Day Four in Gangland
Wednesday began with a doling out of tasks. First we debriefed on what made the previous day successful and what they should change next year. This was nice because it gave us all a chance to share personal stories and reflections from the day before. We then began working around the church and generally cleaning it up. Two others and I were assigned to weed and sweep the creepy back alley and we started out alright, but pretty soon the overpowering stench coming from the dumpster next door began to get to us. It was the dumpster behind the Chinese food place we had ordered from the night before, so we were understandably not amused when a stream of maggots began to issue forth from it. We squealed a bit and jumped from foot to foot and then finished up with the weeding after first running to get face masks to help a bit with the stench.
After lunch, the same group went up to the music room where we began removing the staples from (I don't exaggerate) millions of reams of sheet music. This would become a three day process.
Showers at the Trenton YWCA that night felt incredibly good, and I didn't bat an eye at the bullet hole in the window about my shower, so glad I was to get that maggot smell off me.
That night we went to another church to prepare dinner for the 10+ people joining us for "Professor's Night," where we were to discuss the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, which we had all read over the summer. The cooking went well (I helped prepare the meatballs) and the church was beautiful (the sanctuary was built in 1888 and the rest of it added on in 1920, so it had a very Sherlock Holmes-y/ Little Princess feel) but the night wasn't that great. The two professors dominated the conversation, followed closely by the community partners and left us with little to say besides our names and where we were from.
Talking to them afterwards outside of the discussion was more successful, but I resolved never to take a class with either of them: probably not the response they were going for.