Bon Air- Week 1

I was extremely nervous walking in to Bon Air this time because I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Once I got in there though, I realized I had nothing to worry about. The boys said hello and introduced themselves as soon as they walked into the room and sat down. During our warm up activity, some of the boys were a bit shy and couldn’t come up with anything as their favorite story. When we split up into partners, it was a bit awkward and my partner and I struggled to find things to talk about. The story he told me was not much of a story but more telling me that he was out on the streets before he came here and got mixed in with the wrong crowd. I found that similar to the first group that went on Sunday, he told me he is trying to better himself here and even wants to go to business school. It was hard to understand what he was saying at times because he wouldn’t speak very loudly and the way he spoke was not familiar to me. When we shared our poems, I had talked about how nice my neighborhood is and the good things that “I am from.” When it was his turn to share, he told me the sounds and sights from his neighborhood included shooting and police sirens, and that a family saying was “you’re going to get put in jail.” It was difficult for me to respond to these things; I didn’t know if I should say I’m sorry or just change the topic. I tried to ask him more hopeful questions, like where he might want to attend college when he gets out, and he told me he wants to go to JMU. Overall, he didn’t seemed too interested in our conversation. When we got back into the bigger group, I noticed the other boys seemed to have a more positive outlook on the program which made me feel a bit better about the situation. One of the boys asked us about the SATs because he was planning to take them and was wondering what he should know about them. At this point in the meeting, the boys seemed very willing to talk to us about their lives and eager to share with us. Hopefully my next meeting with my partner won’t be as awkward and will lead to a better discussion.