I signed up at the beginning of the semester to be a youth mentor through at BYU service organization called, ACCESS. They told me they would send me an email with contact information back in January. Nothing came. I went back in February and inquired again about the service opportunity and they again told me to wait for an email. Well, it came yesterday.
My female partner's name is Rose Wachter, a Bio-Chem nerd with a great smile, and our "little sister's" name is Faith Smith, 8 Years old.
When I called up Faith's mom, Darla, yesterday, I heard a black woman's voice on the other end of the line. I thought, "Cool, a black family in Provo!" I told Darla that I was excited to finally meet Faith and apologized for the months of absence. She kindly chewed me out for not being more on the ball and agreed to let me and Rose take Faith to a BYU tennis match and then to my ward talent show.
Rose was good enough to block out 2 hours for us and gave me her address so I could swing by her apartment before we picked up Faith together. (Safety reasons dictate that we go in twos.)
When we knocked on the duplex door in SW Provo, someone yelled, "Come in!" I was surprised to see 3 white girls sitting at the kitchen table. Darla was trying to help Faith fix the sound on Nora the Explorer on their new laptop. The 13 year old daughter, Chanisha, was also sitting at the table downloading music off the internet. Darla continued to grumble about how she couldn't figure this stuff out.
Rose and I just stood their for 3-4 minutes before I broke the silence by asking if I could assist her with the sound. I couldn't.
I must say that the encounter was one of THE MOST AWKWARD introductions I've ever had.
Darla had no idea how to be a mother; it was like she was just an grown-up Moody Teenager. After another 5 minutes of awkwardness, I couldn't wait to get Faith out of there. I left Darla with a copy of my resume with my contact information on it and told her we'd call if we weren't back by 8:30pm. She took the paper and just looked at it--she didn't read it mind you--she just looked, like she was trying to decide if it was junk mail or not. We left before I could tell whether she shoved it in a drawer somewhere or just deep-6ed it.
We talked on the way to the game. Poor Faith was starved for attention, she talked to us the whole time about her favorite chapter in the BFG and how her best friend, Tia, got a wood chip in her eye on the playground that day and went blind, forever! [Incidentally, we saw Tia later that night when we were walking Faith to the door. Tia shouted, "Hi" from across the street. "Is that the wood-chip girl?" I asked. "Yep!" she said. "Boy, she can see pretty well for a blind girl!"]
At the game we only stayed for 15 minutes as neither Rose nor Faith really appreciated the sport. We sat in the back row and played a game to pass the time. The game was called "Switch." There were about 16 empty seats in between us and a girl wearing a green shirt. The rules were that any time we said "Switch" we all moved down a seat, toward the girl in green. Anyone could call it. I could tell Faith really enjoyed playing because every few moments her eyes would be diverted from following the ball to counting how many seats we had left. The funny thing was that I was the one calling "switch" 14 out of the 16 times.
Too soon, we left the game for the talent show in the Statistics building on campus. We sat in the back so that we could sit up high on the folding cushy chairs. There were some terrific acts. We saw girls in togas lip-sync "I won't say I'm in love" from Hercules. We saw a some piano, guitar and clarinet original compositions. Garin Wood sang with his a cappela group about waiting for a sister missionary. Two comedians sang the Elephant song from MR but changed the characters to a starving college student and a $5 pizza. One R.M. who served in South Africa taught us all a little Xhosa [that Zulu-like clicking language] and recited the worlds most difficult tongue twister. The translation was something like, "The skinned skunk had it's throat slit with a rock."
We left early so that we could get Faith back; she was getting tired anyway. Everything was smooth thereafter. We agreed to meet Faith next week to bake a cake at Rose's apartment. I'm already looking forward to it.
My female partner's name is Rose Wachter, a Bio-Chem nerd with a great smile, and our "little sister's" name is Faith Smith, 8 Years old.
When I called up Faith's mom, Darla, yesterday, I heard a black woman's voice on the other end of the line. I thought, "Cool, a black family in Provo!" I told Darla that I was excited to finally meet Faith and apologized for the months of absence. She kindly chewed me out for not being more on the ball and agreed to let me and Rose take Faith to a BYU tennis match and then to my ward talent show.
Rose was good enough to block out 2 hours for us and gave me her address so I could swing by her apartment before we picked up Faith together. (Safety reasons dictate that we go in twos.)
When we knocked on the duplex door in SW Provo, someone yelled, "Come in!" I was surprised to see 3 white girls sitting at the kitchen table. Darla was trying to help Faith fix the sound on Nora the Explorer on their new laptop. The 13 year old daughter, Chanisha, was also sitting at the table downloading music off the internet. Darla continued to grumble about how she couldn't figure this stuff out.
Rose and I just stood their for 3-4 minutes before I broke the silence by asking if I could assist her with the sound. I couldn't.
I must say that the encounter was one of THE MOST AWKWARD introductions I've ever had.
Darla had no idea how to be a mother; it was like she was just an grown-up Moody Teenager. After another 5 minutes of awkwardness, I couldn't wait to get Faith out of there. I left Darla with a copy of my resume with my contact information on it and told her we'd call if we weren't back by 8:30pm. She took the paper and just looked at it--she didn't read it mind you--she just looked, like she was trying to decide if it was junk mail or not. We left before I could tell whether she shoved it in a drawer somewhere or just deep-6ed it.
We talked on the way to the game. Poor Faith was starved for attention, she talked to us the whole time about her favorite chapter in the BFG and how her best friend, Tia, got a wood chip in her eye on the playground that day and went blind, forever! [Incidentally, we saw Tia later that night when we were walking Faith to the door. Tia shouted, "Hi" from across the street. "Is that the wood-chip girl?" I asked. "Yep!" she said. "Boy, she can see pretty well for a blind girl!"]
At the game we only stayed for 15 minutes as neither Rose nor Faith really appreciated the sport. We sat in the back row and played a game to pass the time. The game was called "Switch." There were about 16 empty seats in between us and a girl wearing a green shirt. The rules were that any time we said "Switch" we all moved down a seat, toward the girl in green. Anyone could call it. I could tell Faith really enjoyed playing because every few moments her eyes would be diverted from following the ball to counting how many seats we had left. The funny thing was that I was the one calling "switch" 14 out of the 16 times.
Too soon, we left the game for the talent show in the Statistics building on campus. We sat in the back so that we could sit up high on the folding cushy chairs. There were some terrific acts. We saw girls in togas lip-sync "I won't say I'm in love" from Hercules. We saw a some piano, guitar and clarinet original compositions. Garin Wood sang with his a cappela group about waiting for a sister missionary. Two comedians sang the Elephant song from MR but changed the characters to a starving college student and a $5 pizza. One R.M. who served in South Africa taught us all a little Xhosa [that Zulu-like clicking language] and recited the worlds most difficult tongue twister. The translation was something like, "The skinned skunk had it's throat slit with a rock."
We left early so that we could get Faith back; she was getting tired anyway. Everything was smooth thereafter. We agreed to meet Faith next week to bake a cake at Rose's apartment. I'm already looking forward to it.
Faith is a lucky girl to have you two. Sounded like a fun outing. What kind of cake will you bake?
ReplyDeleteI don't know yet. I think Rose wants to plan this one. I kind of dominated the last one.
ReplyDeleteI'm very excited that you made this commitment! What a sad situation though. I wonder what kind of future Faith has? If only she'll graduate from high school and maybe go to college or a tech program she'll have a much better chance. (Maybe you could at least ask Rose if she had considered cupcakes because then there would be many tries, lots of variety, color and everyone could participate on the same level and they're SO much more fun for kids to eat (and give away!)
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a great opportunity Bryan. I'm glad you can make a difference. So her mom sounded black but the whole family was actually white? Just FYI, it's actually DORA the explorer. :)
ReplyDelete