Day Five
Thursday morning started with what now seems familiar, morning free time. Today arriving earlier at the community center we were greeted by Ms. Dominique. I can't seem to help this place feeling like home. Something i really didn't fathom happening earlier this week. I asked to make coffee, and the reply I recieved was, "Baby, you home now. You at home." We walked up into the second floor of the community center, where kids aren't allowed, due to the lack of building code conformity. The price to bring the second, and possibly the third floors of the community center up to code stands at around $400,000. We helped move funiture downstairs, and boxes and printers back upstairs. With a stench of Pinesol in the air the kids arrived...
I went out into the street to play 3-on-3 basketball on a tattered rim in the middle of the street. Again, kids who don't know me, who don't look like me, or live like me or talk like me, made me feel at home. I am at home...How did i ever get this feeling of home amongst the abandoned lots, housing projects, and torn down and abandoned buildings? It is the people. Do they need our help? I know they do. But in getting to know them you see the beauty in those same skyscrapers, torn down buildings and sky scrapers, when most others turn away. Beyond the difference in melanin in our skin, i feel that we are in fact brothers and sisters. Each dark face that bears a smile warms us inside, and the wrinkles at the corners of their mouths are a map to better days.
Posted: Thu, March 2nd, 2006 at 9:17PM
