Monday, January 7, 2013

buck-i-serv aka alternative breaks

During the first week of winter break, I advised a Buck-I-Serv trip to South Carolina. We went to a group home that treated girls who had been physically, emotionally, and/or sexually abused. For confidentiality purposes, I'm choosing not to reveal the name of the center. This was my first time on an alternative breaks trip so I was super excited! Since my trip had 9 students (there were originally 10, but 1 got sick :/ ), I had to drive the 12 passenger van, which was semi-terrifying, but I made sure to test drive it the day before and it wasn't that bad. We made it to South Carolina in 9 hours and we stayed at Furman University. Can I just say...the apartments there are amazing! Anyway, we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant and I sat across from one of my students (the only male student on the trip) and we randomly started talking about Hanukkah. I told him about the time my 4th grade teacher gave us all dreidels and bags of candy and taught us how to play with dreidels. this experience stood out to me because she was the only teacher who did a Hanukkah activity with us as oppose to a Christmas one. I honestly don't remember any of the other activities I did in elementary school for Christmas. My student gave me a "refresher" about the dreidel and I realized no one had ever taught me about the dreidel since my 4th grade teacher, so that was nice :)

On our first day at the center, we interacted with the girls and helped them with their homework assignments. Before we went in, one of the staff members told us that most of these girls had been sexually abused since they were three years old. Most of them had been pimped out to feed their parents'/relatives' drug addictions. She also told us that most of these girls end up in foster care or adopted after they leave the center. To be honest, I had some preconceived notions before walking into the center. I thought these girls would either be really broken and sad or angry and rude. These girls seemed "normal" for lack of a better word. I don't know if it was an act or if they were being genuine, but if I met them anywhere else, I wouldn't have known they had been sexually abused. These girls were smart and funny, and they had goals to go to college and make something of themselves. The girl I was paired up with had been there for 6 months and she was leaving to live with her aunt on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the girls didn't have a lot of positive things to say about the place. The whole place was gated and locked and the girl I was paired up with hadn't been outside the gates since she got there. These girls had to raise their hands for everything, even to ask the teacher if they could approach her. They weren't allowed to have pens, pencils, or use forks, in the case they'd use it to harm themselves. It was extremely structured that it surprised me. I guess I understand why it's so strict and structured, but the girls practically had no freedom.

Later that night, during our reflection time, we talked about what happens after these girls leave the group home. Who keeps tabs on them and makes sure they're doing well? How do they get their meds? Do they continue to see a psychologist and/or psychiatrist? Who helps these girls transition into society? I feel like if all this time and effort is put into helping these girls heal and recover, someone should make sure they continue to recover and help them achieve the goals they set for themselves. In addition to all this, the shooting in sandy hook elementary school shooting also took place on Friday and my students were pretty worked up about that. I think the fact that most of the victims were children was incredibly heartbreaking for them.

Saturday and Sunday were our days off, so on Saturday we went to downtown Greenville. It was a cute little area with lots of mom and pop shops and boutiques. Someone recommended sticky fingers to us so we had to go there to get some authentic South Carolina ribs. Early Sunday morning (like midnight), one of the participants got sick so he had to fly back home. Later that day, we went to color clay cafe and painted mugs, plates, and tiles for our group activity. Maybe it's the 10 year old in me, but it was so much fun! For dinner, we  made our own Italian dinner (jersey shore style).

On Monday we decorated the classroom for the girls' Christmas program and it looked amazing! Central Michigan came that day so they spent the first few hours getting to know the girls while we worked. Different organizations had donated Christmas gifts to the girls and family members had sent presents, and we had to go through all of the stuff to make sure there weren't any items that the girls could use to hurt themselves (e.g. tampons, glass bottles, hair ties with metal ends, cards, etc.). I understand why we had to do this, but it felt wrong in a way, like I was violating their privacy. One of the girls had already left before we got there and we had the opportunity to see another girl leave the center. She looked so happy to leave with her aunt and it definitely made me tear up.

On Tuesday we had to redecorate the classroom because some of the stuff had fallen down. The staff member wanted us to do it because she said we did a better job than Michigan :P We had a lot of downtime that day because there just wasn't enough to do for 21 people (9 from Ohio and 12 from Michigan). We did some baking, and by we, I mean 3 people from Michigan while everyone else sat around. We were going to leave, but then we started hanging out with the girls who didn't want to bake. We talked about random stuff and they did our hair. 7 of us got half a head of corn rows :D One of the girls said that this was the most fun she had had since she got there and she had been there for almost 7 months. She even referred to us as her "friends." That comment made me both happy and sad. Happy because we were able to make that day fun for her, but sad because it gave me the impression that they don't (or don't get the chance to) do many fun activities. Tuesday was also one of my student's birthday so we went out to Carolina Ale House and got dinner. We were having a normal dinner until 4 guys thought it'd be a good idea to come over and start talking to us. After about 15 minutes of a very uneventful conversation, they left. Later, two of the girls went to buy a shirt from the restaurant for a souvenir and they ran into the guys. They overheard them say something about going back in 3 minutes because there were 9 of us. Did they think they had better odds since there were more of us? Silly boys. We then came back to the apartment and surprised the birthday girl with a cake and balloons. We reflected on our day at the center and talked about what we learned. Of course it wouldn't be a good end to the night unless we played a game so we played telephone pictionary, which got pretty ridiculous.

Wednesday was our last day at the center and the girls performed for the Christmas show. One of the staff members told us that the reason these middle school and high school girls do something "elementary" like a Christmas show is because they missed out on their childhood. For Christmas, they get gifts like Barbie dolls and baby dolls because they didn't get any of those gifts as a child. Most of these girls were doing "adult" things (she didn't elaborate on what these things were) for whatever reason (e.g. to feed their parents' drug habits) that they didn't get to be a normal child. One of my students brought up that, as children, we had our families who came to our Christmas performances. We looked for their faces in the audience and waved to them when we didn't know better. These girls didn't have that. Throughout the week, one of the staff members asked multiple people if they were coming to the show (e.g. case workers, teachers, psychologists, etc). They performed for us and although we had spent four days with them, we were practically strangers to them. My first day at the group home, one of the girls there talked about how much she didn't like the group home. Despite the downsides of being at this group home, I could tell that these girls were really close. They held hands throughout the Christmas show and encouraged each other with nods and smiles. It was a beautiful thing to see. It also broke my heart because i don't think these girls see each other again once they leave.

My time in South Carolina was nothing short of amazing. I felt like I had been there forever, but also felt like I hadn't been there long enough. We left at 5am Thursday morning and got back by 1pm. Yay for driving at 85mph in the rain :P I learned a lot on this trip, and although I won't be able to advise a Buck-I-Serv trip this spring due to ACPA and the job search (no big deal), I hope I'll have the opportunity to advise another trip at whatever institution I end up at after Ohio State.

Listening to: Taylor Swift – I knew you were trouble

Update: My last semester of grad school has officially started!!