It was an antique guns and coin shop. They were mostly from various periods in American history, but they also had coins that had come from the Greek civilization, etc. The item that immediately caught my eye was a display of old slave documents from the South, including titles of ownership of "young negro boy", etc. There were several of them, and they were for sale at a price of between $700-1000. I was shocked. It seemed really wrong that such a dark relic of this country's past was for sale. Who buys this stuff? I actually asked the store's owner, and he was sort of vague, but said that (individual) people travel the country collecting such documents. I was expecting him to say museums or something like that. I immediatley left the store, disgusted that this guy was selling such a thing. Apparently there are still people in the South profitting off of slavery.

We had dinner at a really nice restaurant. The food was amazing... I had a dish called stuffed Redfish that was outstanding. It was nice enjoying the company of the three others. I had an interesting conversation with Catherine about the ridiculously bleak situation of the Philadephia public school system. I was trying to push her to get some insight about whether there was something I could do to help from a technology standpoint for when I begin grad school. I suspected that the root of the problem was economic, but I intend to look into it further when I can.

As we were driving home, the last thing I remember in the car was that the road was really dark. When I looked around I realized that none of the homes along the freeway had power, and the streetlights weren't working either. Two months and counting without electricity for NO residents.

Route restructuring?

2005-10-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

Today we finally were able to give feedback on the needs of people on our route. "Little John", the one true leader at my kitchen, called a meeting with all the ERV drivers to get information on what's going on with people in the area. A lot of drivers on other routes seemed to indicate what I felt with my route: People are starting to stand on their own feet, and although our meals are greatly appreciated and some depend on them daily, they have become more convinience than necessity. One route stops off at tent Wal-Mart, and there he said they served people who grab a meal on their way out of the store with a full shopping cart. I was glad to see that this information was filtering up to decision makers, although I am still not sure how quickly action will be taken (do route changes need to go all the way to Red Cross central command for approval?) Back at camp, I ran into Mike who said that Kitchen 7 will be merging with 34 to consolidate routes. This may be an indication that the response to feedback will come sooner rather than later.

One issue brought up by a driver in my kitchen, Cook, was in regards to workers. Currently the policy is to feed anyone who asks, including construction workers who happen to be working in the area of our routes, but the point was raised that some workers are given money to get their own meals. Cook stated that although they have money, many have nowhere to buy meals out in the field. Additionally, there are large groups of hispanic workers coming into the area who speak little English that aren't being fed by their bossess sufficiently. I noticed the same thing the other day on my run, when we fed about 15 hungry-looking Mexican workers out in Kiln.

As for route 3059, I told John the truth: The people I serve are mainly taking meals as a convinience. I hope the route shuts down to divert resources to others in deeper need. Jo, a grandmother from Missouri, joined the kitchen yesterday and I took her on to replace me when I leave. She's another veteran volunteer, having run several kitchens on previous disasters. The one thing she had never done was ride on an ERV, but being that she had so much experience it felt a little awkward training her. She should be running the kitchen. Anyway, Jo was adamant that our route was a pure convinience feed. She pointed out that when you have people who ask you what's being served before making an order, you know they are not in desperate need. On the other hand I hate to be the one to break it to my people. Most likely I won't be, since my last day on the route is probably tomorrow.

Other than that the only noteworthy thing that happened today is that MS Baa came out with two huge Mardi Gras bead necklaces for me when we stopped at her place today. She had brought them for me from her house in New Orleans, which she said was pretty much unsalvagable. I understand they are friendship beads, and you're supposed to pass them on to another friend, who passes them on, and so on. Maybe they'll make their way to each of you back in CA.

Church

2005-10-23T10:21:00.000-07:00

This morning Catherine was going to drive out to the beach near our kitchen to show a new volunteer the damage over there, and although I had already seen it I decided to come along. There was nothing to do at the kitchen anyway. We eventually made our way back to old town Bay St. Louis, which I had also already seen. At the Baptist Church where we make a delivery there happened to be Sunday church service going on. Just as we were leaving I told Catherine to stop the car. For some reason I felt compelled to sit in on the service for a while, so I got out and told her I'd meet her back at the kitchen later on.

The church was a full house, perhaps 80 people. I think every other person there was white. The church itself had recieved damage from the storm... one of the walls was ripped out from water damage. But in general it was in better shape than most buildings in old town. I walked in during a song (hymn?) which was really nice. There was some sort of horn (sounded like a trumpet), piano, and guitar playing behind the singing (the band was out of view from me in the front). I think the most outstanding characteristic of the music was that it was very melodious. After the music, the next thing I noticed were the people around me. Some were in tears, others were singing devotedly with their eyes closed, even young kids.

After the song the pastor (dressed in plain clothes) announced that a new family had joined the community/church, and invited the father to give his story. It was odd that a family was actually moving into the area, so I was interested. It turned out that the man had a few successful construction businesses in another part of MS, but one day he had a calling from God to "build houses for free." He then went about doing that for some time, when Katrina hit. He saw it as a sign to come to Gulf Port and help out. After spending some time here, he decided he needed to stay and thus moved his whole family down. It was a pretty touching story to listen to. He also said how "the voice of Christ was there, I just never listened to it." He read some passages from the Bible that inspired him to make the decision, but got too choked up and couldn't finish. It was very emotional, and it actually brought me to tears. After his testimony, there was more singing but I left. Later on I regretted not staying till the end of the service to mingle with the congregation, but in retrospect I think I left because I couldn't handle the emotion.

Back at the kitchen I was sitting around when a young black kid wandered in. The security guys who NEVER do anything walked all the way across the kitchen to question him. Luckily I was nearby and asked the guy himself if I could help him out. His name was Lorenzo, and had come looking for medicine for a cold. I told him we didn't have any, but told him he could take some water, tea, and a box of oranges. I walked the stuff over to his place which was just across the street. His house looked like it hadn't been completely built. Inside there was just an empty space and it smelled like some chemicals.

I'm recording this encounter for two reasons. One, because I felt some friction helping this guy out at the kitchen from other volunteers. Walking around with him, trying to get stuff for him to take, I felt that people were staring. One volunteer indirectly asked me to give him the canned water (he had a supply of filtered water that came in aluminum cans, but it sucked because it tasted like its container) instead of the bottled. The other reason is that I think that there are plenty of black people around the area that need help, but it's partially their fault that they aren't getting any because they aren't asking. I told Lorenzo to tell everyone he knew that we were there for whatever we could help them with. But I can see why he hesitates to ask for help... there is some impalpable friction. But it could just be me.

Sharing stories

2005-10-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

Today there were a few noteworty events from my run. It was Good Ol' Mom's (the lady that baked us the pie) birthday, so we presented her with a potted flower and some cookies. She was flattered.

Mississsippi Baa gave me a gift to give to my India Baa... a little charm/ornament angel. I couldn't believe it. She said that she wanted to thank my grandmother for sending me out here to help her out. It turns out that MS Baa has a home in New Orleans that was badly damaged, and was going there tomorrow to check it out. She said she was going to bring me back some more stuff, related to Mardi Gras.

This was the last night for my Mercury coworkers who had also come to volunteer. They wanted to go out for dinner, so we drove into Gulf Port where the TGI Friday's had opened. During dinner we shared a lot of stories from our experience. Here are the ones I could remember:

Huy, one of my co-workers, is Asian. He had some rough experiences with racism while serving on the ERV. One client, a regular on his route, reffered to him as "Ugly", and would ask other volunteers things like, "you got Ugly servin' today?" He also said he got a lot of mean looks from people, adults and youngsters alike. He described them looking at him "as if he wasn't there". I was pretty shocked and asked him if it hurt his spirits at all. He said no, but I'm sure it would have affected me.
A lot of people were getting disgruntled with the ERV service, especially people who didn't need aid in the first place. Samantha described one lady who chewed her out for not having medical service packs. She had a nice SUV parked out front of her in-tact home. She also got belligerent when taking meals, etc. One other guy had a phone bill he never paid, and walked up to the ERV asking what he should do. Pay the bill, perhaps (he wasn't poor)?
Mike (not a coworker, just a friend who came along) had a nice story about a kid who was mowing lawns for his family to make ends meet. He told Mike that his mower had busted, so the next day Mike gets some volunteers to chip in and buys the kid a brand new one. He said the kid just wrapped his arms around him and was ecstatic.
Mike was saying a lot of people had unattended medical problems out in the field. One man had cancer but hadn't seen a doctor in months. Another man had Parkinsons and came up to the ERV shaking violently. Another hispanic worker had a huge hernea on his side and complained that his "jefe" wouldn't allow him to get it checked out. Red Cross has medical staff, so ERV drivers are supposed to note down any issues and have a nurse go out and treat people in need. Hopefully these guys will get taken care of.
Allen's ERV does a stationary feeding in front of a stadium during their run. One day a car pulled up along side the ERV window like it was a drive through (the window is only meant for people to walk up). Then another car gets behind, then another. Soon there's a line of 7 cars trying to get drive-thru Red Cross disaster relief. Then an old lady on a Rascal gets in line. Allan has this hilarious picture of the lady on her scooter in line with a bunch of cars. I'll try and get it.

Tidbits:

- I learned more men vs. women facts today that I thought were really interesting:

Did you know that it is universally true that women don't actually sit on public toilet seats? Instead, they "hover" (as my coworkers called it) over the seat as they go. A seat cover isn't enough protection. I was shocked and awed about this. What leg strength... what stubourness. I can't think of any guy who would do that. The next morning I tried to do it, but in the end I said screw it.
Women's clothing has buttons and zippers set opposite to men's clothing. This one blew me away, although I understand this is general knowledge. Is this really necessary?

Selfish vs. Selfless service

2005-10-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

From this service experience I have discovered a real dichotomy between selfish and selfless service. What is selfish service? I define it as performing an act of service for others for selfish gain. Examples of gain include recognition (fame), power (authority over others), and material. It is clearly an inferior form of service to the selfless variety, where the giver of the service expects nothing. I have found that here at the Red Cross the majority of volunteers are engaged in selfish service. We are all doing a positive thing, but for a few wrong reasons.

Why is driving the ERV the most popular job for Red Cross volunteers? Because it gives you the glory of handing that meal to the person in need. You are the face of all the hard work that went into delivering that meal to that location. It's like the relation between an actor on stage with all of the backstage crew. Many of the volunteers insist on just doing this work. They do not want to do Campbro washing, which is thankless. When Beverly and Deb, the two ladies who do my run in the morning, went out and bought extra blankets and lanterns to satisfy a special need for a client on the route, they wanted to be the ones to hand it over. It is not enough that the person gets it. They want to be front stage.

Contrast that to the work of the Souther Baptists, who stay at the kitchen and just cook the food. They live on the parking lot itself in tents. They prepare all of their own food in addition to the meals being served. They don't have access to a bunch of rental cars to get away, or laundry service that folds their stuff all nice, or a debit card for whatever personal expenditures they'd like to make. This is no vacation for them, which I believe many RC volunteers think it is. The kicker is that they never see the people whom they serve. In my book, that is selfless service. They do the work because they know that someone is being helped, that's it. They're not interested in glory. They just want to be of service.

I believe I am as guilty of selfish service as many of these volunteers. I wanted to be on the ERV to interface with the people. I wanted to get something from them as I gave. I think that in general giving to get back is fine, because it motivates you to give more. But I think too much of that sort of service perverts the service itself. Your heart eventually leaves the place it should be, which is focussing on the people in need. I hope that in my next service adventure and beyond I can have the courage to engage in pure selfless service.

Tidbits:
- living and sleeping with 500 other people has taught me two things:

at least 30% of people snore
at least 45% of people smoke cigarettes

- on the run today I met with the old lady again, who gave me a great big hug. She asked me if I had a grandmother, I said I did but now I have two. Then she started introducing me as her grandson. I told her I called my grandmother Baa, so I would do the same for her. So, yes friends, there is now a Baa in the backwoods of Kiln, MS. As soon as I pull up and she sees me behind the wheel, she throws up her hands smiling and her eyes get big. What a sweet old lady.

- The volunteer population is dropping fast. It's gotta be close to 400. I think less and less people are volunteering to be deployed. Coming out here, I, like a lot of people, assummed that 7 weeks after the hurricane, things would be a lot better. I was anxious to leave because I thought I would "miss the disaster". The thing is, though, that people aren't even rebuilding yet... they are still cleaning up debris. I talked to a construction worker on a street, and he said that it will take at least a year just to clean up. I pointed out that a year from now is hurricane season. Meanwhile, people will be living in tents with no power, no running water, etc. Serious third-world conditions, and it looks like it will be so for a while.

Day 6

2005-10-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I couldn't think of a catchy title for this post. Now that I have a regular job in the afternoon making my run to Kiln, the mornings are random. I try and get to the kitchen early to come to the library and post to the blog, then try and make myself busy around the kitchen. Usually I help load and clean ERVs for the morning run.

Today I was able to go on a run with Paul to a local Baptist Church and elementary school. The Church was serving as a shelter for what seemed like 50 people or so. The school had apparently just started back up after being repaired from mostly water damage. On one of the walls I saw some drawings that some kids had made. Each drawing included a sentence beginning with "I didn't like ith when..." Needless to say, they all drew about something Katrina related. They said something like "I didn't like it when the tornado knocked my house over" or "... when my trees broke". It was sweet and sad at the same time. Talking to some of the people running the school, I got my first answer about why many people didn't leave the Gulf States when Katrina was approaching. Apparently many people had stayed during hurricane Camille, which I believe came last year. They figured that if they could make it through that one, where they recieved little damage, then they could handle Katrina as well. But apparently, Katrina proved them wrong, and left water in places most long-time residents never thought possible.

Not much to say about the run today, except that the old lady I had connected with the day before remembered me! I couldn't believe it, especially since she's like 86. She remembered my name and even that I came from California. I told her I liked her and walked her meals up to her house for her. That made my day.

Rumor around camp is that there are big changes coming. Wilma is set to rock Florida as you may have heard. Many of the people and resources are being re-routed there from here. Two ERVs from our kitchen will be taking off for there tomorrow morning. I wouldn't mind being sent there. The number of volunteers at camp has dropped from over 800 when I first got there to now under 500.

I'm starting to feel more exhausted by the day. I'm not sure what it is, but I suspect the change in diet combined with the air. I'm sleeping well, though.

Quote-of-the-day:
"Before you got here, one day we served barf for lunch"
- one lady from my kitchen commenting to me about the delicious spread we serve our clients. I'm hearing a lot of complaints from volunteers that the food we serve sucks. I also hear that the Baptists are scrambling with a lack of supplies to make food. I've yet to try a meal, since they're mostly meat dishes like hotdogs or beef ravioli or pork sandwiches. Yummy.

Tidbits:
-Today I had an interesting conversation about the shower lines at camp. There are two seperate shower stations, located on either end of camp out of sight from each other... one for men and the other for women. There is bunch of chairs set up for people waiting for one of 4 empty individual stalls to open up. The chairs are in no particular order. On the men's side, it's a "who's got last?" system. When you walk up you just ask out loud to the people sitting in the waiting area who the last person in line is. Asking this puts you at the end of the line behind the person who raised his hand. The women, on the other hand, set up a musical chairs system, where your place in line is determined by where you're sitting. So every time a person leaves to get in a shower, EVERY person in line has to get up and move to the next seat. What a horrible system. I have to say the dudes win on this one.

Making Connections

2005-10-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

Today I felt more comfortable in my daily routine. I had a route to drive, and I was going to go out on my own for the first time. I wasn't too worried about being able to handle it, and in the end it went off without a hitch. A few highlights from the run:

I made my first real connection with a client. An old lady on Camelia St. takes meals from us regularly. She gave me this real warm greeting and came over to the driver's side to squeeze my hand. She was all warmth. She asked me my name and where I am from. She was hard of hearing, and said she was 86. I doubt she was going to remember me every day, but I hoped she would.
There are a bunch of kids on my route. They are mostly nice, but the teenagers give me weird looks from time to time. Although I try to fight it, I can't help but think they are looking at my color. I haven't felt that way about the adults or young children, but I feel it with the teens. One of them took interest in the fact that I was from California. "Do you surf?" He asked. I had a feeling I was going to get that question sooner or later.
A lot of the houses we hit are more like compounds. There seems to be like 20 people living at one residence, though they don't necessarily seem to be families. For example, one house has like 15 people, with about an even mix of blacks and whites. Wierd. Anyway, one compound is inhabited by the "Good ol' Boys" as Chris calls them. The first time she drove the route, she didn't notice that they were flagging her down and instead drove by. The next thing she knows a car comes peeling out down the road and skids out in front of her. They were not happy. But anyway, the Good ol' Boys aren't bad. Today, Good ol' Mom even baked us an apple pie! I guessed they couldn't figure out what to do with the 3 apples/person we'd been pushing them over the last couple days (the kitchen had a glut of them, and we were instructed to get rid of them before they went bad). It was so nice of her. We'd never heard of such a thing happening to any ERV from our kitchen.
I discovered that there are black people on our route after all. The mixed compound mentioned above, and one other family of three (one young girl) that lives further down Carnation St.

Again, I got a healthy dose of warm smiles, waves, and looks. My heart really took a turn today. I am starting to feel a responsibility to these people, and I am eager to connect with more of them personally. I noticed that some of them, especially the younger people, have trouble making eye contact. I think it's a huge shot in their pride to have to accept this charity. When I asked my dad about it tonight over the phone, he said he wouldn't bring himself to do it, and I wonder if I could either. It's tough.

In pursuit of questions about fair coverage, I found out that there is indeed an ERV that goes into Waveland, but the area is mostly deserted already anyway. That's true, because Chris and I checked the area out yesterday. But compared to Kiln, that area was way harder hit. I'm trying to find out where all those people went. At dinner I got into a conversation with a volunteer working as a building assessor. Basically, Red Cross has shut down all the service centers in this area like the one K.C. worked in that people can go to and get a check. Now, they have to call an 800 number, leave an address, and someone from Red Cross will come out and assess your need in person. The system is being used because the volume of requests is overwhelming the centers and also to curb fraud. This guy worked on behalf of FEMA to assess need. He went to residences with a set of questions that FEMA needs answered, and uploads the report. A few days later, FEMA sends a check, trailer, or whatever they feel is necessary to aid them. All this assistance is in addition to any insurance the family may have. But I'm hearing that insurers have already found a loophole to get out of processing claims in MS. It turns out that there are seperate coverages for water damage and wind damage. Most people only have wind damage. Which means that if your house was lost because it got flooded, then you can't claim the house. Now the subtlety they are trying to determine is in regards to water-induced wind damage, which would be covered under wind damage. I've talked to a few people who know about this stuff and they say that the re-insurers (companies that insure the insurance companies like AIG, State Farm, etc.) will all go under trying to pay off claims, but the mutli-billion dollar insurance companies will be just fine. Their assets are huge, and a disaster like this apparently costs them percentage points of their total worth.

Today my highlight was in the library. The lady next to me was confused about contacting some contractors for her house, and needed to contact them by email. I set her up with an email address (yahoo, because their interface is outlook-like and I thought GMail is a little more confusing for simple users) and taught her simple login/logout and composition. A computer scientist's dream. She was really greatful, but I doubt she'll be surfing the web anytime soon. A lot of people are unsure about who to go to for basic needs, like finances or services like construction. Red Cross tries, but I don't think there is a clear enough channel of information to people around here, especially those that aren't technologically savvy.

Quote-of-the-day:

"If it was Georgia that got hit, you'd be there to help us too."

-James, the Souther Baptist volunteer who rode with us on our run today, to a client in Kiln.

Behind the wheel

2005-10-18T22:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday after my run Chris told me that she was going to train me to replace her as driver for ERV 3059, as she will be leaving for home on Thursday. I was pretty thrilled, although I still had mixed feelings about serving Kiln. I wanted to try and find out the coverage of all of the ERVs, and whether there were areas needing food that weren't being served, like Waveland. But whoever I asked said they didn't know any information about other routes, who was going where, etc. Most just knew their own job and concentrated on it. I wondered why I couldn't do the same.

The day started out with campbro cleaning. While I had been out yesterday on the ERV, Paul and Catherine had taken over that station, and were pretty good. The operation was sweet. Dirty Cambros out from ERVs, carted to the cleaning station. The station had a series of platforms set up where the dissasembled cambros would be laid out, about 8 at a time. They had this very powerful water hose, which looked more like a machine gun. It was gasoline powered and got the soapy water it dispensed to 170 degrees. They said it could take your hand right off. So while one person goes down the line soaping and rinsing the campbros, a partner is flipping and rotating the pieces. The process was soap, flip, soap, rinse, flip, rinse. Paul and Catherine had it down to a science, no time was wasted. The clean campbros were then carted to the Baptists cooking area, where they were refilled with food to be set out for ERVs on the other side waiting to take the food out for the next shift.

After helping Paul and Catherine for a while, Chris and I decided to take one of the many rental vehicles available for volunteers out to explore the surrounding area. I had given up my spot again on the morning ERV run so that Catherine could ride. So although I had left them in the dust yesterday, all of us had now gotten on the ERV, and we were now thinking about the possibility of taking over the route ourselves as the current crew for 3059 rolls off.

Chris and I took off towards the Bay St. Louis coast, which was only a few miles from the kitchen. It was quite a sight. The beach was littered with debris. The most astonishing sight were the two bridges that used to connect Bay St. Louis with Pass Christian. Basically, the eye of the storm had come right through this area and wiped out the bridge entirely. Now all that was left was concrete pillars barely sticking out of the water where the bridge once lay. Near the bridge was the beach community which was completely decimated. It was probably a 5 square mile area grided by homes. Now there was nothing but rubble. I really can't think of the words to describe the destruction. Houses were either reduced to just their foundation, or were completely gutted, leaving just the skeleton of the structure. Appliances and clothes and debris were all over the trees and ground.

After visiting the coast we made our way to old town Bay St. Louis. Next to the courthouse (which had been flooded along with most other buildings in the area) there was this WWII memorial for veterans who served from the community. I noticed that there were a few common names like "Ladner", "Cuevas", and "Favre". Those names kept popping up in street signs and businesses all over the area, so it seems like there are large long-standing families that have lived here for a while. I'm pretty sure that Bret Favre of the Packers is from Kiln, where I run my route.

The drive had a few interesting points. First, driving the ERV wasn't too bad. The route was pretty straightforward, and I had experience driving big vehicles. There were a few things I noticed that got to me: young kids talking on a cell phone while waiting for food, others riding around on nice bikes, one teenager telling us that they have power back at their house. Also, all the really messed up homes were completely abandoned already. On the other hand, I saw a lot of the kids who had the plain look of hunger on their face. These people may not have the best of intentions, but the bottom line was that they need help, hurricane or not.

Back at the kitchen there had been pizza for the volunteers, but there were a few whole pizzas left over afterwards. My highlight of the day was walking into the base with those pizzas and randomly handing them out to volunteers. I can't explain it, but it felt better than delivering food all day to needy people in Kiln.

Quote-of-the-day:
"I don't really like Donald Trump... he says 'you're fired' too much!"
- a lady on our route in Kiln, upon recieving one of the Donald Trump waters we had in our stock today.

Tidbits:
- Rumor at camp is that another hurricane, Wilma, is approaching and may be headed this way. That would be really bad.
- There have been a bunch of funny slogans written on abandoned houses and buildings, etc. Things like "Looters will be shot" and "beware of owner". But hands down, this is the most clever sign I've seen, from my route through Kiln:

ERV experience

2005-10-17T19:42:00.000-07:00

Today I was determined to get on an ERV. I thus ditched Paul and Catherine (a young recent-graduate from Temple), my two main friends, and hopped on an early shuttle from the base to the kitchen, which is a good half hour away in Bay St. Louis, MS. I felt bad immediately afterwards, since they both wanted to do the same as me. But I quickly forgot about it when Atul uncle (the only other Indian guy in Mississippi), who was in Don's crew, led me to Chrissy at ERV 3059. They needed a third for their morning run through Kiln, MS. I was fired up. I helped load the food on and was soon strapped into the back seat as we sped out of the kitchen.

Chrissy is a veteran volunteer from San Diego. She's been around the world doing service, and is interestingly married to an Arab-American (she's white). Very nice lady. While Chris drives, I'm on serving duty in the back with Phyllis, an exhausted-looking black lady from Michigan. Both have been on this route for a couple weeks. Our lunch menu was hotdogs, chilli, and pears, with various snacks like Clifbars as well as fresh apples and juice drinks. In general not bad at all. The route is performed as follows: drive through the neighborhood slowly, occasionally sounding the horn. By now most people are used to the signal, and so they stand waiting out in their driveway. We ask how many meals they need, and make them up on the spot, scooping straight out of the campbros. We are never to question whether they are taking more than they need, etc. I think these people take that trust very seriously. From all the stories I've heard about victims in this area so far, I think the poor people with nothing to start out with are far more responsible than the more well-off people. They understand what being in need means, and thus have that compassion that makes them think of others in addition to themselves.

Kiln is litterally in the backwoods. The homes are surrounded by trees, deep in a foresty area. Paul, who I gave my spot to in the afternoon, later called the people "hillbillies," but he felt bad that he couldn't think of a better description. They were clearly very poor. All but one family on the route was white, and there were a lot of elderly. I saw at least 3 seperate confederate flags, although Catherine and I are still debating about what it symbolizes to the people flying them (I argued that it's just the symbol of the South, but she took the other position). Serving the people felt good, and I got a lot of friendly waves and smiles. Yet something was still on my mind....

One thing I noticed was that many of the houses didn't look too damaged from the outside, and only a few tents were up, meaning the houses were in livable condition. Do these people still need relief from Katrina, or just relief from poverty? I couldn't help but let this question enter my mind. I posed it indirectly to Phyllis, who seemed to think that it was pointless driving way out to Kiln to serve these relatively stable communities when there were other areas like Waveland with large minority populations that were getting little aid and were in desperate need. She also seemed to think that while we were going way out serving all these elderly people in very remote areas, there were kids in trailer parks not far from the kitchen who were going hungry. I was determined to see if Phyllis was right about all this.

I ran into K.C. at dinner and she began giving me her latest story of Red Cross inefficiencies. Apparently she and a group of 20 other financial service workers were ordered to relocate to Houston. There was an issue of transportation, but one volunteer in the group offered to take the team in a huge van he had access to. It would be the quickest way to get there. Instead, Red Cross insisted that they all book flights, which came to about $10K in expenses and almost 2 days of lost time. They made some lame excuse about needing to get the van back to MS, which would have been taken care of anyway. She also was talking about how she's now dealing with a lot of fraud claims, where "young 18-year-old black men" are coming in claiming 4 or 5 kids. All of a sudden they are model fathers, she said.

I realize that so far my portrait of the Red Cross has been decidedly negative on this blog. That's a problem to me because I think the organization is doing really good things here. Our kitchen delivers close to 7000 meals a day. Those are real people in need being served. I saw it in their eyes during my run, they are truly greatful. And people are working hard. Some have rough personalities, but it's perfectly clear that everyone's heart is in the right place. When I look at any volunteer, I see someone who left their own lives simply to serve, just like me. That's a pretty unique bond. I would say 7 out of 10 volunteers I meet are first timers. And people have literally come from all over the country. New York, Penn, Maryland, Oregon, Alaska, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, New Mexico to name a few off the top of my head.

Getting Oriented

2005-10-16T19:15:00.000-07:00

Today was my first full day at camp. Lights on promptly at 6am. We are sleeping in a huge room, so the noise immediately wakes you up. This morning I felt a little disoriented, trying to organize my stuff, etc.

We head to HQ for registration. It is notorious for inefficiency, but I get through the process relatively quickly. I make it known that I'm interested in driving an ERV, but I'm not sure if I will be accomodated. It seems like ERV driving is the hot job, so everyone is asking for the same thing. The other interesting is that the HQ is in a Masonic temple (the Shriners). There are all these pictures of old white guys wearing elaborate fez's on the wall. They have titles like "potentate"I took a picture of the parking spot for the high priest/prophet, which is obviously right out front. Apparently the prophet drives a Mustang into work.

Soon I'm told that I will be assigned to mobile feeding (ERV driving) starting tomorrow, but for now a few of us are needed to takes some inventory at another kitchen. As it turns out, we never do that but instead 7 volunteers pile into a van to go on some guy's mail run. We do, however, get dropped off to kitchen 34. We are given no instructions, but it is an opportunity to help out so the 7 of us (Paul and I, some old people, a young parole officer from Canada named George) try and make ourselves useful. It was a complete progression in level of work. My very first job was picking up trash, which included old wood and dirty cardboard. Next, I helped reorganize the inventory of powdered drinks, seperating by flavor. It seemed pretty pointless since I doubt victims are going to care whether they get fruit punch or lemon drink, but at this point we are just following orders. The final job was probably the highlight of the day: one of the ERV's came back with a flat tire, which I replaced. It was good on several fronts. First it made me look slightly more useful than the other new people to the supervisors. It also allowed me to make friends with the driver, Don, who then went about trying to get me to go on a run with him on the ERV. For some reason this old man loved me, probably because he realized the tire wouldn't have gotten fixed if I hadn't helped him (it was a heavy duty tire). I was this close when John, the supervisor of the kitchen asked that another lady, who's last day was today, go instead. But I was encouraged that I got so close to my goal so quickly.

I ended the day with helping to load the ERVs. Food is served from Campbros, huge heavy-duty tubs that can keep temperature of the food it holds. They are pretty heavy, so again I came in handy with all the lifting my young body is capable of doing. I also went out and washed the supervisor's car, which was more of an ass-kissing errand. As of now I see myself continuing to gain brownie points with John and the other heads of the kitchen to eventually take over an ERV route. It looks promising so far.

The "kitchen" deserves description. It really is nothing more than a series of tented stations built around loading and unloading ERVs. It's located in an abandoned parking lot of a broken down "Winn Dixie" store, which seemed similar to a WalMart. On one side there are a series of semis where the raw food supplies come in. Those are then unloaded and piled for the cooking station, which is run by the Southern Baptists. After they place cooked food in campbros, they are brought over to another loading station where they are lifted into awaiting ERVs. It's all pretty chaotic at first glance, but somehow it works.

I was dead tired after the day. Fixing that tire ravaged my fingers and I bruised my back on an ERV door. But in general I'm fine. Before I go to bed I shower and try to meditate on my cot after lights out. It's pretty funny since I'm in the middle of a huge room with hundreds of other people, but my concentration wasn't too bad. I had a feeling it wouldn't be.

Quote-of-the-day:
"People see the Red Cross, and they expect miracles"
- John, the supervisor of Kitchen 34 during his orientation speech

Other tidbits:
- my hair is a HUGE nuissance. It constantly gets in my face and my hands are usually filthy when I try to get it out of the way. I have a hat, but I can't wear it comfortably for any long period of time. Maybe I'll chop it off before this trip is over. I am on a military base, after all.

Deployed

2005-10-15T19:10:00.000-07:00

I got the word that I will be deployed to Biloxi, MS on Thursday. My initial reaction was nervousness and fear. But as the time to leave approached I become more comfortable. I also learned that 3 Mercury co-workers will be deployed to the same area, which set my mind at ease.Flying into the Gulf Port airport, I was able to see a few houses out of the window. A lot of them had blue roofs and I was wondering about why they had painted them that color. As I got closer I realized that it wasn't paint but tarp. At the airport I met Paul, a young filmmaking instructor from NYU. Being the only two young people waiting for the Red Cross shuttle, we naturally made a connection. My first new friend.

We arrived at the volunteer shelter around 6pm. It was on a huge naval base in Gulf Port, called the NCBC (Naval Construction Batallion something) base. But most people called it the "Seabee" base, and there was this monument of a angry looking bee holding a machine gun next to our compound. And this shelter is literally a compond. It's a huge hanger-like structure with 4 open rooms. It currently houses 800 volunteers and a total of 1300 people, but it has capacity for over 2000. Volunteers sleep side-by-side on cots. Pretty comfortable. In general the camp has everything you could ask for: running hot water, relatively clean port-o-potties, showers. The food is amazing. The Red Cross contracted a catering company from California to feed the volunteers. The company typically feed firefighters, and correspondingly prepared meals based on a 6000 calorie/day diet! Needless to say you get plenty of food. Best of all, they have a full vegetarian selection, so I was very happy.

The shelter has a lot of amenities. There is a TV area, phones, and huge fans and AC systems keeping it really comfortable. They have social events like square dancing, live bands, and plays. There is a drop-off laundry service, with a 24 hour turnaround time. They even fold your clothes for you. Amazing. I was really impressed with how well the Red Cross takes care of its volunteers. The demographic breakdown: mostly white, elderly people. Some number of blacks and hispanics, a handful of Asians. I found one other Indian, an uncle for Illinois. Everyone is super friendly and all smiles. I find myself randomly introducing myself to anyone, which I rarely do. But that's the spirit. The seniors are very interesting. Many of them are retirees that have made a second career of service. They travel around assiting in disasters like Katrina all the time. I met one really nice and intelligent old lady from Maryland name K.C. She described a lot of her experiences so far: seeing dead bodies on top of strip malls, 2 feet of maggots in stores from rotting flesh, etc.

K.C. works in financial services, and so she was talking about how Red Cross distributes financial aid to victims. She complained how there was no consistent audit trail to keep track of fraud which was a huge problem. I tried to give her a complicated computer scientist answer, but I told her all they really needed was Microsoft Excel. Distribution of money was based on family size. The payout was roughly $360 per family member, with a cap of $1575. And this was a one-time payout. She said it was a mystery how some of the families could survive on so little for all these weeks. She related some of the problems with FEMA's efforts. They had a precence, but they didn't come prepared. There is no leadership to handle practical problems of logistics. For example, they have a fleet of 800 vehicles for use in relief work, but nothing set up to maintain the vehicles, coordinate their use, etc. Some FEMA workers had stopped wearing identification around for fear of being shot at. She said that the problem with Red Cross was that it was "run by a bunch of old ladies" that couldn't move quick enough to keep up with the changing situation. There was a constant communication problem between the field and central command on such things as standardization. There was also in-fighting between chapters about who should work on what, and it was getting political. In general the situtation has become so hard because of the magnitude of the disaster.

Tomorrow I will see that with my own eyes

Training

2005-10-06T22:30:00.000-07:00

I went to the San Jose chapter Red Cross for my orientation training. It ran from 8-3pm, headed by a veteran volunteer, Jim McGill. He spent the class going over procedures and watching videos about what do expect as a volunteer, but most of it were details no new person was going to remember. The class had about 50 people, mostly seniors but some youngsters.

I was interested in learning about the background of the organization, but he didn't spend much time talking about it. I did learn that the Red Cross is an international organization that started in Switzerland by a guy who just wanted to organize service around WWI. The American Red Cross is one of many "societies" that concentrate their work within the country they're located. Generally, one country's society does not assist another, unless explicitly invited.

The main aim of the Red Cross is to provide immediate relief from a disaster. They made it clear that it was not a welfare organization, and that they only help people directly affected by the disaster. Thus, volunteers are instructed not to provide assistance to poor people in the Gulf States that didn't lose their home, which is redundant since those people probably didn't have much of a home anyway. In general there was a lot of rules and standards that this instructor tried to impress on us. I remember hearing "Generally, this is not the purpose of..." and "We're not into doing ..." a lot. One story was of a registered EMT who tried to give medical care to a client (what the Red Cross calls the people they are trying to help), but was reprimanded because his assignment was to serve food. It wasn't wrong, just not encouraged.

I also learned that the Red Cross is different than other "holistic" aid organizations like the Salvation Army because they only do a speficic set of things, which includes mostly setting up shelters and performing mobile feeding. They do a lot of collaboration with other orgs to fill in the gaps, such as actually preparing food which is the specialty of church orgs like the Southern Baptists. They also rely on MOV's (memos of understanding), arrangements with local businesses and restaurants to provide services/donations in the event of an emergency. Which means that the organization is helpless where it doesn't have pre-arrangements. All this seems to make the Red Cross rather inflexible.

I have painted a pretty sour picture of the Red Cross in general, but that's because it seems like a clunky organization. Leaving training, I was told to expect a call when I was needed. There was no confirmation of it being tomorrow, a week, month, etc. from today. In addition the words "patience" and "flexibility" kept coming up when discussing the organization, and the instructors were already preparing us to expect a lot of waiting around before and during deployment. Personally, it has caused my initial spirit of enthusiasm to wane. But I reasoned that the trip will be a learning experience in the worst case, which I am satisfied with.

A few days after orientation I went back to recieve specialized training to be an ERV (Emergency Response Vehicle) driver. ERV's participate in mobile feeding, where these U-Haul type vehicles drive out to affected areas and deliver hot meals to people who are in need. To get the certification I had to go through another class and took a road test in a huge rental truck. I'm definitely excited to drive an ERV, and the word is that Katrina relief is in huge need of drivers. It would be great to visit people and help them out while getting a chance to go out and see exactly what the devastated area looks like. I'm hoping I will get called up soon.

Welcome!

2005-10-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog. I have been meaning to start one for some time, but I've never really had anything interesting to say. But as I write this from Gulf Port, Mississippi, working as a relief volunteer for Hurrican Katrina, I think I now have something to share. But before I get into that, there are a few administrative things I wanted to get out of the way.

1. What's the name mean?

"The Home and the World" is a novel by Rabindranath Tagore. For some reason I decided to re-read it on the plane to Mississippi. The book is great, although you may get impatient with it if you are into books like "Da Vinci Code" and "Kite Runner," where the narratives have this great self-propelling momentum. This book will make you pause and think about what's going on a lot. You can tell it was written by a poet; the character sketches are deep and the dialogue subte. I decided to name my blog handle after it mainly because I couldn't think of a better name (rejections included variations of my own name and "Braveheart"). But the name is also fitting because the character Bimala in the novel was struggling to break free of life in a sheltered environment, where she wasn't sure of her true self, what she was capable of, etc. I'm now trying to do something like that, and this trip to Gulf Port is the first installment in that journey.

2. What's the purpose of the blog?

I want to record the events along the way for my own personal reflection. I also think that the experiences may be of interest to others who are like-minded to me. But I intend to stick with the events themselves and limit my personal thoughts and feelings. Preaching to you is pointess, especially since you are thoutghtful enough to reflect on the events in your own way. Besides, experience is life's most effective teacher. But I will be adding my reflections where appropriate to remind myself of what I was thinking/feeling at the time of the event.

3. How did I get to Gulf Port, Mississippi?

I am mostly here because of my company, Mercury Interactive. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse: get full paid time off to come as a Red Cross volunteer for two weeks. What a great gesture. Several people have told me how lucky I am to work for a company like that, and they are right. I also wouldn't be here without the support of my managers, Chee and Helen, who have shown nothing but enthusiasm for my decision. My good friend/coworker/roommate Joachim also made a large sacrifice for me to be here. In addition to giving up his own spot, he is assuming my workload while I'm gone. What a baller.

That about covers the background that you need. I've actually been here since Saturday, so I will be spending the next few days catching up with everything that's happened, starting with my first training session back in California. I have taken a bunch of notes, and I will post them as if they were presently happening. Hope you like it.