I hadn't made Friday night plans but ended up going down to the Voices Worth Hearing/Art Worth Sharing exhibit at the Wall Eye Gallery/Saigon Plaza. If you haven't, you should, if good photography and the culture of your city is a thing you enjoy. I drank pop and ate amazing Vietnamese food and caught up with Kevin and Francois and my former roommates while watching people from all over Cleveland mingling, hearing Spanish, Karen, Hindi, Vietnamese, Kirundi, and Kiswahili spoken all around me.
One of the families I hung out with this past summer was featured in the show and their kids were on all the promotional flyers. It was weird to see them looking so serious when I think of them running around a soccer field or this little guy dancing to "Baby Got Back" in the living room.
Due to crazy circumstances this past year, it'd been a year since I'd seen the whole family and I realized how much I missed them and that I was missed too. But we hugged and kissed and laughed about how none of us really know a lot of Kiswahili "kidogo, kidogo!" The kids have grown up so much and their English keeps getting better, and their dad got a job and I was so glad to see them doing so well after everything that they've been through and the things that have happened in the past year.
It was such a contrast for me to see these black and white photos juxtaposed with the family looking at them and laughing at the expressions of their kids, the bright colors standing out.
And it's a beautiful summer night full of reconnecting and thinking, riding my bike home as the sun sets, and I want to stay up all night and paint but I'm just too slackerish right now.
I'm one of those people who doesn't subscribe to the newspaper but faithfully reads it online with my cup of coffee, though I miss doing the crossword puzzle in the mornings and my daily dose of Pearls Before Swine.
I got frustrated with the structure of the program and the bureaucracy of the education system in general because I'm still convinced that the best way to teach kids how to read is to work with them one-on-one and not put them in front of a computer, but it did give me a chance to get to know the families and understand where they're coming from. What gets me is that some of them speak more languages than I do, local dialects, Swahili, French. I wish I could speak that many.
Now they call me sometimes when they're stuck on homework problems, and I love when we're there and I'm showing the parents what they're doing so they can learn too and help them. The last time I was there, she gave me an ABC book and I began going over the basics of the alphabet with the little guys who aren't in school yet, hopefully to give them a jump before they get there so they know what's going on.
And to all those people out there who want to complain about people not speaking English, I'd like you to think about where your grandparents and great-grandparents came from and how hard life was for them. It's easy for you to say "just learn it" when you've had all the opportunities handed to you and you never had to pick between going to school and helping feed your family.
I can't remember not being able to read. I never realized until recently how much I've taken that for granted. I'm overwhelmed sometimes trying to explain something that I just kind of know.
So me and the roommate had a houseguest this weekend. My friend's daughter evidently thinks we're really cool so she hung out with us to do "girl things" on her spring break, which involved me taking her to the mall, eating ice cream, talking about boys, attempting to go and see the supposedly legendary karaoke night at Bo Loong (nothing going on there at all), and going on the swings at Lakewood Park on a gorgeous Saturday morning.
Then we went to the West Side Market and to volunteer with the kids. Vanessa had a book about this girl from Kenya that talked about fruit, so we bought bananas and oranges and read the story. The girls loved it and told me what all the names for the animals and fruits were in their language and said that the pictures reminded them of home. Then we went outside and played soccer and basketball and enjoyed the sun before I take a few carloads home. I get some interesting looks from other drivers as the kids are singing along to T.I. or telling me that this song by the Roots is good, and the older kids want pictures posing next to my car even though it's not remotely close to sweet ride material.
So I'm sitting out in the front yard with babies crawling all over me, helping her with my math homework while the kids are taking pictures of each other with my camera and the rest of us are talking and hanging out just enjoying being outside.
Then we went to see her uncle's band play and as before, they're fun to watch and I get those shivers you get when you hear a song that really hits you. And a good set of choice covers just sweetened it more.
I hung out at Swahili church Sunday afternoon, and I'm to the point where I can pick up some of the words or at least know what's going on, and I'm taking a class in it this fall, because I know I'm not going to pick it up as well if I don't have some structure.
It's like I have a whole new family of younger siblings now from another continent. I'm hanging out on the porch, having dinner, taking the kids to class, trying to figure out how to get the older brother's computer to work.
I've got one of the girls in my car on the way over and she likes the Amadou & Mariam I have on the stereo and says it reminds her of Africa and starts talking about singing and dancing and her dad cutting down palm trees and how she misses it there so much. I can't even imagine what that would be like.
I had music practice for church after tutoring class last night and a couple of the kids begged me to let them come too. I checked first with the parents, and brought them along. They were all shy at first, sitting in the pews watching everything, but my roommate brought them up to sing and when we were done, we let them play with our instruments.
I have never seen two kids more happy than when they were given free reign over the drumset and the djembe. They have better rhythm than I do, and me and Joe were actually able to play along with them. Seriously awesome.
Spent my sick days trying to get over a sore throat and aching ears, drinking tea, ingesting several antibiotics and generic ibuprofen, re-reading Zadie Smith for the umpteenth time, chilling with the roommate's cat who probably was hanging out with me because I had the space heater next to me, not because I'm so awesome.
Also, if anyone finds out how to put that chemical that makes chicken soup so darn good when you're ailing, they'll be crazy rich and set for life. Stuff works wonders.
Through our conversations in the car where we practice their English, I learned that my kids love reggae music, Nollywood (Nigerian) cinema, Bob Marley, Biggie, and the word motherf-er (try explaining to a 9-year-old that you're not supposed to use that word to address law enforcement). For some reason, rides in the Sexy Saturn are also thrilling.
I dropped them off at their apartment and their parents ended up having me in for dinner, which was orange pop with African chicken and rice. One of the kids' friends brought over some VHS tapes full of music videos from the homeland. The kids have already introduced me to the Tanzanian gospel of Rose Muhando, but this time I had one of their older brothers translating lyrics by the likes of Big Fairouz and Lolilo. Chilled out with the family and felt honored to be a part of their life.
It's been a process over the last few months learning how to take everything I know, distill the things that are really important and try to pass it on. It almost makes it harder to teach the English language when you're so used to studying literature that you take things like capital letters and punctuation marks for granted because you've used them as long as you can remember.
You have to adjust out of explaining plot points to trying to explain basic grammar. Or you're trying to explain the weirdness of the language and why certain things are pronounced one way and others another. It doesn't make any sense really.
I feel bad having ten-year-olds do kindergarten-level work, drawing uppercase and lowercase letters and reading sentences about Jim and Bill eating jam or whatever. But the kids really get into it, wanting me to check their work, and draw them smiley faces and put "100%" on them when they're perfect.
They want me to give them HOMEWORK which just amazes me, and they love math because it's a universal thing and there isn't a language barrier there. I know it's hard for them to sit still after being in school all day, so I bring snacks to keep their energy up, and we play games and do some of their dances. I tell them to bring it home and show it to their parents, and hope they pick up some of it too.
I want to see them be able to express themselves, understand others, and comprehend their world better. I'd like to see them develop a love of reading too and not get frustrated. I can't imagine going through fleeing civil war to the instability of a refugee camp hundreds of miles from home in Tanzania, then getting on a plane and landing here in Cleveland where you end up in school several years behind and not speaking the language.
I'm hoping I can pick up some more skills next weekend when me and the roommate get certified as legit ESL instructors. Theoretically, I can now take this skill anywhere depending on how life works out. I figure there's always more that you can learn.
I have to tutor my kids tonight and I can't get my printouts to download. I feel like one of those weirdos at the library using a public computer because I'm off today and I'm a bit scruffy.
Like most things that happen to me, this weekend was almost entirely unplanned. I had planned on chilling out Friday night but ended up catching up with some old friends at a birthday party and me and the roommate meeting up with a friend after he got off work at Caribbean Flavor.
I somehow initially thought this would involve getting late dinner but instead was dancing away the stress of the weekend to pulsing dancehall and reggae, getting some weird looks because I definitely do not look Jamaican and was not dressed to impress. The past week has turned so many things upside-down that everything almost felt normal and it's to the point where I feel good being out of my element.
We did our lesson with the kids on Saturday about Valentine's Day and had them make paper hearts with words that rhyme on them. One of the babies was sick so I wrapped him in my hoodie and was holding him, trying to get him to calm down and we played blocks with the little girls and I totally felt like I was 5 in the best way giving them the plastic dinosaurs and letting them go all Godzilla on their block city.
As usual, the kids love getting pictures taken. Muk showed me how to play with some settings on my camera a little bit and that's how these turned out.
I didn't want to do anything on Valentine's Day but we got invited over to a friend's place for dinner and it just felt so good to laugh and chill even though I went back early to crash and get some sleep.
I picked up the most recent Verve album at the library and it made me remember why I like anthemic sweeping britpop so much.
The city was blue and white this morning. I couldn't see the skyline at all. I found an old mixtape and listened to Massive Attack on the way in. Looking forward to seeing some good friends and hopefully a good show on Saturday.
I had to deal with a really arrogant and nasty person yesterday. I'd like to think it didn't bother me but I had a hard time sleeping last night. That, however, might have had something to do with the two cups of coffee I drank.
Other than that, yesterday really wasn't all that bad. I got a nice shout-out from a fellow dj friend on my drive home, grabbed dinner at Melt with some friends, and my friend showed me his studio space in the Lake Erie Screw Building and I would love to have something like that where I could ride the old-school wooden elevator and have space to make huge paintings and pretend I'm in 1970's New York.
So far the tutoring has been good. It's hard to balance between different age levels and abilities but the kids help each other out. I had a huge box of literacy materials and books for beginning readers that were donated and they were definitely used. Trying to find some good basic English kind of books that actually have a good story and aren't along the lines of "The fire engine goes Ding! Ding!"
In the past week, I've somehow ended up with a part-time job that starts on Monday. For three nights a week, I'll be tutoring some of my Saturday kids in reading and math. I've talked in the past about how I feel overwhelmed by the need to do more and this just happened to work out so that I can do something more intensive and one-on-one. Some of the kids are ahead of others, but all of them are still behind.
Last night, I worked with one of my kids who's throwing gang signs in every photo I have of him. He doesn't want to be there at all, but as we were going through the alphabet and reading through a first reader book, he got really into it because he could see how everything worked together for the first time.
I can't imagine getting through life without being able to read and can't remember a time in life when I wasn't able to. I hope that the things that opened up my world will open up theirs as well.
Didn't end up going to Detroit, ended up staying here and catching up with people that I haven't hung out with in too long.
Did stop home to see my family and help out with some wedding planning for my sister before heading down to hang out with the kids, who I haven't seen in a couple weeks now. It was a good thing I stayed in Cleveland this weekend, because we were shorter on volunteers than usual and one of the kids just took off and ran away. He came back, thankfully, but not before I'm running down to Lorain Avenue hoping that he hasn't gotten too far.
I know that what we're doing is really good and important but I feel like I really don't know what I'm doing. The language barrier is huge and I don't know what life is like the other six days of the week when I don't see the kids. They're dealing with a lot more than I could ever imagine, and I guess I wish I knew that it was doing some good helping these kids get some footing instead of it just being something that I feel good about doing.
I don't feel like I have the resources I need, we don't have the extra people to help that we need. A lot of the kids need some one-on-one work and when you've got two or three volunteers for 25 kids, it's just not possible to even try and do that. I don't know how to communicate because of the language barrier, but I'm ordering a State Department course in Kirundi through the library so hopefully that will help out some.
A friend of mine that used to teach is hooking me up with some of her old school supplies, but we need people who will show up to use them.
New Year's Eve was not as epic as it probably was for some, as me and the roommate came home from work too tired to think about going out anywhere. So we had a couple people over, picked up some pomegranate 7-up because there was no more sparkling grape juice, and watched a Bollywood movie.
I had taken the previous day off to hang out with Ryan and one of his awesome friends so I was ready for a chill night.
Hung out on New Year's Day with the family and the future in-laws. My dad had Friday off so we went down to Hoopples to hear Glenn Schwartz play. I've always heard he was an amazing guitarist and the preaching isn't going to bother me as much as it would some, so we finally satisfied our curiosity.
When we got there, he'd just started, and was whispering hymns and old blues tunes into the microphone, crazy preaching about repentance, the blood of Jesus, and loose women and how we've polluted the earth with our cars, but as he got going, it was amazing to watch him shred away as he climbed up on his amp and dragged the strings of his guitar across the signs hanging from the wall. We watched his first set, but then he started ranting about women and Dad and I figured we'd quit while we were ahead. Still, I don't know how I went that long without seeing the guy play because it was one of the most powerful things I've ever seen.
I still haven't processed that night completely, it reminded me of walking into a short story by Flannery O'Connor where everyone involved is messed up in one way or another but there's something kind of redemptive about the whole thing in spite of ourselves.
Friday, we went to Oberlin and found cool jewelry and hung out with my friend Naomi, and I got to see her baby girl for the first time. We came back and watched 'Black Orpheus' which was sad as anything especially knowing the original story.
But the ending is beautiful.
The highlight of the weekend though was the birthday party for the kids I hang out with on Saturdays. We had a New Year's/birthday party for them (if you don't know your birthday, you're given January 1 when you go through immigration).
I wasn't sure what to expect, but it ended up being over 200 people, between the volunteers and refugee families from two different churches on the west side, seemingly everyone in this city from that tiny country.
my first time enjoying skewers of goat meat fresh off the grill
The kids love it too:
We did games, and they made us all this food, and two pinatas got destroyed, but the best part was watching the kids get to sing.
I don't feel like I did much this weekend, because I ended up sleeping way more than I usually do. I never want to be that person who works all day and then comes home and doesn't do anything but sleep or watch TV, but I can see how easily that would happen.
Still, problems with the wheels on the Sexy Saturn notwithstanding, I did get some good stuff knocked out this weekend. While getting my tire patched at the Parmatown Wal-Mart, my sister and I knocked out some Christmas shopping which was no stress because evidently no one shops there anymore.
We threw a Christmas party for the Burundi kids, and they got to play games, eat pizza, and get some gifts. Brittany and I drank ridiculously sugary Tampico punch and enjoyed the chaos.
We drove out to Coventry and giggled at self-help books at Mac's Backs and I picked up this:
How awesome is that?
Otherwise, it was pretty chill, did some art, made some music, read some books. Kristy's coming home after spending five months in the West African bush so we'll be at the airport welcoming her home. It'll be great having her around again and hearing what she's been up to.
So much for the best laid plans. Me and the roommate were tired as anything and promptly went to sleep on Friday night, deferring our music-making for another time when we weren't feeling total exhaustion.
There's a new girl helping out with the kids and she's fantastic. We've split up the group between volunteers which makes things less chaotic and also gives us a chance to work with some of the kids on a more individual level. They all took assessments last week and they're all still at kindergarten level so there's a lot of catching up to do. I was doing some math with some of the older girls and I'm starting to learn everyone's names.
It was so icky and cold outside but we stopped over at Paul's and ended up hanging out with some mutual friends to get pizza, listen to Brazilian music, chill out and talk about the good things, and watch some documentary about bossa nova music that got me all inspired to get my Antonio Carlos Jobim book back from my sister.
Sunday, saw the cousins. Strange to see what happens to all of us as we grow up.
I thought about throwing myself a 25th birthday party but, as usual, realize that this will not happen. Instead of that, I'll just do what I usually do and do some hanging out over the next couple weeks on the small scale with the people in my life that I love.
I guess no one wants to look like a schlub when they're on tv all the time and such, but $150,000 for hair and makeup and new clothes? I made fun of John Edwards' $400 haircut but this is just so far beyond that, I just don't even know what to say. I can't conceive that amount of money.
And this just gets me.
This reminds me of the time a couple years ago when one of my elderly relatives offered my parents a pretty decent chunk of change to take me and my sisters out on a "shopping spree" because we've helped him out with a lot of things. We're talking a couple thousand for each of us, chump change evidently for those of us who are running for office.
We turned him down on it, however, because it just didn't feel RIGHT. It seemed like an overwhelming amount of cash to spend on yourself when there were so many people who need it more. Besides, I wondered what the heck I would spend it on anyway, considering that most of my clothes come from either the thrift store racks or the cheaper stores.
But back to the $150k. That's about 5 times what I make in a year. That's more than what my parents' house is worth. That could send how many kids to college? Feed how many hungry people? Provide micro-loans to how many entrepreneurs in a third world country?
I think of people who are really down and out, not just in dire straits around the world, but here in our own country, like the father of some of the kids I help teach English to on Saturdays who fled civil war in Burundi to come here only to get paralyzed from the waist down after being hit by a car. Not only is he unable to start a new life for himself the way he'd want to, unable to support his wife and kids on his own, but he's also got huge hospital bills that they can't pay. We've helped them out as much as we can, but there's just so much.
So I ended up checking out the graffiti festival down by the West Side Market. We were supposed to meet up with a friend but we ended up missing each other by an hour or so because we ended up walking around drinking half gallons of ghetto tea and enjoying the gorgeous day.
The artwork and breakdancing were cool and all, but the best thing was that we ended up hanging out with these awesome little kids from Burundi at this church where a good friend of mine teaches ESL classes. Most of them speak very little English, but we were able communicate with a combination of basic words and gestures and the universal language that is sports. The girls taught us hopscotch games and the boys played catch with us, when they weren't playing with my camera or running down to the Wendy's at the corner and getting free food by being super cute.
We stayed there for most of the afternoon and early evening playing games with them and then having dinner with the families and watching the kids dance and sing. I felt like I was in another country hanging out in this basement where everyone is speaking Swahili and we've been completely adopted.
Click on this one to watch
