Community

I live in a low-income apartment complex, and this means a few things. All of my neighbors quailify as "low-income" for the amount of people in their household, and a majority of my neighbors are Hispanic. My family has lived here for 3 years, and I would say that the experience has shaped me in a way that few other times have. I can name nearly all the kids within 5 years of me that live in the complex, or at least the ones that play sports. Due to the communal nature of apartment life, a few things happen that are very interesting. I can walk around the complex and smell who is cooking and who is smoking something, I can knock on 4 doors and have a football game going, I can open the door to find a neighbor bringing tameles (YUM!), or sopa, or produce, I can open the door to find a neighbor asking for help moving a couch he was given by his neighbor up to his place. (By up, I actually mean up a flight of stairs) I love my community, dysfunctional and disadvantaged it may be.  I can see kids my age bound for gangs, kids victim of their circumstances, and kids trying their hardest to break the vicious cycle of poverty, disenfranchisment, and poor education.

All of that to say, I played football tonight, last night too, but tonight was really fun. I played with Alex, Justin, Fidel, Dominick, and Pedro. Pedro is the newcomer to the group, everyone else has lived here for at least 3 years, he moved in along with the rest of his family 6 months ago. As I was playing, it struck me how much the fun of playing is about being part of the community, making jokes, pushing, trashtalking, all that guy stuff. The actual playing is fun, but not the wholeness of fun.

Having played football for two nights in a row, and excercising last night, my body, particularly my legs, are very sore. I love that feeling of crawling into bed, and aching. It is such a vital feeling, such an awareness of being.

I did not excercise tonight, because I got my immunizations for my trip to Liberia, and my left arm is pretty sore. Tetenus is a pretty serious shot, it can really hurt. I imagine all of you have gotten tetnus shots, and you know what it can feel like afterwards. Thanks to Jane the Travel Nurse for doing a great job, I barely felt the needles. I found out that the maleria drugs I will need to take can cause "vivid dreams" in 25% of the population. I totally hope I get "vivid dreams"!

Well, MBA in the morning, I need my brain sleep.

More later!