First Bon Air Experience

I had been so crazy busy the past week that I forgot to be nervous about Bon Air. But during the drive there, I remembered. And the barbed wire wasn’t exactly soothing. Once we finally entered the facility itself, what surprised me most was the color scheme. It was nice in the way that it wasn’t dark and dismal, but at the same time it wasn’t ultra-bright in an attempt to overcompensate for the fact that it’s a juvenile correctional center. It was just nice! The boys were already waiting for us in the library, so once again I didn’t have time to overthink things which was good. Although there were a few side conversations at some points, overall, the guys were impressively polite. To be honest, I can hardly picture any of them committing any sort of crime. They were also very friendly with the guard and even joked around with him at times.

I liked my partner a lot. He was nothing like I expected, though I had braced myself for the unexpected. He doesn’t come from a family with a history of crime. In fact, he said he’s the only one to ever be locked up. What really caught me off guard is that he hopes to be a fashion designer. It was just about the last profession I expected him to be interested in, but he’d already started selling clothes in his neighborhood before he left. He’s already got a cool little logo and everything! Because of his interest in fashion, he said one of the worst parts of being at the center is having to wear assigned clothing. But he said they all got different clothes to signify their “new beginnings”. I really like that concept and I could tell that as much as he resents the clothes themselves, he appreciates the clean slate. In addition he was pretty positive about the center and its community living format. He even compared it to summer camp and said the workers give them a lot of freedom, but he still wishes he was out.

As astonishingly similar Malik and I turned out to be, there were still little reminders throughout the conversation of our vast differences. He only wrote down one single name under the the friend category and told me “that’s my boy (honestly I forget his name), but he died a few months ago. Killed himself.” I told him how sorry I was, but he didn’t seem overly affected by it. Although we’re clearly in extremely different situations, it was easy to connect over our stories and lots of other common ground such as sports and tv shows. What made things infinitely better was his willingness to share and that he was a fantastic listener. It’s only Tuesday, but so far the trip to Bon Air has been the highlight of my week!