A Pleasant Surprise

This past Wednesday was the 4^th of July, but before that I got an amazing surprise: my boyfriend came to D.C! He took a 30 hours’ bus ride to come and visit me, not the town, but me. It was a great highlight of my week and he was there for most of my journey this week. This week’s cover are about different topics and thoughts. 

              Besides having the day off and waking up as late as I wanted, I received a surprise video call from my boyfriend within the town. I was so excited and I missed him so much that I rushed to get ready and run outside to embrace him. As expected, I showed him all around D.C. throughout the week. We went to museums, to different theaters, and to different parks. For the 4^th of July, we, the EYA interns, decided to do a potluck since we had visitors and more people were being invited. It was great, we attempted to do a picnic outside but we ended up inside since it looked like it was going to rain. We all sat in the living room while we ate and laughed with one another. I didn’t know everybody that was in the room since we had so many guests, but the atmosphere was friendly and happy. It reminded me of the beginning of the church, when Christians would get together to fellowship without even knowing one another. It reminded me of how God called us to love one another and how that includes people that we don’t know. It reminded me that despite the current situations, politically speaking, there are good things happing around us.

              Friday during seminar we learned about poverty, homelessness, and budgeting. This last one is not budgeting our allowances, but the federal budget. We had an exercise where we had to decide the spending of the federal budget in like 10 minutes. It felt like 5 min. because there were so many decisions to make. I loved how we prioritized human rights: health, living, education, and food. The part after that is when we struggled. National defense was something really important for somebody and for me it was the least important thing I wanted. This whole exercise made me realize the amount of power Congress has, the amount of responsibility that comes with it, and how hard it can be to agree. It makes me think about the importance of having a diverse representation and point of views, but also planning ahead of time so decisions like federal budgeting do not happen within the last minutes. There are decisions that will define thousands of people’s lives.

               Sunday morning, we went to church. In the morning like 8 of us helped set up a dinning for free lunch they serve to homeless. Since we were so many, we finished fast, and before service started I went to the bathroom. Don’t worry, it won’t be an embarrassing bathroom horror story or anything of that nature. As I was leaving the stall, a homeless woman was there. She was talking to herself and removing something form her outfit and two things could have happened next. First I could have walked out and not said a word, or I could have said “good morning” and asked her how she was doing: I chose option two. Her answer surprised me because she gave me compliments and called me a “princess” before she left. I don’t want to say I judged her before she spoke, but I was kind of nervous about how was she going to react to my intentional interaction. It made me think about how I have this misconceived perception of the homeless! I don’t want to generalize her kindness since I also had a homeless man be rude to me while I was serving the food. But, the point that I am trying to get across is that there are good people, and you cannot find out unless interact with them.

              My last event of this weeks’ journey was that same Sunday, but it happened when I was at the zoo with my boyfriend. I love zoos and everywhere I go, I try to make sure I go to a zoo. Like any other zoo most of the visitors are kids and I get a joy, not only from watching the animals, but also from watching the families and their kids’ expressions of wonder and fascination. The last thing I expected to hear at a zoo that completely surprised me, actually came from kids playing patty cake in a wagon being pulled by their parents. These were the lyrics to the rhyme:

“I don’t want to go to Mexico

No more, more, more

There’s a big fat policeman

At my door, door, door,

He grabbed me by the collar,

He made me pay a dollar

I don’t want to go to Mexico

No more, more, more”

I will give you a second to process this terrifying song. If you are thinking that these were white kids singing it, you are wrong. It was young black kids, having their parents next to them and nobody said anything, not even myself. I was in shock and it was hard to me believe that they were little girls singing it, besides it never occurred to me to step up until now while I am writing my journal. But this scene makes me think, why are the parents allowing their kids sing this song? How can the kids can sing this song so happily? Who created this song?

While I probably won’t get an answers for these questions within the next few moment, it made think about how a lot of times, we make decisions based on what we have heard from other people without giving each other a chance to be exposed to others options, or asking how these decisions can affect a lot of people. Whoever made the decision to write this song, or even alter the lyric to another version of a song, has made a huge impact in a lot of kids lives. I truly am hopeful that they will have the opportunity to interact with Mexicans, or any ethnicity for the matter, and be open minded regardless of what this song is implying. Because who knows, they might just be in for a pleasant surprise.

Raquel Resendiz

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