Lost on the wrong side of town

EDIT: Notice again the date... and sorry again for posting late!

Last night, Curtis and I went to a USC football game. One of the members of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, a USC alum and former collegiate national champion in mens' tennis who never lost a match in 3 seasons of play (many years ago), was nice enough to give us two tickets in the fifth row on the home side at the 15 yard line. So Will gave us a ride down to the stadium two hours before kick-off so we could get the full USC home game experience (we were fortunate enough to meet some very hospitable tailgaters... but they drew the line at listening to two boys from the south try to tell them that SEC teams play the toughest schedules in college football). Once inside the stadium, after we got past the initial ooh-ing and aah-ing at the up-close-and-personal perspective on SC's tradition and pageantry, the game itself was incredibly boring. The Trojans defeated the Washington State Cougars 27-6 in a game that seemed devoid of much passion or intensity (and scoring, too, during the second, third and much of the fourth quarters).

After the game, however, is when things got interesting (well, at least interesting enough for me to write a blog entry about it). Curtis and I had planned to take the LA city bus home (as mentioned above, Will dropped us off before the game using our shared community mini-van; our thinking was to avoid paying for parking and dealing with saturday-late-night, post-game LA traffic). Problem was, by 10:30, when we finally got out of the stadium, the city buses had seemed to have stopped running. We waited at the closest bus stop to the stadium before noticing a small sign with a bus schedule that indicated that this particular bus only ran until 9pm on Saturdays. So using Curtis' iPhone, we looked up a route of another bus that would take us home (that supposedly came more frequently/ran later) a few blocks to the west of the stadium.

We arrived at our new bus stop a little before 11pm. We waited. And waited. As we watched a group of men drinking and loitering across the street (who seemed to be watching us), we started feeling more and more out of place as two white guys in USC gear late Saturday night on a corner in what we learned the following morning to be the edge of South Central Los Angeles. We met a woman who seemed to be from the neighborhood (she knew quite a few of the people milling about) who asked us for a dollar so she could buy another beer from the gas station across the street. After making conversation with her for awhile with no sign of the buses, we called a taxi company. When we told the person from the taxi company on the phone where we were, the intersection King and Normandie, he informed us that their company "doesn't pick up there."

A few minutes later, a young man in his late 20s/early 30s approached and asked if we knew if the buses were still running. We were trying to figure out the same thing, we told him.

The young man's name was Cesar. He told us he was recently released from prison and "didn't want to get in trouble again." He was trying to get home (from... where? We never asked.) and was nervous about the possibility of having to keep walking through this particular neighborhood. LA is notorious for gang violence that tends to fall along racial lines, and as a young, Hispanic male, Cesar (like us) was obviously out of place in South Central, a predominantly African American area.

By this point Curtis and I had each said plenty of quick, silent prayers that God would help us get home. I was almost to the point of calling one of our roommates to come pick us up (who would then have to figure out how to get to where we were and drive there at night after living in LA for all of 3 weeks) when we saw a taxi pull into the gas station across the street. Cesar suggested we go see if the driver could take us all back (Cesar's house was on the way to our neighborhood). We negotiated a fare before we got into the cab (like I would always do in Lima, where there are no taximeters, even though this guy had one). He agreed to take us for a very reasonable price, so all three of us squeezed into the back seat, and 30 minutes later, we were home.

And that's pretty much the end of the story. The taxi dropped Cesar off first, and then took Curtis and I back home, safe and sound. The driver was a college-educated immigrant from Ethiopia. Because of health problems, he was driving a taxi instead of continuing with school/professional work. We thanked him and wished him good luck.

Although it was maybe anti-climatic, Curtis' and my late-night experience in South Central offers plenty of things to over-analyze. In telling the story to our housemates and members of First Pres Hollywood afterwards, we both said we were scared. We were scared because we were "lost" on the "wrong" side of town. I still don't know how reasonable/justified our feelings of fear were. Maybe the feelings were products of our common sense/self-preservation instinctively trying to keep us safe and preventing us from acting unwisely. Or maybe they were products of having seen too many movies, listened to too many rap songs and heard too many rumors about that particular area of LA.

Although it has an important biological function, fear can sometimes be a bad thing. In the Bible, God is frequently telling folks to relax and "be not afraid." Fear can make us act violently and hatefully. Fear is probably the number one reason why most of us don't really pay too much attention when Jesus tells us to "love our enemies." Fear is why a lot of kids join gangs. Fear is why we build walls between us and them, and also why we steer clear of certain "wrong" sides of town.

The reason I would refer to South Central as the "wrong" side of town for guys like me and Curtis has a little to do with race and a lot to do with money and power. I've said it before (almost exactly a year ago, as a matter of fact) and I'll say it again: if you don't have money or power, you have very little reason to be afraid in the inner city. Not coincidentally, that's what this year of dwelling in the inner city is about. Freeing ourselves from enslavement to worldly money and power. Coming face to face with people that are different than us and that sometimes scare us. As Shane Claiborne says, while our society encourages upward mobility and a race to the top to become the richest and greatest, Jesus invites his followers to do the opposite: to enter into a movement of downward mobility, a "race to the bottom" to become like and to serve "the least of these." It's not easy, and for a North American, white, heterosexual, middle-upper class male, who's about as close to "the top" as you can get, it's a long, long race, and it's gonna be pretty scary. But that's when God finds us on the right side of town.

Note: as a community, we (the Dwellers) are currently reading Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution, which is the reason why I sound so much bolder/more idealistic/provocative than usual (or maybe not?)

Orientation Update

EDIT: Please notice the date that this entry was written. Sorry I'm posting it a month late!

We’re wrapping up our week of orientation here in Hollywood. We’ve had a chance to get to know each other, explore the city and see the places where we will all be working over the next year. On our first day of orientation, we went to Griffith Observatory, in the hills of Griffith Park, one of the largest urban parks in the country, which overlooks downtown LA. Looking down the hill from the observatory, it was easy for me to compare in my mind the view of LA with the view of the outskirts of Lima from the view of the top floors of Kilometer 13 church in Comas, where I worked last year. Both cities are huge metropolises overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The foothills of the Andes on the outside of Lima are really part of the same system of mountain ranges as the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains of LA. But that's where the similarities end (well, besides the smog/pollution). From Griffith Park in LA, I look down upon beautiful, ornate mansions that house single families. In Lima, I would look down upon slums and simple brick buildings that would house multigenerational extended families. The houses in LA have Spanish style colonial tiled roofs. The houses in Lima frequently had roofs made of cardboard or sheet metal. Or the roofs were covered with clotheslines and laundry, and usually featured long iron rebars sticking up, allowing for the house to continue being constructed upward as the family gets bigger. Check them out for yourself.

A view of Los Angeles from Griffith Observatory:

A view of Comas from Km 13 Church:

2008-2009 YAVs/Dwellers atop Griffith Observatory, with the Hollywood sign in the background. (From left: Will, Kenna, Curtis, Wendy and Alex):

The parking area/basketball court behind our house is decorated with artwork done by some of the kids who live in the neighborhood. The YAV site in Hollywood begun as a community house that was an urban mission of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood called the Hollywood Urban Project:

Last years Dwellers created and maintained a community garden in the front yard of the house. The five of us now assume stewardship of the garden:

New Blog Name

"Pensamientos Peruanos" has run its course. No, that doesn't mean my blog is ending. It just means it's time for a new name. I've started YAV year # 2 in Hollywood. So my thoughts aren't quite Peruvian enough now to merit the blog title "Pensamientos Peruanos" (even though I'm sure I'll continue to relate to experiences from Peru as I blog in Hollywood). I will also continue to keep the same address -- http://alexcornell.blogspot.com, but in the coming days or weeks, I'll be changing the blog title to give it a nifty new Hollywood/Los Angeles themed name.

So I need suggestions on a catchy blog name. Alliteration is always good, so I could just make it "Hollywood Happenings." Another possibility is "Hollywood Headaches, Heartaches and Half-eaten Hotcakes." But that just seems a tad melodramatic. Plus, I always finish all of my hotcakes. The YAV/Dwell program in Hollywood started as a mission of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood called "The Hollywood Urban Project," and my cynical side kind of wants to name my blog "The Hollywood Gentrification Project." If I ever did live video blogging, I could call it "California Streamin.'" My esteemed Peru YAV colleague Sean Kerr has suggested the name "Pensamientos Hollywoodaños," which sounds really cool to me, but would set a precedent such that throughout my entire blogging life, I'll always have to have a blog whose title is in Spanish and describes my thoughts as they relate to the location I happen to be in.

So that's all I got. Yesterday, Kenna, the fourth member of our YAV/Dwell community in Hollywood arrived from Tucson with her family. Will, the fifth and final member will fly in tomorrow. Then, orientation starts Tuesday as the five of us get used to being out of our comfort zones as we struggle to live in community with each other, integrate ourselves with the neighborhood and work four days a week on the streets of LA. I will try to take and post some pictures soon! Be sure to check out the official blog of the "Door Hollywood" program, which includes YAV/Dwell. Matthew Schmitt, our site coordinator updates it regularly and has already posted a couple entries with pictures documenting our arrival. That's all for now, and keep in touch!

Sights and Sounds from the first week in Hollywood

We could see the smoke from the L.A. wildfires through the airplane windows as we descended to land at the L.A. airport late Monday afternoon. Later, as Matthew, our site coordinator, drove us from the airport to the community house that we'll be calling home for the next year (with a stop at In 'n Out Burger on the way), we could see the actual flames lighting up the night sky across the southern California hillsides in the distance. I'm sure much heavy-handed, hyperbolic Christian symbolism could be used to describe our arrival -- the fearless group of Bible-believing Young Adult Volunteers descends onto the Godless Urban Jungle to "save" a city that's literally on fire as flames leap across the horizon and thick smoke fills the air -- but I'll let you simply take from it what you wish.

With the two other members of our Hollywood YAV/Dwell community not arriving until Saturday and Monday, this week is all about settling in and getting our bearings. Matthew took Curtis, Wendy and I grocery shopping on Monday, and we're already discovering how creative we're going to need to be this year if we're going to survive on the $85 per individual per month that we're given for groceries. Then, yesterday Curtis, Wendy and I took the community van to Venice beach and enjoyed the sun, waves and interesting people that hang out there. Finally, the past three mornings I've gone running to explore our neighborhood. Hollywood's touristy locales -- the walk of fame, the Hollywood sign, Grauman's Chinese Theater etc -- are mostly to our north. Hancock Park, a large, wealthy neighborhood, lies to our south. And scattered between Hollywood's busy thoroughfares -- Sunset, Hollywood Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, Santa Monica Boulevard -- are side-streets like ours, Gregory Avenue. On these sidestreets are mainly apartment complexes and modest homes occupied largely by immigrant families.

This evening, I had my first taste of what our daily life living and ministering in this neighborhood might look like. Wendy and I were cooking dinner. We had harvested all of the okra from our house's community garden in the front yard, and we had just gotten back from riding our bikes to the local "Food For Less" discount grocery store to pick up a few key ingredients for a recipe featuring okra that Wendy got from her mom. As we started preparing dinner in the kitchen, Curtis was playing basketball with the hoop in the parking area behind the house with 4 or 5 of the neighborhood kids, who ranged in age from 6 to about 12. Wendy and I quickly discovered that the okra from the garden was over-ripe (who knew it might be difficult to grow okra in southern california?) and was going to be absolutely inedible no matter how long we boiled it. We decided to improvise; we scrapped the okra to the compost and instead added leftover ground beef and rice to create a stir-fry out of what was originally planned to be an okra, tomato, green pepper and onion salad. Meanwhile, the kids had grown tired of basketball and Curtis, who went to school at Ole Miss, was attempting to give the kids a geography lesson on the southern US, because Mississippi is as good as a foreign country to a 10-year old son of Mexican immigrants living in L.A. Finally, Wendy and I finished dinner and Curtis said goodbye to the neighborhood kids, almost all of whom live in the apartment complex across the street. We all sat down to eat together. The three of us enjoyed our third "family dinner" in Hollywood (the improvised stir fry was actually really good) and we prayed giving thanks for food and fellowship and asking God's guidance as we begin a year in relationship with a wonderful neighborhood and each other.

YAV Orientation at Stony Point

It's been a busy week. I was one of 67 YAVs attending orientation at Stony Point conference center in New York. For better or for worse, I found myself doing more looking back during orientation than looking forward. Finally, I had a chance to "process" some of what I experienced over the past year in Peru with a group of people who understood more or less my motivations for being there and what exactly my goals and intentions were. I eagerly gave advice to whoever would listen about "what it's like" to be a Young Adult Volunteer, especially in Peru.

I can't really describe how awesome the energy was that I felt at orientation. It was just really, really cool to be around so many like-minded Christians who had dedicated a year out of their lives for service to others -- not to "save souls" but simply to be in relationship with people. We all seem to be searching for more authentic ways of being after spending most of our lives in sheltered white, middle-upper class enclaves. Orientation included both practical training/information as well as times of worship, play and socializing. We had talks and workshops about how to care for ourselves and manage conflict when we experience culture shock, stress and anxiety as we live in unfamiliar and possibly uncomfortable settings during our years of service. We participated in amazing worship services in which former YAVs shared stories of their experiences from years past and we all praised God with singing and dancing using music from all over the world.

So yesterday, at the end of orientation, we dispersed from Stony Point to all of our various placements around the world. Hollywood, Peru, San Antonio, Guatemala, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Kenya, Denver, New Orleans, India, Tucson, Nashville, Northern Ireland, Alaska, Miami. The first group left Stony Point Conference Center at 3am early Monday morning, while the final group left at 11pm that night. The flight to L.A. left a little before 10am. I was accompanied by Curtis and Wendy, two of my four housemates (the other two Will and Kenna had prior commitments to fulfill and will be arriving this weekend). It is truly awesome to be a part of such a large contingent of service-minded young people spreading out all over the world with the same goals.