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Hello Out There
Hello...? Hello...? Anyone out there?
I guess it's been about forever since I've updated this... it feels like it, anyway. I'm not gonna try to catch up the last 2+ months in a few quick minutes, but I don't want you to give up hope. Still check back occasionally... you never know when I might randomly post something. Oh! Idea!! I'll post my mass email from last week that I wrote to try to catch everyone up on where I am and what I'm doing. Here goes:
Hello from Jackson, MS! It's Kenny Shumard. Remember me?
Sorry it's been so long since you've heard from me. I'm well into my
AmeriCorps experience and among the things I've learned so far is that
I actually can survive without being on the Internet constantly... or
even weekly. I'm actually writing this email on my netless laptop and
will hopefully get it to an Internet-capable computer tomorrow or the
next day.
I got to Charleston, SC almost 2 months ago, and I've been working
full-time and beyond ever since. I'm on a team with 9 other people
aged 18-24 and 1 older team leader, and we've been training, working,
eating, drinking, sleeping, and almost every other -ing you can think
of together ever since. We went through a month or so of training in
Charleston which was somewhat tedious and boring, but it gave us ample
opportunity to bond with each other and form as a team. It definitely
had its ups and downs, including making new friends like Robin,
Justin, and Karen, finding an establishment even cheaper than Core XI,
and creating dozens of inside jokes (the ups). Among the downs were
the 530 AM physical training sessions 3 times a week, the food (the
galley makes Jana look like a gourmet chef), and waking up once to my
roommate "getting to know" his new girlfriend. All in all it was a
pretty lively 5 weeks.
And now we're in Jackson on our first "spike". We got here a little
over 2 weeks ago, and we'll be here until the end of November. All 11
of us are staying in one room that's probably about the size of Cup O'
Joe in the childcare building of a local YMCA. Our jobs while here are
to tutor students in the Jackson School District and to tutor/play
with children in YMCA after-school programs. We're also doing various
physical projects at the local Ys, including filling in an old pool so
they can build a playground on it, building a wall to divide a big gym
into 2 little gyms, and lots and lots of yardwork. So far it's been
challenging but rewarding.
The kids are great. We work at 4 different elementary schools with
grades 3 to 5. I mostly tutor 5th graders at French and Lee Elementary
Schools in math, but sometimes I work with reading or english stuff
too. It's been really interesting to compare schools -- the students
at French are pretty much constantly loud and unruly (though still
endearing), while the students at Lee are much more disciplined and
several months ahead in the curriculum. But they're in the same
district and teaching the same things and both in "economically
depressed" parts of Jackson. I think we were told that Mississippi is
ranked dead last for quality of education in the US, which doesn't
help. At the particular schools in which I'm working, some of the
students have difficulty learning because they're literally always
hungry or they're constantly changing schools (some students will
change schools 4 or more times per year as their parents move to
different parts of the city where they can find a place to live for a
few months). It's a pretty bleak picture for some of these kids, but
that makes it all the more exciting when I can see them learn how to
reduce fractions or do long division. They're not hopeless, they just
need help from people who care to have a better chance to make it
through.
So that's pretty much what AmeriCorps amounts to, as I understand it
so far. We spend a month or two at each place we visit, helping as
much as we can in that time before moving on and trying to serve
another community's needs. It's definitely a unique way to live, but
it's a challenge I've enjoyed immensely so far.
That's about all I have to share right now... I could already write a
book of my experiences and observations and feelings, but I'm kept
busy enough doing my work that I just don't have the energy at the end
of the day. So this is all you get right now, but with any luck I'll
be able to share more soon. Until then,
Peace and love.
~K
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