building blocks, third week

Ahh, the joys of sociology....

On Tuesday, we were finally able to meet with Tom to discuss the agenda for our first meeting. After Monday’s class, Sarah, Sam and I were feeling a little concerned that we had not yet met officially with our residents. Adding to that concern was the fact that we hadn’t met with Tom for over a week, and had no idea what would be happening at the meeting. I typed up a rough draft of an agenda for the meeting before we met Tom and it turned out that Tom had made his own agenda. We spent a long time compromising between the two and figuring out in what order we would discuss each topic we wanted to cover. Tom was keen on Sarah, Sam, and I running the majority of the meeting, so in the end Tom only talked about his job as a supervisor and then explained an outcome based model to organizing a project.
We arrived at the ENA with great anxiety the evening of our meeting. Before we had arrived, Greg had stopped by and explained to Tom that although he would not be able to attend the meeting this week, he was still interested in participating. Someone in his family (we haven’t figured out who, yet) died recently, so Tom gave him the forms we were handing out at the meeting and explained what would be going on. Many people had informed us that they would attend the meeting, but we really didn’t know what to expect. My heart jumped when I saw Amy and John approaching the door. I wasn’t sure if they would end up coming because Amy works so much. I know they had to sacrifice a lot to make the meeting. Soon more families began to arrive, many with their kids, (Sarah saved the day by convincing her friend to baby-sit) and it still wasn’t seven yet. Talking with the families who came, most of them had canceled prior engagements to come to the meeting. It was encouraging that they were already so interested in the program. At 7pm, we had 16 families and the room was packed. We started the meeting by playing a variation of a game we heard about in class on Monday. Before the meeting, we laid masking tape on the floor of the ENA, creating a smaller version of Bellaire Street. We then had all the families line up in the order their homes appeared on the street and introduce themselves, the house they lived in, and one defining characteristic of their home. Finally, Sarah, Sam, Tom, and I reintroduced ourselves, jumping into corners of the room to represent the different corners of the country we come from. It seemed to work, neighbors had to talk to each other a lot to figure out in what order to line up, especially because their were some gaps from households that did not attend the meeting. After everyone sat down again, we passed around cookies and donuts and served drinks. As soon as the food appeared, the room became much louder. Food has amazing powers!
I was in the middle of laying the ground-rules for the meeting (keeping to the agenda, not complaining about neighborhood problems yet, etc) and discussing the purpose of building blocks when Sue’s family and José showed up. I was so excited to see José (who does not speak a lot of English) because I had translated our forms into Spanish for him and the other Hispanic families in the hopes that they would come. He was having trouble understanding everything that was going on in the meeting, so I sat with him and translated things he didn’t understand throughout the rest of the meeting. It was a very interesting experience because I felt removed from the rest of the room, as if José and I were having our own conversation apart from the rest of the meeting. A couple of times when I returned to the front of the room to talk about another topic on the agenda, I had to work really hard to speak in English. I wanted to slip into Spanish. After the meeting, José and I were talking and he asked me if building blocks could help him fix his . I couldn’t understand what he wanted to know if we could fix, so I kept asking him to explain it. It turns out, he was talking about his heater but he was saying ‘heater’ in English and because I was in Spanish mode, I could not figure out what he was trying to say. It took him translating ‘heater’ back into Spanish before I understood what was going on. I told him that we only work on exterior home improvements, and he asked if there were any organizations in town that could help him find the money to buy a new heater. Apparently, his heater doesn’t work at all and he had to survive the entire winter without any heat. It sounds like he needs the whole heating system replaced because his heater, from what I understood, pumps hot water in pipes around the house to raise the temperature. I told him I would look into places that might be able to help him, but I am not really sure where to begin. I am going to go back and visit him and help him fill out the homework we handed out at the meeting.
Although our meeting ended fairly promptly at 8:10, more people than José lingered far longer into the evening. Jane and Sue and Margaret and their families all stayed for over an hour chatting with Tom, Sam, Sarah, and I. Several of them would like help filling out their project estimate forms, and Sarah, Sam and I were more than willing to help them, but Tom suggested that we not so that they won’t rely on us as much. I understand what he is saying, but I think that many of them feel overwhelmed by the ‘homework’ they have to complete, and not all of it is very clear. I think they also are convinced that the stakes are very high: that if they fill out something incorrectly they will be considered ineligible for the program. When Sam visited Miriam on Saturday, she helped her fill out her forms and when I went to talk with Miriam on Sunday, she was immensely appreciative of Sam’s effort because she didn’t know where to begin. She said that it didn’t feel like Sam was doing the work for her, but rather that she was helping her make sense of it all and feel more confident in what she was putting down. I have this gut feeling that many of the other residents are feeling the same way and that we will lose them if we don’t give them any support. So Sarah and I are going to return to the neighborhood Tuesday morning and afternoon to see how things are going.
Sarah and I were planning on visiting with the residents on Sunday afternoon, bringing them cookies and asking how things were going since the meeting. Unfortunately, Sarah had an emergency where she had to go to Chicago and could no longer visit Bellaire Street with me. I was a little hesitant about going by myself for a while. Sarah and I work really well together and I thought that maybe her not being able to come was a sign that I should use the time to study for my cell biology exam on Monday and finish my vertebrate biology homework. I had almost convinced myself not to go when I remembered how wonderful it felt to have so many people come to our meeting. I think a large part of why they all came had to do with our efforts door-knocking and I didn’t want to leave them without any support until Tuesday. So, I stuffed cookies in my bike bag and headed toward Edison. I had four hours until my SI session so I figured I would be able to check in with most of the residents. I especially wanted to talk with the few families that weren’t able to come to the meeting to see what happened.
I thought it would be no different being in the neighborhood by myself, but the truth is that when I got there, I was really nervous. I walked up and down Reed Court, a street perpendicular to Bellaire Street, before I got the courage to knock on the first door. I talked with Tomin and Joe first. They are a Caucasian middle-aged couple who live in the house closest to the creek. Sam talked with them previously, but I had never met them. They explained that they had every intention of coming to the meeting, but that they lost track of time and at 7:30 realized they were supposed to be at the meeting. They promised they would come to the one this week and I made arrangements to drop off the forms they would need early Tuesday morning. I was feeling a little more confident after talking with them. Next, I knocked on Miriam’s door. Miriam also has a good relationship with Sam already, so I had to remind her who I was. She immediately invited me in to her home to chat, exclaiming what a wonderful visit she had with Sam the day before. I walked in, expecting to be there for no more than a few minutes, when she asked me if I would like a cup of tea. I said sure and we sat at her kitchen table with Raggedy Ann mugs of white tea and my cookies and began to talk. The first thing she told me about was her cat, Freckles, because I noticed the cat food in her kitchen. Freckles is eleven years old and hates it when Miriam reads the newspaper because she has to take a break from petting him. He is orange and white with black spots on his nose, but didn’t appear until right before I had to leave. Miriam was very impressed because usually he never comes out to meet visitors. Apparently, Miriam started keeping cats because her daughter liked them as a child, but Miriam is much more partial to dogs. Nevertheless, she sustains a small pack of neighborhood cats by leaving food out for them on the back porch. We had a lengthy discussion about the travesty of stray cats and dogs and whether it is better to feed them or let them starve. I asked her a little more about her daughter. She is 50 and lives in Lansing. She has been married twice, something that Miriam seems conflicted about: although because of her religious background, she thinks that people should stay together, she is impressed that her daughter had enough courage to survive on her own. Her daughter is an artist who draws beautiful pictures, mainly of science fiction characters (she showed me lots of photos of the artwork). She also has a son, who had two children. Her granddaughter is a freshman at a college in Wisconsin and wanted to be a marine biologist until she failed freshman biology. Her grandson goes to college part time and is engaged to a pre-veterinary student at MSU. Miriam’s son’s family comes to visit her each Christmas, which is one of her favorite times of year. Miriam didn’t have a very good relationship with her husband. They had very different interests and priorities, but they “stuck together because they didn’t have any other choice”. She almost seemed jealous of her daughter’s ability to leave her husbands. Miriam’s husband was an architectural draftsman who worked a consulting firm in Kalamazoo. Their favorite thing to do was take road trips around the country. Miriam told me of one trip when they were stuck at a national park in the Appalacian mountains and had to take everything out of their station wagon and sleep in the car, which Miriam described as “a coffin that smelled like burlap”. (They had to keep burlap in the windows so their cat wouldn’t escape).
Miriam has lived in her home on Bellaire Street since she was 19 years old (that was 60 years ago). And although she never thought she would stay in one place for so long, she couldn’t dream of leaving her home now, even though her son and daughter are pressuring her to buy an apartment. Her home was recently the victim of an attempted break-in, which concerned her a lot. Freckles helps her to be brave, though. She spends a lot of time with her sister, who lives in Kalamazoo and is also a widow, and in her spare time she really likes to read mysteries. Not scary mysteries, though. She likes Agatha Christy because she remains separated from the story line. When she was explaining how scared she gets, she exclaimed, “I’m 79 years old and I still can’t watch Bambi, for God’s sake!”
When Miriam was pointing out another drawing by her daughter, I happened to see the clock on her wall. I had been talking with her for over three hours and had completely missed the SI session I was supposed to run that evening. I eventually found a way to excuse myself, telling her that I had to run to a meeting. I still don’t know where the time went. I got back to my room just as the sun was setting. I hadn’t accomplished anything that I had originally set out to do, but I felt like my visit to Edison was fruitful nonetheless. I had to quickly send out an e-mail to my chemistry class with the SI worksheet and an apology for missing the session. Fortunately, they were very understanding today in class. Upon reflecting on my visit with Miriam, I became concerned that Sam would be worried that I was competing for her unique relationship with Miriam. So, I sent her an e-mail as well, explaining what I accomplished (and what I didn’t) in the neighborhood and I hope when I talk with her tonight she will be okay with that.