Back in Bean.

Immokalee is Seminole for "my home." I'm so surprised and impressed at how much of a community the town is, and at how it became a home for all of us even though we were only there for a week. All the places we went (the Friendship House, the childcare centers, the soup kitchen, etc) were all so connected to the community. Blanca, who works at the Friendship House, knew most of the town and could greet almost anyone who came in the doors of the shelter. Tricia, who runs the Guadalupe Soup Kitchen and was in the documentary we saw, clearly loves and cares about what she does. Immokalee amazed me in so many ways, as gushy as that sounds. I loved the authenticity and how real everything was. It really was a community and a place that interacts and works together. Even the amount of shuttles astounded me. We have public transport in Boston, but the different shuttles to medical centers and other various places was better than what we have in Plymouth. I don't think I expected to come to love and appreciate Immokalee as much as I did. It's really great.

At one of the reflections, Dean brought up that he didn't expect to experience what it was like to be someome who stays at a shelter, which I hadn't thought about. But we were. We had a home base to come back to every night, but we didn't always have access to our luggage and sometimes our room was used for other things and we couldn't get into it. We had specific meal and shower times and while, unlike the clients of the Friendship House, we were able to go to the supermarket and get food, we didn't make our own specific dinners. We ate what everyone else ate, when everyone else ate it. I really enjoyed being so involved with where we were staying; instead of staying in a hotel/motel and going to the shelter everyday to do a few random jobs, we were able to stay there and help out as much as we could. We didn't just serve the clients food, like at most shelters in the Northeast; sometimes we helped cook the food, but we'd eat the same food off of trays and sit with the clients and talk with them. It put us at an equal level with them instead of making us seem "better" than anyone. Emily always got up early and talked to people staying at the shelter, which I thought was awesome. There were a few people who I know were sad to see us go, and they stood outside and waved as our vans pulled away yesterday. I had tears in my eyes and I know a few others did as well.

Being in Immokalee made me think about a lot of things, although I can't specify exactly what. We took a trip to Naples and visited the St. Matthews House, a bigger shelter that the Immokalee Friendship House is affiliated with. It was a lot different; being in Naples felt like being in Florida, whereas being in Immokalee felt like being in Mexico. My attitude towards immigrants and workers has definitely changed. The guy I sat next to on the plane back to Boston said that Immokalee was in the middle of nowhere, which is true, that most people drive past it as quickly as possible, and then made some condescending comment about how no one there speaks English. I know I'm more liberal than a lot of people, but ignorance and holier-than-thou attitudes annoy the hell out of me. The people may not speak English, but their work ethic is greater than a lot of people who do. The farm workers do the work that most Americans wouldn't want to do and because of them, we're able to eat. Simple as that. And they do the work because even things like farm working gives them a better life than they would have had in their home countries, which is really sad. Some of the stories we heard were just heartbreaking. A lot of people cried when we saw the documentary on Sunday.

Playing with the kids always gave me a lot to think about as well. On Monday some of us went to one of the childcare centers down the street, and I was with 2 year olds. They kept asking me about my parents, which was odd to me. I haven't had much experience with children, but usually they talk about favorite foods/colors/TV shows/characters. After the documentary, one of the men who works at FSU's medical center said that the psychological state of the kids can be shaky because their parents aren't home much and that sometimes parents will get deported or will leave to work in other places. So they'll end up having attachment issues, and that's what I thought of when I was with the kids. They'd ask where my parents were/what they do/what their names are, and then go back to playing. Then yesterday, we were with the younger kids in the morning and then went to an afterschool program at a park and played with the older kids (which I kind of already wrote about) and a few things blew me away. First, I was at the top of a slide and a boy about 6 or 7 years old told me to watch out for his little sister, which was cute, and then said that their mom was in jail and he didn't know why. It wasn't even like he was trying to get attention; he was just telling me. And then he went down the slide without waiting for my reaction. Later, Sasha and I were playing with a girl around 8 and she kept pretending to stab us. We were on a big fire truck thing and she'd pretend to stab us in the head, which disturbed me a little bit.

Now I'm home and uploading pictures and drinking coffee. It was weird being alone my apartment because I got used to sleeping on a cot with 16 other people in the room. I'm pretty sure this entry isn't all that coherent and doesn't come close to covering everything, but I'll write more when I post the pictures. Allison comes back today and we have some catching up to do. I don't know how much I like being back in Boston's reality. I have to update my planner with everything I have to do for the next few weeks and go through all my emails for my shows and for Fashion Society because there are a lot of things coming up. I also have a quiz to study for and some papers to write (although I don't really need to work on them because they're final papers and aren't due until May, but we all know how much of a nerd I am).

I miss the 80 degree weather. :(