Pardners

Should I come up with a new annotation to mark posts that concern Adventures with New Americans? That way, those of you not interested can skip.  Maybe I should start color-coding titles - pink for kids, blue for my moody musings, red for New Americans, etc.  

Anyway, one of the caseworkers has snagged me into one of his projects for long into the forseeable future.  Savvy guy that he is, he assigned me a partner.  She is a college student (of the correct college student age, unlike me) and spent a few months doing mission work in refugee camps in Thailand. We both happen to be available on Wednesdays, and willing to go out into people's homes.  We both have just enough  knowledge to be useful and not enough certification to have to be paid.  

The caseworker gave us a folder full of names and addresses of people who should have someone check in with them about how they are keeping up their apartment.  He gave us the most urgent today, people who have been previously evicted, have been given new apartments,  and need to learn to keep up their places so they will not be evicted again. We would drop off a bucket of complimentary cleaning supplies after showing how they are used.   

So Leah and I have each other to go knocking on doors with.  We did our share of charades and missing in communication, and pointing out what mice droppings are and the possible causes of why they're there.  We had to try to explain to two very reluctant women that they had to throw those thoroughly rotten onions away.  We had to report in about two young girls home alone, who threw the door right open for us, and come up with a plan with the caseworker about how we could educate them about better street sense, and how to get them into school.  One guy motioned me over to his oven, indicating something was wrong, and when I opened it, I could not have counted the number of roaches that scurried.  We tried to explain to horrified neighbors that was not blood they continually spit on the ground, but bedelnut  juice. And then we had to kindly tell the clients that the landlords don't like those stains all over the place either.  

 Over lunch, we made plans about how we would organize our next time out, who we would see, how we would handle things, etc.  Leah is great.  She is sweet, loves the people, smart, cooperative, and enthusiastic.  And, to my complete delight, she is on the exact wavelength I am.  She understood that the caseworker gave us this project - it's ours.  She too knows what our deficiencies are.  She knows that we need to be careful and wise, but she's ready to take the reigns too.  

At the end of the day, we both genuinely expressed how nice it was to have someone to learn with.  It's fabulous to have people to learn from, and very, very necessary.  But it's equally wonderful to have someone to jump in the water with when it's time to swim with the floaties off.  

And now that I know Molly is safely off the bus (she took the late bus for the first time today!), I will go shower.  I have an irrational suspicion that one of those roaches somehow made it home with me.