As is becoming my habit, it has been quite a while since I've posted. This is not for lack of trying, but rather because SO much has been happening, and I have a hard time writing about it in any time-efficient sort of way. Since I like to be overly-descriptive, I tend to write book chapters instead of blog entries. Unfortunately, once I start getting behind, I have an extremely hard time getting caught up, because there is just SO much to write.
For this reason, I now have a file on my computer dated from July 25th, which I have been working on every two or three days since. In my typical style, I'm trying to give you a daily play-by-play of my time here in Bluefields. But here I am, on Wednesday of week 3, knowing that if I try to provide such detailed commentary for every single day, I'm never going to get an entry posted.
So while this is going to be hard for me, I'm going to try to give you the Reader's Digest version of what the past 2.5 weeks have been like, and provide a more detailed description later.
I got to Bluefields on July 21st, and started my whirlwind orientation to AMC-Bluefields the next day. I received this orientation in an unusual fashion: A special guest from Norwegian Church Aid (one of AMC's donor agencies) was visiting the project site to see all of the projects to which NCA is providing funds, and I was asked to be her translator. Fortunately, she spoke English, because my Norwegian just isn't what it used to be. This meant that I followed her around (10 hours one day, 6 the next) providing steady stream translation for all conversations happening around her. In this translation format, a person has to listen to the Spanish conversation while simultaneously speaking out loud in English, because people don't often pause to allow time for the translator to catch up.
At the end of two days, I was exhausted, but well-informed as to all of the aspects that comprise AMC-Bluefields. The next three days in the office were just nuts, because our regional director was heading off to an international HIV/AIDS conference in Mexico, along with our guest from NCA and a few others. We mutually agreed to give each other the space to recuperate; I from my two-day intensive course in translation techniques, and they from the swirling hullabaloo of trip preparations. I spent the next three days getting caught up on email and rebuilding my website, the latter of which was an absolute disaster. (I got so stuck, I had to send an email to a fraternity brother from college, John Leahy, being one of the kindest and most computer-savvy people I know. He re-built the whole thing BEAUTIFULLY in a matter of hours. God love him.)
Week two was when things got really interesting. During our Monday morning staff meeting, my supervisor, Miss Jeannette, told me that I'd be in charge of working with a group of six adolescent prisoners in the local penitentiary. The prison psychologist had come by the office asking for help with these young men, who all will be due for release at some point in the next six months. Josefina, the psychologist, said that they were having severe self-esteem issues, and a lot of anger, and she feared that their attitudes were worsening, not rehabilitating, while in prison. During that Monday meeting, I was told that I would start working with them the next day, and would have two hours every Tuesday to work with them, while I'm here in Bluefields.
I spent Monday and Tuesday frantically preparing a lesson plan for our prison group, meanwhile accompanying the community health promoter, Jenny, on her visits to all the local elementary schools. Jenny was doing a workshop with the school teachers on how to recognize signs of abuse in their students. (Sexual abuse is rampant in Bluefields. In my first week here, there were five cases of rape against children under the age of 18. This is in a community of 40,000.)
Tuesday afternoon, the prison group went FAR better than I could have imagined. I had been made to think that these were hardened criminals, that I would have to work with them with bars separating the room for my own safety. That couldn't have been farther from the truth. I found that these young men were starving for positive reinforcement, and their life stories just came pouring out when they realized that Jenny and I were offering a sincere, non-judgmental ear.
The rest of the week was filled with more teacher workshops at various elementary schools. (My role in the workshops was to be Mr. Icebreaker, providing fun communication activities to get the teachers laughing and thinking about forms of non-verbal communication. Blindfolds, funny hats, and charades were involved.)
Friday evening, at about 5:30, I look up at the calendar and see “ADOLESCENTS” written in big letters for Saturday, August 2nd. I asked Jenny what that activity was, and she told me that it was MY theatre group. 'Oh REALLY!,' I'm thinking. And how many are coming? Just SIXTY.
There was obviously a mis-communication. I had asked if Jenny would help me form a theatre group of about 4 or 5 teens, to put on educational dramas about HIV/AIDS. She said that was great, because they already had a group of about 60 teens that were trained as community health promoters, and we could select the group from that. (This conversation happened during Monday staff meeting, week two.) I didn't hear anything about it after that.
But Jenny and I had mis-communicated, and she had invited all 60 teen health promoters to come hear about the theatre group, and decide whether or not they wanted to join. This was a bit shocking for me...since anywhere from 0-60 teens could decide to join my “class.” Working in a very small space, this could have presented a huge challenge.
I tried to keep my cool, and prepared a lesson plan for all 60 of my potential theatre club members. I didn't sleep much on Friday night, fretting about how it was going to work out the next day. I went to work early Saturday morning, and continued to iron out the details on the lesson plan.
At 2:00, our scheduled start time, no one was there. 2:30, there were 3 students. Okay, so having too many students wasn't going to be a problem. By 3:15, we had about 15 students. I took them through a few drama exercises, and explained what I'd like to do with the group. I told them I'd need a group of actors, and a stage manager. All I got back were blank stares. Admitting defeat, I told them I'd go get our snack ready in the kitchen, and they could talk amongst themselves.
I was in the kitchen, licking my wounds, when a soft-spoken young woman named Berjenelle slips in, and in her lilting Creole accent asks if she could be my stage manager. She's too shy to act, but is really organized and likes the idea of participating. Thank GOD. I might just have a stage manager without any actors, but it's something. As we pour soda into plastic sandwich bags, (that's how you serve drinks here...you tie the bag off at the top, and then bite the corner off and suckle to drink), she reassures me that her peers were interested, but just shy. When we get back into the main room, there are 7 names already written up on the chalkboard. We're in business.
Now that we're halfway through week three, I have both of these projects going full swing. I'm working with the theatre group three days a week, and the prisoners just once (though today I'm slipping in an extra session with them, so that they can learn to sing the Blues). It's going really really well. I'm collaborating with lots of friends and family back home to come up with creative lesson plans, most of which involve music. I've got an actor friend putting together a behind-the-scenes video tour of his Broadway show, in Spanish, to give my group a little more context as to what theatre is and can be. I've got Blues musicians sending me song suggestions and book chapters from as far away as India. I've got college buddies creating karaoke versions of Broadway tunes so that I can teach them to our group without the help of a piano. I'm working together with people from a previous internship at Children's National Medical Center in DC, to facilitate a letter/art/poetry exchange between my prison group and one of their teen health clubs. I've been chatting with a professional therapist friend back home to get ideas on how to boost self-esteem in my prison group. I've got my sister sending me lecture notes from her psych rotation in nursing school about mental health in the prison system.
It feels so affirming to have so much support from my network of family and friends back in the US. Everyone has been so quick to lend whatever assistance they can, and it helps me feel like I have a real purpose in being here. I think our group activities give real meaning and encouragement to the teens, and I'd like to think that it is meaningful for my friends and family back home to feel like they're actively contributing to people's lives down here. I have the very fortunate position of being in the crossfire of all this positive energy...and hopefully I am able to channel it to the teens, and then back to my friends in the US in return.
These three weeks haven't been without low points. Just this past weekend, one of the young prisoners tried to take his own life by consuming pills while the other five teens looked on. They all live in a very small cell—about 12'x12'—and I know that it was a fairly traumatic experience for all of them. Thankfully, the teen is physically okay, and is getting a lot more psychological attention. He was able to talk about the experience openly and constructively in our group yesterday, and I just hope and pray that he continues to feel supported and that we can help him improve his overall well-being.
Today, I'm headed back to the prison to see if I can't teach these kids to sing the Blues. I've got the feeling that this group has some heavy stuff they might need to get off their chests. And since they like to sing and play the guitar, why not do it the way Nina Simone or John Lee Hooker would? As my friends/pastors Reid Hamilton and Stephen Rush argue in their forthcoming book, Better Get It In Your Soul,
“We sing a SAD song to make us feel…well, not happy….but maybe OK with our sadness! The Blues reflects an emotional/spiritual cycle. Now what’s amazing about the Blues is that this happens over and over and over again. One Blues song could easily include 100 cycles of this lifting up and setting back down. What’s the message? Well, for us who believe in God (and all of these Blues Musicians CERTAINLY believed in God) it’s the message that God is there, with us in our suffering.”
I hope you'll keep all of these projects in your thoughts and prayers these next few weeks. And when you're feeling down, hop on over to the record cabinet, pull out a scratchy old B.B. King record, and know that it's okay to feel blue, so long as you get out there and sing about.
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