Finally here...

I've been in Los Angeles for six days now and though a lot has happened and I'm still processing quite a bit of it, I do want to share a few experiences and thoughts I've had so far.

I arrived in Los Angeles at 11:00am on Wednesday and met up with two of the other interns at the airport and we were then picked up by our program coordinator and taken to our orientation retreat at the retreat center at the Cathedral Center of St. Paul. We were the first three interns there and so we wandered around the neighborhood (Echo Park area) for a while. It was so wonderful to finally meet the other interns. We spent the rest of the evening getting to know each other and going over program information and then a late night chat.

Thursday, my first full day in Los Angeles, started bright and early. Along with the other Common Ground intern, I had to go to the Office of Aids Programs and Policy to take a pre-test to be fully admitted to counseling/testing training. We were given bus directions and tokens by our program director the night before, with more instructions on where to meet the rest of the interns when we were finished. We set off early the next morning (8:18) to make the "ten minute walk" to our bus stop for our 8:33 bus. Unfortunately, the ten minute walk was really a fifteen minute walk and we arrived at the stop just in time to see our bus driving off. EUIP Life Lesson #1: Always allow plenty of time for travel in LA. We waited and took the next bus fifteen minutes later, but were very worried we'd be unable to take the test and have to wait for the next testing session which would have meant we'd miss much of the day's orientation activities. Luckily, we were still allowed to take the test (and we felt slightly comforted by the fact that someone walked in fifteen minutes later than us!). We passed with flying colors and then set off on the next leg of our adventure, meeting the other interns down on Skid Row.

Down on Skid Row, we had a sort of orientation to the area by a couple of social services workers from the area. They told us (and showed us) a lot about low income housing and different shelters and clinics that are on Skid Row. It is my understanding that LA's Skid Row has one of the largest stable homeless populations in the country (7,000-8,000). We had the opportunity to see a low-income housing building and meet with the manager to talk about what he does and how he runs his building. We also visited Los Angeles Mission and a brand new clinic on Skid Row. It was an eye-opening experience to see such extreme poverty in the city. I actually saw a drug deal take place only about five feet from where I was standing, and had people scream about the evils of white people as we walked by on the sidewalk. Although it's been a few days since this took place, I'm still having a very difficult time processing the experience of spending the morning on Skid Row. Throughout this entire experience, I've been really struggling with feelings of extreme guilt about my white privilege. I'm trying to work through those feelings because I know that simply feeling guilty is neither healthy nor productive. The experience on Skid Row, though, was difficult because we were a predominately white, middle class group being led around a poverty-stricken urban area. I think it was important to see Skid Row, but I really just felt like I was on a campus tour back in the days when I was looking at colleges. I realize that any of us probably would have looked completely out of place, but I still felt uncomfortable.

Despite a rough morning on Skid Row, the rest of the day's orientation was really great. We spent the afternoon and early evening going through information about our living situation, appointing different housemates to different jobs which will rotate throughout the year, including chaplain and meal coordinator. We spent the rest of the night just sitting around and talking with each other around an outdoor propane campfire on the roof of the retreat center.

On Friday we had our Americorps day with mounds of paperwork and then moved into our apartment! We live on the second floor of the parish house at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Hollywood. Over the past few weeks, the members of the church worked so hard to re-do the apartment, which had been church offices until the beginning of August. They painted, re-did all of the hardwood floors, and put in a beautiful kitchen, as well as a bit of other decorating. We spent most of the weekend settling in and were officially welcomed to the church on Sunday. There was a great bilingual service (there are usually two - one English and one Spanish) and a lovely potluck. They even made us care packages with a homemade guide of things to do in the area, a t-shit and CD, some goodies, and beautiful stationary. They have also given us tons of food, including a lot of great produce and several bags of groceries to start out.

Today was my first day of training for my job as an HIV tester/counselor. Some of the training was a little boring, but it was pretty good overall and I definitely learned a lot. The day ended with our OraQuick Advance HIV Proficiency Exam. In short, we had to perform five HIV antibody tests on some controls, document them, pass an observation, and then interpret the results from pictures of other tests to see if they were negative, preliminary positive (positive results always mean a second test will be done), or invalid. It was a bit stressful, but I survived day one. We had a little bit of review homework, which I just finished, but it wasn't too much. It's just helping to reinforce what I've been learning...

One exciting thing about today was that I took the subway! It was my first time on the LA subway system. Though not too extensive, it did seem pretty nice. In fact, I'd heard so many terrible things about LA public transit but I've been generally pretty happy with it so far.

I'm going to try and post a bit more often now that I'm here and getting settled, so hopefully I'll have some new and exciting things to share soon! Thanks for reading...


Peace,
Jordan