It is, apparently, an East Coast tradition that MLK day is celebrated as a "day on," instead of a day off (Midwestern readers - are you familiar with this? The idea, while appealing, was quite foreign to me until recently). The same tradition applies, nationwide, to AmeriCorps volunteers, who get to honor Dr. King by doing a day-long service project instead of catching up on sleep.
So it was that, grumbling and muttering all the while, my 3 comrades and I made our way to East Harlem yesterday, destined for an outreach center run by the Little Sisters of the Assumption. Our task, we had been told, was to facilitate programming about MLK for a group of 15-20 undocumented Mexican children, whose working parents couldn't afford childcare for the school holiday. Obviously, this wasn't the first time I'd worked with children before, but being in a room full of people who came up to my waist came as quite a shock to my system, considering I've scarcely seen a child since coming to New York. Much to my surprise, I had an absolute blast.
As it turned out, our overarching goal was to make an "I have a dream" quilt: the kids each got to make quilt squares reflecting their dreams, all of which were compiled at the end of the day. It was both hilarious and sobering to see what they came up with. One child at my table was passionately committed to bringing an end to poaching jaguars in the South American jungle (why? I'll never know). Another wrote: "No more violence because that hurt people feeling," accompanied by a line of blurry stick figures. When I asked him what the people in the picture were doing, he said: "Praying together." Wow.
Inevitably, the quilt making took up nowhere near the allotted time, and we were forced to improvise. Fortunately, we were rescued from the task of inventing a diverting game by three 10 year-old girls who came up to us and begged to play "the chair game." Further clarification revealed that, yes indeed - here were 16 East Harlem children who wanted nothing more than to play musical chairs. Brilliant.
Believe you me, walking in circles around furniture is a very different reality than navigating gantry cranes and climbing gangways. Perhaps because I was so out of my element, it came as a true surprise that I, who can barely walk across my apartment without tripping over something, am inadvertently excellent at musical chairs. Try as I might to eliminate myself so that the kids could play for longer, I just kept on going, feeling increasingly ridiculous as the number of children circling with me dwindled. I finally managed to lose on purpose when there were 3 of us left. I don't think I'll ever live it down. Already, our program director sent out an email full of humiliating photos entitled: "Who knew Kristin was such a musical chairs fiend?"
All that just in case you needed further convincing that my life in New York is completely ridiculous. Check out the rest of the pictures on facebook.
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