Whew!

***There are no pictures in here...sorry!***

I did it...yea! I took 58 high school girls and two adult chaperones to the Day Worker Center of Mountain View...check it out here. This is a super cool organization that blows my mind every year I visit (this was my third time). Local day laborers can come to this center and employers also come and ask for workers, so it acts as an intermediary and workers don't need to go wait in some parking lot. The workers are also able to receive health care from a mobile health unit as well as English classes and free legal services and a myriad of other neat things. Workers will actually lead different things throughout the day at the center for the workers who aren't out on a job; one lady leads Zumba! I just cannot emphasize how WELCOMED we were made to feel which seems so ridiculous to me since they were doing us the favor by allowing us to interview them and invade their space for a morning.

With a safe place like this to go to, laborers do not need to worry about being abused by employers or unpaid since the center requires employers to adhere to a certain set of agreements. Another cool aspect of this center is that the laborers actually provide service for their community; women will knit blankets for premature babies at a local hospital and there are monthly blood drives. I take my students in as an immersion aspect of our immigration unit and am always just blown away by how welcoming the workers are (as well as their incredible and charismatic director), cooking and serving us lunch and generously telling their stories for my students interviews. The center has also just begun blogging courses for the laborers which is so cool since it gives an outlet for story telling/venting/expression/etc. and I'll be adding it to the blog roll.

Soooooo...if you're in need of things done (they are willing to do all types of work!), give the center a call. Most of the workers do speak Spanish, but the benefit of calling is that someone who speaks English will answer and help you out.

On the flip side of the coin, I approach any and all field trips that I am in charge of with dread and anxiety, often dreaming of all that can go wrong the nights leading up to it. Especially since we take the light rail on this trip and there's a fair amount of walking involved, there's a lot that I can worry about, but the girls did an awesome job and despite strong nerves, really opened up in their small groups with the workers, so I was happy. I was also exhausted. Mike and I ventured to Trader Joe's to get him some lunch for today and also to go to the self-serve fro-yo next door and I swear I dreamed it, that's how zombie-like I was. I kind of made it through classes today and I'm also super excited to go on breakaway day (like a one-day retreat) with my homeroom tomorrow...double yea!

I'm also in the process of ordering a little cakey-cake for my grandmother's birthday and I'm tres excited since it's a BUNDT cake from here and they're so...so...so...YUM! They're very pretty to boot with fluffy flowers and other embellishments in the centers. This is going to be a great birthday weekend =)

On that note, happy almost hump-day!