Tijuana Border Visit and Thanksgiving

When I last left off, we were just starting our Urban Systems class and looking forward to our visit to the border. Shortly after that post I got really sick for a few days, went to the doctor who sent me to the hospital and ended up getting my appendix taken out! It was a pretty crazy 24 hours, but the surgery went well and I was out of the hospital quick and back into class and work. And even though I was missing an organ, I felt well enough to make it to Mexico so a few days after the appendix episode we went to Tijuana. We took the trip with a few students from Point Loma Nazarene University which gave us the opportunity to see the beautiful campus and get to know some other college students which enriched the diversity of our perspective at the border.

We spent all day around the border and then in Tijuana. We spent the morning talking to the border patrol (we asked questions, they evaded them) and they escorted us to the US side of the border which was very heavily protected and restricted. Then we walked over the border into Tijuana and walked up to the Mexican side of the border, which in pretty stark contrast, was incredibly easy and no one escorted us or restricted our movement. We spoke with an American and a Mexican that are doing work to heal and reconcile the borderlands through gardening and cross cultural communication, which was really interesting after the speeches from the border patrol about maintaining separation and "us" and "them."

We moved on to Casa del Migrante, a safe-house for those going south-north and those coming the other way, north-south. We ate dinner with the men staying there and talked with them about their plans. They were great guys and the man I was sitting next to tried very hard to include me (with my total lack of spanish skills) in the conversation. After dinner we talked with the Point Loma students about what we'd seen and what it meant.

The next morning we went to local church that was led by one of the friends of our group leader's and were fed and welcomed into their congregation. I didn't understand much of the service but it was nice to sit with families and be included in the congregation.

After lunch with the church we got in line to cross the border on foot and walked back through to San Diego. From there we got in our vans and went back to LA.

Even with the reading we did before we went and discussing the problems with the American immigration system, there were pieces of it I couldn't grasp until I saw them. Seeing the wall was very impactful for all of us because it's such a huge symbol of the broken immigration system that drives immigration to incredibly dangerous means. But getting to know Mexicans and seeing how the wall impacts them was also really powerful. And those that are trying to reach beyond the wall and encourage communication, cultural exchange, and understanding made us hopeful for the future of the border.

The Border from the American side.

After Tijuana we only had a day of class and work and then Thanksgiving break! I spent the break with my friend Rachel at her family's house in Fresno, California. We had a great time and I really enjoyed getting to spend the time with Rachel and eat, sleep, and watch lots of Star Wars movies (they'd just bought all of them on blu-ray). I am very thankful that I have great friends that are very willing to share their homes with me.

Helping with a community Thanksgiving dinner in Fresno with Rachel's family.

Rachel and I modeling our aprons.

And now there are only 2 weeks left! Just a few more days of class and work and I'll be home for Christmas break, which I am looking forward to, but it's hard to believe it's here already. I'm going to try to fit in as many adventures as possible these next few weeks and enjoy being in LA with such a great group of people!

Our religion class just ended with a bang (14 page paper) and we are now moving into our final LA Term class. Writing the paper was my favorite part of Urban Religious Movements because we had to be connected with the community we were studying and wrote our paper on, and I had such a great experience working with the Messianic Jewish community I studied. The level of scholarship in the congregation was impressive and I had so many great conversations with so many of the members that it was a pleasure to go and learn about their religion from their perspective.

It was also interesting to see how their perspective informed my faith and my view of Christianity and Judaism. Mainline evangelicalism tends to be thousand miles wide and about an inch deep so encountering the richness and depth in the intellectual approach and historical tradition of the Messianic Jewish faith was refreshing.

I also had a friend in town a few weekends ago which was so fun. We went all over the place and squeezed as much LA as we could into one weekend.

My internship has moved into serious grant writing and I'm in the middle of consolidating a letter of intent which will be our stock letter to send to all potential donors. We'll see how far I get before the amount of things I don't know about grant writing or the organization get in the way, but that's what I'm attempting to do.

And this past Monday we went back to APU briefly to watch a screening of MissRepresentation, a documentary about womens' representation in the media which was very thought provoking and definitely worth watching.

Next week we start Urban Systems off right with another paper due, and then we're off to Mexico for the weekend to study immigration. I'm looking forward to learning about the immigration system and border issues where they're taking place, and getting a new stamp in my passport.

Part of the cohort at Venice Beach on a free day.

A free Mutemath concert at Warner Bros Studios. We ended up standing right behind the drummer.

Street art right outside of my office.

Hanging out in West Hollywood with Jess (visiting friend) and girls from LA Term.

Jess in town! Visiting the lamp posts outside of LACMA. We saw someone get proposed to.

Getting into it

In these past few weeks we finished our first class with Paul and started our new class, Urban Religious Movements. It's been really interesting so far. This week we visited a Hare Krishna temple and a Buddhist meditation center. The Hare Krishna temple had a pretty impressive museum that summarized the Bhagavad Gita with full sized dioramas, which was certainly exciting. And the Buddhist monk we talked to ended our Q & A session by playing us a blues number on the harmonica. So both were really engaging, but also very informative and interesting. We were invited to participate and learn more about some really beautiful faith traditions which we all enjoyed.

This week I started more office work at AFSC. My office had been talking about starting a blog for a while and because I have experience in blogging and enjoy it I adopted that project on Tuesday and ended up building us a blog. I was pretty happy with the way it came together and it will give me something to show potential donors as I'm writing grant proposals, which I will be starting next week.

Tonight we went to a jazz concert in front of the lamp posts at LACMA which was a good way to end the week.

This past week was my first full week of my internship, and my first time helping with all the programs AFSC does in the local community. On Tuesday we did community asset mapping with the kids in the Help Increase the Peace class and on Thursday we worked in the garden and planned what we want to do with it in the coming growing season at the continuation school. The kids were all really great and I'm looking forward to getting to know all of them.

Grant writing is a valuable skill and I'm glad that I'll get the chance to learn how to do it at AFSC, but the best part of the job will definitely be working with the youth.

And we are finished with our first class already! We start Urban Religious Movements on Wednesday. We have tomorrow off, so we're going to the beach as a group.

Berit and I have been doing a lot of research on the Occupy Wall Street movement and went down to City Hall today after church and looked around the Occupy LA camp. We accidentally ended up in a meeting of the actions committee which was really interesting. I've never been in a meeting like it before- everyone was sitting on the steps of City Hall, but it was incredibly organized and there was no clear leader but everyone was using hand signals to communicate their views on the ideas being discussed and to keep the group on the same page. We went back tonight to the general assembly and spent some time talking to some people while we were waiting for it to start. The assembly itself was tedious and there were a number of people that got up to speak that didn't really have anything to say, but that's the nature of the democratic process. The group is incredibly varied- at the meeting of the actions committee I couldn't pin point one particular age group, race, or socioeconomic bracket. And while there are certainly a number of strange people, or people that are just jumping on the bandwagon to promote their own cause, there are a number of really interesting and intelligent people making things happen in Occupy LA and I really enjoyed being in the group and getting a feel for it. The spirit of camaraderie was really unique and we were approached many times and had many conversations that wouldn't have happened in a different social setting. The cause has really brought a huge cross section of people together and they are engaging each other in uncommon ways, so if the movement itself doesn't do much for the political climate, I will consider its ability to unify a success in and of itself.

Retreat

This past weekend we drove up to Arrowhead and just spent some time hanging out. Meal times were the most structured aspect of the trip and it was great to be able to spend time together unscheduled. We went swimming, played charades, slack lined, and read in hammocks.

It's hard to get everyone together this semester because we're all so spread out over the city and doing our own thing with internships and family events so it was really valuable time that knit us together as a group and let us really enjoy each others company.

I read Out of Solitude just over the afternoon with a few friends on Saturday and really enjoyed it. It's a super quick read, but Nouwen does a beautiful job describing aspects of the Christian experience and it is worth checking out.

Slack-lining

First day of internship: check.
Everyone else started Tuesday but AFSC didn't want me till today, so it was my first day. The LA office is really only 2 people- we share our office space with some of the regional employees so we're in a pretty big office downtown, but it's really only 2 other people and I working on our programs and projects. So one of my bosses picked me up from the office this morning and we went to one of the gardens AFSC organizes at a local community center and looked around at what needs to be done for the upcoming planting season today. The kids were out of school because today was a furlough day so we didn't stay long, but on Thursdays I'll be in the garden for at least part of the day working with the kids to maintain it. On Tuesday I'll be going into a school in South LA and helping to teach HIPP- the Help to Increase the Peace Program where we talk about social issues the kids are dealing with, like gang violence and police brutality. Next Tuesday we'll be taking a walking tour of the community and taking pictures of the community assets and some of the negative aspects of the local community as well, so that should be an interesting introduction to the program. And in the mornings/the time when I'm not in the garden I'll be working on researching grants and writing proposals.
I'm hoping to also do some kind of a photography project and incorporate something creative into my time here. So I'm excited about the experience (and having my very own office!) It should be a good semester.

Class is in full swing and we're now a few weeks into being true residents of LA. We've adopted our LA walk, we've learned where things are, and we can navigate the red/purple line easily (the busses still evade us most of the time). We've done a good amount of exploring and last weekend went to the Moon Festival in Chinatown and saw the dragon dance and had the best ice cream I have ever eaten. Ever. Food trucks are quickly becoming one of my favorite things in LA.

We are currently half way into our Urban Culture class which I have really enjoyed so far. We've been discussing social issues, mostly having to do with American systems and the ways in which they are limiting or broken and then we've been visiting either the organizations themselves or authorities in the issue we've discussed that day. This past week we were discussing the problem of public transportation and visited the Los Angeles MTA and had the opportunity to speak to the librarian who's been with the bureau for 20 years and had a really interesting perspective on the development (or lack thereof) of the public transportation system in Los Angeles- something we have a personal stake in because we are using it to get around while on LA Term. I was able to contrast this meeting with a meeting that I had previously attended with a representative from the Bus Riders' Union, an organization that seeks to protect and aid the minorities and low-income families and individuals that ride the busses, and they had a very different view of the actions of the MTA and their monetary policy (a brief synopsis of the situation can be found here). So being able to talk with the people involved in the issues we're studying has been really enriching and we've all taken ownership of our learning and these societal issues in new ways because we've had the opportunity to be so involved which has been great.

And we were placed in our internships this week and found out this morning who we'll be working with this semester. I will be working for the American Friends Service Community, a Quaker organization that works to promote peace and non-violent conflict resolution in the community. The Los Angeles area AFSC works with high school youth in the classroom and in a community garden twice a week so I will helping to teach and will be writing grants for the organization. It's a small office that works out of a really cool part of downtown so I am excited to get to know everyone and to start work next week.

This Saturday is museum day so we're going to hit up MOCA and the Echo Park Art Walk tomorrow night which should be a fun weekend.

Class tomorrow!

But homework today- it will be hard to get back in the habit of getting work done, but I'm looking forward to starting class and the field trips! Every class has an experiential portion, so we go visit places that are relevant to what we're learning. We just need to convince Paul (our prof) that the beach has a lot to do with urban culture.

Last night we went to Summer Nights in Chinatown which was a dance party/food truck smorgasbord/craft fair and had a great time! I'll put up some pictures soon.

The past few days have been hectic- we seem to have struck a theme. I'm anticipating that as the semester moves into its normal schedule which will begin next week this blog will be less about day to day activities and more about what I'm learning and experiencing in my classes and internship. But for now, here's some more stuff we did!

Yesterday we visited a few NPOs we may potentially internship which was exciting because it's the beginning of the interview and selection process. Last night we attended a lecture at the LA library on "conscious capitalism". The founders of Tom's shoes and the website and magazine Good were both interviewed by the one and only Kai Ryssdal for all you NPR fans. It was an interesting to hear what each company has done to bridge the gap between a non-profit and a profitable company and I enjoyed hearing about the creative solutions that were being used to combat old problems.

This morning we heard about all of the NGOs that were visited by all the groups the day before and there were so many great opportunities presented! I am excited to go on the rest of our site visits next week and narrow down my choices for my internship. After that we went downtown and explored a little. Berit introduced me to a great used bookstore on Spring Street and then we meet the rest of the group for Vietnamese food.

After dinner we went to the LA Art Walk. All of the art galleries downtown stay open really late and people can walk around a look at art and we weren't there for a long time but there was a parade and a lot of interesting things going on. And a lot of cool art!

Some friends at The Last Bookstore on Spring.

Thai tea that I had with dinner. I realized this evening that I'd only eaten foods that I'd never previously tried today. A day well spent.

Some (fuzzy- phone quality, sorry!) pictures from our scavenger hunt today. We had a great time exploring LA a little more.

hipster spotting in Echo Park

the 500 Days of Summer bench! Angles Knoll.

Today we hiked in Griffith Park which was quite hot but good bonding time for the group. And there were some pretty sweet views of LA and the Griffith Observatory.

This evening we went out for the birthday of one of the girls in our group and then snuck our way onto the roof of the Standard Hotel and looked around. It has a nice pool and great views so I'm sure we'll be back to go swimming at some point.

LA term has begun!

Berit and I moved into our home stay yesterday in Koreatown just a few blocks from the LARK where we're taking classes. We are living with an Indian woman named Prabha who has been very welcoming and is very enthusiastic about LA term. Our apartment is close to a grocery store, the public library, coffee shops, and a number of other things which will be wonderfully convenient.

Today we had a welcome lunch at Elysian Park and had the chance to meet all the other host families and meet up with our group again. Afterward Bethany and Whitney, who live the closest to us, went with Berit and I to the Korean market near our home and we got to see a little more of the area.

Tomorrow we start orientation week which will be busy but will get us acquainted with the city, public transportation, and our group. I'm glad we'll have this time to get things figured out before we start classes andinternships and really have to rely on our knowledge of LA and each other.

The view from our roof.

My roommate, Berit, and I at today's lunch in the park.