Month: May 2024

Week 4:

I didn’t get to talk with Kalia today, but she cried when I popped in to wish her a happy birthday. It was yesterday; she’s sixteen now. I wish I would’ve asked to hug her, but I was scared that the staff would say no. I wish I had brought her treats.

I couldn’t hear the name of the guy I talked to today, but he was so much like me. He played basketball and football and was good at both sports. He won a championship in football and lost a championship in basketball, then came back and won it the next year. He said some losses were lessons, which stood out to me. “When you lose, you learn and you fight not to lose again.” He mentioned offhand that I must be wondering how he got here if he played all the sports and he just said he made some bad decisions. He was so smart, but I could tell he was emotionally intelligent too, and he had a big heart. His favorite meal is pork chops with rice and his mom made it for him once after a bad day. He is such a family person, and he really loves her and cares about her. He instantly picked out that family meant a lot to both of us, so I think he is a good quick judge of people. He was soft-spoken but he kept the conversation going. He was a good person. I’m so sure of that. And he’s had his losses but he’s learning from them with an athlete’s determination, but also an athlete’s patience (endurance?). He loves love songs, and his favorite is one of his mom’s favorites, by Nelly and Kelly something (I couldn’t find it). His dad raised him on the classics: Biggie, Tupac, and Keyshia Cole, but also SZA, Youngboy, and others. He loves a beat, he loves the soft words. but he also loves music for a mood. He sang in elementary school because his choir teacher was encouraging and made him want to do it, but in middle school, he only wanted to do sports. Nobody encouraged him to sing, plus other people believed it wasn’t cool, or respectable, or socially acceptable. So he stopped. I don’t know if he regrets that decision, but I think he said that he wishes he hadn’t made his decision based on what other people thought. I asked him what this place needs and he said to listen to my heart and whatever we think is best, if we really think about it, will be good. He said they will be grateful for anything and everything we give them. But now I want to do something worthy of him, and I’m not sure that we’ll be able to.

Week 3:

I was with Kalia again. She’s going to be here until March 15. The other girl we were with didn’t speak English and we had a translator device. At first it was way too loud. They tried to make it say bad words and they giggled the whole time. The other girl’s going to be in here until she’s twenty. Kalia fell off her bike once and the handlebar stabbed her in the chest. Her heart stopped and she had to go to the hospital. They’re not allowing her to go back to her family; she’s going to a group home. I can’t imagine what that must be like for her, because I know she loves her family, regardless of whatever it is that she hasn’t shared about them that made the state believe that’s not a safe place for her. The other girl told a story about guns and being afraid but the translator didn’t get it. She also said she was in a fight and fell and everyone laughed at her. I should really improve my Spanish. Mostly they giggled and talked crap and at one point, Kalia said, “Well, you didn’t *snorrrt* when you were young,” and asked her how she got her illegal substances. Luckily, we were able to redirect the conversation back to the movies. My main thought from today is that these girls have been through awful things. They’re not perfect—far from it—but they were giggling and being kids tonight. And yeah, the humor wasn’t innocent, but they can’t really afford to be. Neither were they allowed to be.

Week 2:

Kalia wanted to be a doctor. Not the kind of doctor that she met this week though; he was mean to her, the female sheriff, and her dad. She said she saw her stepmom and started crying when her stepmom called her Baby, like she was young. She doesn’t know who her real dad is but she asked her mom and her mom didn’t know (although I thought her mom died, based on what she said last week?) and she’ll see them on Friday (dad and stepmom). She doesn’t want to be here next week because the doctor’s physical was all that needed to happen and it didn’t work out. Also, she almost got bitten by a shark! After some Google sleuthing based on the words “grandmother,” “arm,” and “august 2022,” I found out that the event actually happened—a grandmother saved her grandson from being bitten but got bitten on the arm herself in Myrtle Beach, SC. Kalia watched it happen and I don’t know how that didn’t traumatize her forever. Her stepmom made the fin symbol but she thought it meant dive; her dad yelled “shark” and raced into the water. She wants to go to Dubai someday because of the water and the atmosphere. We also talked a lot about superpowers. We agreed that we would have the superpower of photographic memory for school. Even if we only had the power for 24 hours, we could just read every textbook we could during that time so we could remember forever. She wanted to be a doctor because her aunt had diabetes that somehow led to having a hole in her foot (is that the truth? Can that happen from diabetes?) and Kalia did the gauze and everything for her. She watched herself get stitches and was fine (fourth finger, right hand, I don’t know why). We also talked about if we could tell people were lying. She said having that superpower might end her back up here. She has instincts, she says, and she can tell usually, but it would be nice to know for sure and almost read minds. We decided it might be nice, but it’s also probably best not to know because it would really hurt sometimes. She will be really sad and mad if she has to spend her birthday in this place. I hope, for her sake, she’s gone. Just in case, I think I want to bring stuff for her if I can the next few times because I’ve realized how many choices I have. I can do anything, but she’s stuck here. She wants to help people; she’s sweet but also has a steel spine and I know that. She’s had some really traumatic things happen to her and yet she and I breathe the same air, for an hour a week. There were roaches in the place, apparently, some several inches long. We both don’t like bugs, except ladybugs.

I’m posting my reflections to the blog so I can have a URL for the final project!

Week 1:

We met with two girls today. One of them was really talkative, and she had so many stories to tell. I found it interesting that she instantly went to stories about the police. I think that’s pretty telling, as far as what that means about the impact the police had—and have—on her community. She loves to play basketball and wants to visit New York someday. She told a story about a time she left home with a knife and was just walking around after dark when she was approached by the police. The officers escalated the situation, but one thing that shocked me a little was the phrase “By this point I had the knife out,” which she included as an aside. I can’t tell if she was tased or not. Kalia, the other girl, loves singing and sang at her mom’s funeral- gospel songs. She once was chased by her brother with a BB gun and he shot out her tooth. When they went to the doctor, the police asked her who did it and she said herself to protect him. The other girl threw rocks at people who made fun of her brother and laughed while she told us. She told it in a funny way, but for me, that would have been so traumatic. I guess that’s my biggest takeaway from tonight—the way they used humor to soften the impacts of these extremely traumatic events and the way the events seem normalized.