Threats, tears and laughter

Today was a "typical" Saturday at the CLRC. Typical is a loose term because there is actually no typical day there. Usually Saturday's have more jobs than during the week with various homeowners coming in with landscaping and housework, which I saw a lot of and was so excited to see some of these guys go out on jobs (9 total today!), some who haven't gotten anything all week since I started. Day jobs have really declined and many guys are actually talking about returning to their country by the end of the year because of the lack of jobs and just desire to be home and reunite with their families.

I did something new today! I stood out on the corners with a sign for the center at a pretty busy intersection. I got lots and lots of stares, smiles, glares and a few people stopped to ask me why I was standing there. I was really quite excited to be able to share with one woman about the CLRC, and she was pretty supportive of it.

Quite early in the morning, the shopping center owner came into the CLRC. I didn't know who he was, but I've heard many stories about him - apparently every 3 months or so he makes an appearance in a pretty negative manner, complaining about something out of our control and he hadn't been in since February so he was due to stop by. Today he waltzed right in and sought Molly out, telling her that he can't pay for this anymore if there are still going to be workers up on the street. Essentially Molly saw it as a threat to close us down because of something that is beyond our control. We cannot and will not physically force every single worker to come to the CLRC; as I previously mentioned, there are a multitude of reasons that they use for staying out there. 

There is a special women's ESL class on Saturday mornings and today a woman from El Salvador came in who knows very very very little English. The local woman who has been helping her out doesn't know any Spanish so I basically got to be a translator for them, which was really enjoyable and encouraging to see her get excited about understanding and communicating herself little by little. The local woman decided to ask about her childhood and if she ever moved to a different house than where she was born in El Salvador. She didn't understand at first, but once I translated she immediately began to cry. She then explained to me that when she was 4 years old her whole family was murdered by guerillas and so she moved around from house to house year after year during her childhood. This is also the reason why she doesn't know how to read or write even in Spanish - she never went to school and nobody ever cared enough to teach her. After knowing her for less than an hour, she had shared so much about her personal life story. All I could do in return was be present with her here & now and share my compassion.

And now to change the mood, I'll show that there are lots of laughs at the CLRC!

1. Yesterday one of our usual guys was walking on a sidewalk to his job and got stopped by the cops. Why? Because he was carrying a machete in plain sight. He was quickly released after he explained in his self-taught English why he had it. Regardless of the fact that it was a legitimate tool that he was going to use on the job, it was also not an everyday occurrence in Virginia, hence the questioning of the police officer. He asked Molly later if it was alright for him to carry it around and she had to explain that it may not be best to be swinging it along on the sidewalk. This would have been totally normal in his native country of Guatemala, but it is not exactly a norm for Americans. He is now laughing about it, as are all of us, especially knowing his soft-spoken and affable nature.

2. We got a phone call from a woman client who said that her 45 year old son is living with her but is very messy. She wanted to hire someone to come into his room, empty it and clean it all in the time that he is at work. We took a survey and are certain that any grown man would not be pleased to have this happen to their own room (clearly). She also wanted to have the worker come to her house and practice on her kitchen cupboards with canned food.

3. The guys all help clean up the center at the end of each day, which includes mopping up all the floors. Today someone decided it would help to put a good-sized glop of dish soap into the mop water to clean the floors extra special. He didn't know that it wasn't for the floors and that it would make the floors very slippery and soapy, hence needing multiple moppings and causing people to slide all around. Quite the sight!

After work today, I stopped by a huge car show that was going on right near the CLRC. Divertido!