Days 19-21

I can't believe I've been here 21 days. It's going by too quickly.

For this post I will try to start with today and move backward, trying to remember as much as possible. Right now I'm in pain because Fabienne is doing my hair. She's braiding it or something and I'm very, very tender-headed and wimpy. In a small way, I relate to Will, who has been having his hair dreaded since 9ish this morning with only a couple of breaks for food. It's now 12:10 AM (and technically day 22). One of the staff girls from here, Kelly, is doing it for him and it's looking really great. Apparently he is also very tender-headed though, so I feel bad for him (more so now than I did earlier. This hurts so badly! I'm trying my best to focus on this blog. . .

This morning I didn't get up until 11:36. It was wonderful. We all work incredibly hard during the week and it's nice to not have to set an alarm on Saturdays and just sleep until we wake up. Kate and I went down to the field around noon, but only got to see the last couple pitches of the game.Only one of our kids was playing. The others had played at 9 apparently. Grandma Perkins, her daughter Elizabeth, their friend Jennifer (who is actually Corbin's, one of my favorite jr highers, mom), Kate and I went over to Grandma Perkins house and had coffee. We stayed over there for a couple of hours, and had great conversations. Grandpa is in Jamaica right now speaking , or at a conference or something (I'm not sure- he's hard to keep up with), so Grandma has been lonely this week. Elizabeth and Jennifer told us to check in on her when we can. Grandma is a hoot. She holds nothing back, and could be considered a bit (or a lot) stubborn, but I appreciate her strong personality. It's beautiful, and honest. She is full of wisdom and today it was spilling over. She told Kate and I that she didn't like that the kids have to call the interns and staff miss and mister. She said that we are a family, and that we should have them call us auntie and uncle. I think that that's a really cool idea, and it makes sense, especially when she told us that calling the white folks miss and mister has a negative connotation here. I hadn't even considered that--the fact that it could bring back bitter feelings of ridiculous Jim Crow laws and a history of being made to feel less than human or inferior.

Our conversations went beyond the surface, and Jennifer and Elizabeth exchanged numbers with us when we were leaving. I think we will all be great friends by the end of the summer. Jennifer has this idea for a talk radio station for women--possibly an online station. My knowledge of online radio is sparse, so I told her I would email Roger, a guy that has worked at KBIA since the station started, and who knows, well, everything radio. It would be really cool if we could figure something out by the end of the summer. They also told me that the Perkins center used to have a monthly magazine, but that when Spencer died, they didn't have anyone to keep it going. I don't think I've talked about this in the blog before, but Spencer Perkins, Grandpa's son, is actually who founded this center. He and Chris Rice and their wives moved in to Antioch (which is now our guest house and has conference/meeting rooms)--I believe in the early 90's-- and hosted racial reconciliation conferences for college aged students. Spencer died of a heart attack in '98, and Grandma and Grandpa moved here to be close to the rest of the family and "retire" as Elizabeth put it today. Retirement must not have really been their thing.

Yesterday we took the kids to the Museum of Natural Science and they seemed to enjoy it. I'm soooo glad I'm with 5th and 6th graders! Soooo glad! I can't say it enough. I don't feel like I have to micro manage them and they are so much fun. I felt sorry for Kate, who was trying to corral the kindergarten and first graders. The twins, Marquis and Marqis (no, I'm not kidding--that is really what their mother named them; also, she dresses them alike almost daily) are probably the cutest kids I've ever seen, but they are terrors! Kate was chasing them all over the place. For the kids, the highlight of the trip was seeing a two-headed snake eat some mice. That was probably my least favorite part. Gross! My favorite part was seeing all of the turtles. It made me miss my roomie's turtle back in Columbia. Give Dougie a little pat on the shell for me Shelby!

I'm having trouble remembering Thursday. I think it was a good day, but I just really don't remember. I know my class finished watching the Goonies, which they LOVED. I'm falling more and more in love with the kids. They have their problems and their antics, but I feel like I've known them forever--not just two weeks. I can't imagine how hard it's going to be to tell them goodbye at the end of the summer. I'm already trying to plan a time to come down over Christmas break, but I don't know if I'll be able to wait that long.

I have been missing my family and friends a lot this week, though. I have been negligent in writing letters and making phone calls. There are two reasons for this. The first is that I have enough trouble just finding time to blog, and by the time I settle in for the night, I'm completely exhausted. The second reason is that I'm trying to live in the present as much as possible here, and with the people God has put me with. I want to spend as much time hanging out with them as possible. This is somewhat of a coping mechanism I seem to possess, finding and forming a family wherever I go. If I didn't, I think I would be miserable. I have a wonderful family in Waverly that spans my entire street. I have another family in Columbia, which has made my last three years incredible. I have a new family here. I'm the luckiest.

It's late.

I've been working on this off and on for a while. It's now 3:06 and I'm deep in conversation with Kelly, one of the staff here. I hope all of this makes sense.

Love,
LH