When I was still in Dallas it felt strange to watch everyone getting ready to go back to school & then remembering that for the first time that I could actually remember in my life, I wasn't participating in the ritual. My sisters bought spirals, pencils & any other imaginable supply & all I grabbed was a pack of pre-sharpened No. 2 pencils so I wouldn't forget before taking the LSAT in a few weeks.
I went back to school on Monday whether I had planned to or not. I have found myself waking up at 6:15 am to shower, dress, pack a lunch and catch the bus at the end of the street so I could make it to work by 8 am. My office has turned into a classroom complete with reading assignments & office managers, other paralegals, & attorneys intent on teaching me immigration law. The difference is, for the first time I don't feel like what I am learning is just busy work. There is something that I will actually be doing with the stuff I am learning. Alright, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed school a lot, but I am finding some of the reading that I have been doing is a little easier because it is taking something that I am interested in & using it to help another person in some, if only very little, way.
Monday I spent learning what my job at Catholic Charities Immigration Services entailed. I am an Intern/Consultant in charge of special programs. It sounds pretty official & I have an office which makes me feel pretty grown up. Really what I do is help out with intake consultations (learn about a person's migration history, a little about their personal history, & their current immigration status & then figure out what we can do to help them out in filling out paperwork, getting visas, citizenship, etc.) & then coordinate some of the outside programs that my department does (free legal advice clinics & a citizenship/naturalization workshop) & any other odds and ends. I'm incredibly excited, but also really nervous because of the impacts that all of this has on peoples' lives. On Wednesday I sat in on the interviews during our walk-in day. The four cases I saw ranged from a very elderly woman who was waiting for her daughter to be able to get a visa, to a couple where the husband was already a permanent resident who hopefully will be able to become a citizen soon & his wife who is only a few months away from being able to get her visa, to two different cases of women who had been in abusive relationships. It was a rollercoaster of emotions, to say the least, to see the frustration of the family of the elderly woman in not being able to understand that after waiting since 1995, they would have to continue to wait several more years to even be able to get the visa they needed, the smiles on the face of the couple knowing that soon things might get a little easier, to the fear on the faces of the two women & the amazing bravery & things that humans can survive. After listening to the story of one of the women, a friend accompanying her asked me, "Would you risk your life like that?" in reference to the risk she had taken in crossing the border. I sat speechless only thinking about how I had no clue because I had never been forced to make a decision like that. The idea of myself in her position has stayed with me throughout this week.
I have been able to stop by the Yellow House (the house where Kate works with the teenagers from the neighborhood) & say hi & get to hang out with everyone there after work. It's nice to just be able to hang out there & be away from the adult world of laws, rules & restrictions that I exist in during the day. The kids are trying sometimes, but its only because we're new & that's just the way junior and senior high kids are.
Kate & I don't work on Fridays, instead we have Study Days with Hugo. These began today. I got to sleep in an extra 2 hours this morning since we weren't supposed to be leaving until 9 am. After a quick stop at HEB to pick up some salad essentials, we headed to the catholic worker house. This is a really interesting concept to me because as a soup kitchen/ministry to the homeless, it exists in a house that looks eerily similar at times to some of the houses that my friends lived/live in in Sherman. What I mean is that my idea of this type of ministry is based on my experiences at FPC with the Stewpot in a more industrial, cafeteria setting. The catholic workers (who aren't always Catholic...the name was explained to me more as catholic meaning universal, like in the Apostle's Creed) live in a house nearby (in similar, if not worse, conditions) and cook lunch everyday for the homeless community. However, their meals are based solely on donations. Whole Foods supplies them with bread every day (a very cheesey joke that my mother would enjoy just came to mind, but I will spare you) and they make lunch for about 50 people based on what they have in the house. For me, the idea echoed my Wednesday thoughts of walking in another's shoes by the volunteers here agreeing to live a life of simplicity that, while in no way completely, somewhat like their clientele. For Kate & I, it was great to get to work in a different context than that which we are in during the week. While we chopped lettuce, tomatoes and carrots for the salad, one client kept us laughing all morning with his jokes.
Another joy for me has been realizing that there is this whole volunteer/socially concious community in San Antonio. Whether it is through dinner with the Mennonite volunteers behind us, getting to meet the catholic workers while helping to cook lunch, conversations with the Jesuit volunteer in my office, or meeting a bunch of people who once were volunteers here, it is comforting to know there are many other people walking in my shoes.
I read somewhere a rabbi said something to the effect of walking a mile in someone else's shoes is good advice and that wouldn't our children have so much more respect for the people around them if they were taught this from an early age. I think that has been the most important lesson I have re-learned in my first week back to school...
Peace,
jenna
