Part II Days 108-119: June 7-18, 2010 (beer bucks for charity, taking away the transportation means of the poor, and the future that could be Fresno)

Position: Researcher

Number of Days Officially Unemployed: 143-154

Hours Volunteered: 0

EDD Check: $0 per week

Money Raised for Bhutanese Family: $260

I've begun thinking of the world in terms or beer. More precisely, Etel has made me think in terms of beer prices. When I'm being cheap about something, she'll say, "You won't spend $3 on fruit, but you'll pay $5 for a beer at a bar?" When I recently thumbed my nose at a large $10 jar of local honey that would last me months, if not a year, and probably help relieve my persistently bad sinuses, I thought, But I would spend that in two hours (or less) at a bar. But I still didn't buy it. I'm dumb.

My last post was about fundraising for the Bhutanese refugee family we're tutoring in English, asking for donations to repay their relocation expenses, and we've received several positive responses and one negative one ("I almost fell for your Ponzi scheme"). I'm not a natural fundraiser, nor a natural candidate for volunteer work. (My brother Joey recently said, "When are you going to admit we're not programmed for volunteer work?") So I've been encouraged by receiving messages from people saying they admire what I'm doing. The thing is, I have the leisure to do it, since I'm unemployed. I'm more amazed by people like Etel, whose undying commitment to volunteer work in the midst of a full-time job makes them inspirational super heroes.

And I've been really impressed by the donations we've received, from 10 to 50 dollars at a time, not including the money Etel and I have promised to contribute. I would never want to make anyone feel bad for not donating to the Bhutanese family's cause, since I'm a person who has rarely given anything to anyone in the past (and I was very excited to learn, through this writing project, how much and how diversely my parents contribute to social causes), but if you can afford to metaphorically buy the Bhutanese a beer, then we and they will hold up our mugs and cheers you. (I should mention that the Bhutanese family doesn't drink, and they think drinking is dumb. I should also mention we've lowered our target to pay off the eldest daughter's "loan" first, because she will be the first person from the family able to work.) You can contribute through the mail (e-mail me for mailing address: etp05@hotmail.com) or send money to Etel's PayPal account, using her email: etelga@hotmail.com.

Fresno Trip Interlude:

Being on unemployment is not as glorious and freeing as people might think: I'm not allowed to take an unpaid internship at a respected advertising firm as a copyeditor, even if that will eventually lead to a well-paying and respectable job (update––they don't want my services, even for free); I cannot take the Spanish summer school class I want to take in order to improve my chances of becoming fluent and add a valuable bullet point to my resume; I cannot leave the country at all. The EDD doesn't want you to improve your situation, they want you working full-time, now, washing dishes if you have to.

What I could, and did, do these past two weeks was take a trip to Fresno to visit family (congratulations to my nephews for their graduation and promotion) and conduct research for a book I'm writing. (If someone from the EDD is reading this, I also looked for work while in Fresno. Every day. Really hard.) But since I was in Fresno and not at home, I missed the notice the EDD sent saying I mis-filled out my unemployment form and had until June 17 to correct it. I got home at midnight on the 18th, so I may have lost a $500 EDD check in the process. Ouch!

While in Fresno, I came across a story in the news that they were considering raising the city bus fares while limiting services and cutting routes. One of the great things I love about Fresno is the bus service. You can go anywhere in town, with a little added leg work, for $1. Granted, the bus rides are usually a cultural shock to those who never ride them, because they're full of the very people who need them the most: the handicapped, the ethnically diverse, single moms talking about cheating boyfriends, the freaks, the insane, and vagrants. In short, the poor.

I'm glad Fresno has people like Alexander Vallejo, who understands how short-sighted these proposals are, and who is willing to write a letter about it in the Fresno Bee. It's easy to cut services to those who most need them, because they are the marginalized people of society who don't have a voice, who don't attend city council meetings. (How could they with the bus services as infrequent as they already are? Some are every half hour and others are every hour, and when a bus driver decides not to see you, as one did to me when I was there, you lose a half hour of your life waiting for another bus. If I was depending on that transportation for my job, I would have been fired for being late, again.) Raise the fare if you must––$2 for a cross-town ride would not be unreasonable––but don't hurt the people that need the service the most.

The point I would make, when it comes to the poor and the future of cities, is one Thomas L. Friedman makes in his book Hot, Flat, and Crowded: cities need to quit subsidizing the wrong, short-sighted things––highway expansions, traffic lights, city halls that look like Star Wars spaceships, etc.––and invest that money in the city's future, creating a green economy and "green-collar" jobs for the unemployed and under-served communities, which the Feds would probably be willing to pitch in on––see Alexander's letter to the Bee above. (The mayor of Fresno can contact Green For All in Oakland to find out how this works.)

Cities, such as Greensburg, KS, which was destroyed in a 2007 tornado and decided to rebuild "green," now calling itself "Green Town," are leading the way into an economically viable future where they don't have to make ill-advised cuts in budgets. Not only is the city planning to be carbon neutral by 2017, they have become an eco-tourism destination, have put people to work, are trying to attract green industries, such as a bio-diesel plant, and will eventually be able to outsource their expertise to other cities for even more cash. They are hoping to retain the cities most valuable resource: it's youth, who have been leaving the city because of the lack of jobs.

As Van Jones, Green For All's founder, says in Freidman's book, "In a real green economy, you don't have any throwaway resources––you don't have throwaway species and you don't have throwaway neighborhoods and you don't have throwaway kids either . . . I have not met a white person who would not support [this kind of approach] if they thought it could work. A green agenda brings us all together again, because the hope at the core nourishes everybody."

I wish my hometown would take the lead. The people there sure do need leadership and a brighter, cleaner future, especially if they want the violence and waste and throwaway people and neighborhoods to stop, not to mention better air. OK, I'm off my soapbox now. You can return to your regularly scheduled lives.

Part II Day 106: June 5, 2010 (nerves on wheels, mobile home future, and unravelling marriage and debt while dreaming of samosas)

Position: Volunteer

Number of Days Officially Unemployed: 141

Hours Volunteered: 4

EDD Check: $250

Morning:

My hands sweat even more than usual, as I switch from one to the other on the steering wheel while I drive. I blather on about nothing. "Are you nervous?" Etel asks. Yes, I am. "Why?" Because this is my first solo Meals on Wheels delivery day and I'm afraid I might get lost or mix up the orders––say a diabetic gets a regular lunch and a low-sodium gets a diabetic lunch––or I might forget someone's meal and end up with an extra one in the cooler when I'm all done. Unlike delivering for the Pizzeria, people's lives are at stake here. They might literally be starving instead of figuratively. I can't screw this up.

Etel's along for moral support and as a co-pilot/map reader. God, am I glad she's with me. We arrive at the church parking lot, the official rendezvous point, early and read our books, while I continuously glance in the rearview mirror looking for the white food van. When the van arrives, I get the five coolers of food loaded into my car, go over the checklist to make sure every thing's here, then we're off.

Etel reads the directions, but I keep a Thomas Brothers map on my lap, making sure I know exactly where I'm going. The first two deliveries are in a retirement community that wasn't part of my training run, so it takes me a minute to locate the first house. The SUV parked in the carport is decked out in U.S. Marines stickers and license plate frame. I find an elderly man, slouched in a deck chair, reading. "Oh, it must be lunchtime," he says. I take the food inside and place it on the counter, then ask if there's anything else I can do for him. He says no, so I touch his shoulder and tell him to take care.

The man who answers the door of the second place has food stains all over his collared shirt, his face is sunken and unshaven, and the cluttered apartment smells like an ashtray. In a gravelly voice made deep and harsh from years of smoking, he thanks me for the food, and when I ask him if there's anything else I can do for him, he says, "There's plenty you can do for me. But it's not within the scope of your job." Ouch. I laugh it off and say goodbye, before running to the car for the next delivery.

From here on out, it's exactly like my training run from my Part II Day 78 post––the diabetic lady who has a freezer full of our meals; the dying couple in a mobile home (he was alone this time); the little old black woman in the gangsta rap apartments; the legless, mute biker/veteran with the snack-covered coffee table; and the deteriorating housewife widow––with the exception of another mobile home park delivery in between.

"What are these places?" Etel asks. I make the mistake of calling them trailer parks, but then self-correct and explain that they're mobile homes. "You can move them?" I tell her it's actually a major job to move one, that I've seen them on trucks on the freeway, and it looks crazy.

"They split down the middle," I say and point to the seam on one.

Etel falls in love with the mobile homes. "These are great. This is where I want to live when I'm old." To her defense, we're in a really nice mobile home park, complete with a series of meandering ponds and well manicured lawns when she says this. I try to explain that they don't have the greatest reputation in the U.S., but she's right, it's not a bad way to live, especially when you're older. I tell her they're popular among the poor and they're really only a bad idea in the Midwest, where tornadoes have a habit of tossing them around and shredding them to bits.

We make it back to the church around 12:30, only an hour and a half after we left. The truck driver woman tells me I was fast, that I'm the second one back, which makes me feel good and heroic and think my earlier nervousness was unwarranted. No one's going to die. And the truth is, I think most of the people probably have refrigerators with at least some food in them.

Total mileage driven: 47 miles

Afternoon:

Etel and I stop to buy potatoes, peas, and flour so that we can make samosas with the Bhutanese family today (but we can't find raw peas). Etel also buys some yogurt covered pretzels and Gummy Bears for the youngest daughter. When we arrive, the quilt comes out and we all gather on the floor in the center of the room. The youngest daughter already has the Uno cards out and says she wants to play. We play a couple rounds, then I shift to reviewing how to read prices with the parents––$576, $785, $1,200, $2,500––which the mother is learning in school, while Etel has the youngest daughter writing in the past tense.

When we finish, I ask if they're ready to make samosas. They look at me with blank stares. "Remember, we were going to make samosas today but in English? We brought potatoes and flour." They're not prepared, and say they don't have peas or cauliflower, but they can run to the store real quick. "That's okay, we can make them next time." I give them the potatoes and flour.

I've brought pictures of my family, and try to explain who each person is in relation to me. The mother points to one of the bigger group photos I brought and says, "Good people?" Yes, I tell her. In Bhutan, divorce is pretty much unheard of, so they're a bit confused about who my step-mom and step-dad are. I try to explain Alzheimer's and why my step-dad is in a special home. I point to my niece and tell them she was adopted. Adoption, they understand.

This leads to talk about marriage. The mother tells us she was married at 13 to her husband when he was 20. She had never even seen his face before; it was all arranged by the families. Etel and I don't tell them we've both been married and divorced as well, that this is how things go in our country if things don't work out.

At one point, while we're all talking, the oldest daughter brings me a piece of paper and asks me to explain what it means. It's a collection notice, saying she owes the U.S. government $1,460 in travel expenses for her transportation to the U.S., and it says she hasn't registered her new address and hasn't paid. She has 42 months to pay the expenses back in full, with the option of $39 per month payments. "I don't think they know I'm in school," she says. I suggest she calls them Monday and explain her situation. She'll be in school for two years, which would only give her 18 months to pay it back once she has a job, if she can find one.

"That's for the whole family?" Etel asks.

"No. Fourteen hundred for me; twenty-four hundred for my parents and brother and sister (I guess since they're minors); Fourteen hundred for my grandma; fourteen hundred for my grandpa, but he died, so he doesn't owe anything." Holy crap, we think, the family somehow has to come up with over $5,200? We wonder if they understood this before they came. What a way to start your new life: in heavy debt with no job prospects.

Etel decides on the way home we should try to raise the money ourselves, but I'm skeptical. We post announcements on our Facebook pages, but the only response I receive is from a friend who says, "I almost fell for your Ponzi scheme." I tell Etel that people have their own problems, that they probably won't give anything, but she rejects my negativity. "I'll throw my own fundraisers," she says. "People can bring wine and five bucks. We can make this happen." I'm down with her idea, I tell her. (I will eventually post a Paypal button on this blog, so you, dear reader, can give a few bucks if you feel moved to help.)

Before we leave the Bhutanese family's apartment, we're talking about how we'll make samosas when I return from a visit to Fresno, and the youngest daughter comes out of the kitchen holding a classic bag of white flour. We bought our flour at Henry's, so it came, rather suspect, in a clear Henry's bag. I wonder if they'll even use it. "Gold Medal," she says, and points to the logo of her flour, as if it were a real medal, "it's good."

Part II Day 100: May 30, 2010 (Bhutanese photo exchange, does this one make me look fat? and trading in your low-carbon lifestyle for an American one)

Position: Volunteer

Number of Days Officially Unemployed: 135

Hours Volunteered: 2

EDD Check: $250 per week

We bring the beach day photos to the Bhutanese family's house, and they each take a turn riffling through them. The photos prompt them to bust out a small photo album of their own. We go page by page, and the family explains who each person is in the various group photos, taken mostly in Nepal. "This is my grandma's sister and her daughter," the youngest daughter says. I tell her that would make the woman her mother's aunt, and the daughter her mother's cousin.

In many of the photos, the youngest daughter has really short hair and the brother has his hair combed down over his dot-marked forehead, not spiked up like he wears it now. In some pictures they stand in a lush, green forest of broad-leafed plants and sparse, tall trees, or they stand by their refugee camp houses. The mother points to the wall of the house in the photo, and says with embarrassment, "Our house, um, bamboo."

"That's cool," I say, trying to make her feel less embarrassed, but also projecting a long-time simpler-life fantasy of my own. "I would rather live there."

As we flip through more group photos, the mother says, "This sister––New York," and then points to another woman, "Her––Chicago." Etel brings up the possibility of the mother visiting the sister in New York, where her parents will soon arrive from Nepal. "No, Teacher," she says. "Daughter in school. Son in school. I no English. No, Teacher." She smiles only because she's uncomfortable speaking English, but inside her heart must be crushed like ours. "Someday, maybe," Etel says.

The older daughter comes out from the back bedroom and sits down to look through the album with us. She looks beautiful in the photos, as she does in real life, but she points to a picture of her and a friend and says, "I was fat then." I ask her if it's because she ate a lot, but she says she doesn't know why she was fat. Maybe just growing pains, since they ate pretty much the same diet there, minus the Cokes and Flamin' Hot Crunchy Cheetos.

I still can't help but wonder if they weren't better off in Nepal, even if they lived in camps. They had their family, which the mother may never see again now that they're separated in America. No one looked to be starving in the pictures––the oldest daughter was even heavier than she is now. Not only was the landscape beautiful, but they had a planted ornamental garden between the bamboo houses that the youngest daughter said is where they would sit and talk. Like most immigrants, they want a better life for their children, whatever that may look like.

Maybe it's because I've been reading books on sustainability, such as Auden Schendler's Getting Green Done and Thomas L. Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded, but in the Energy Climate-Era, as Friedman calls it, moving people from low-carbon producing lifestyles to an American lifestyle, where our carbon footprint per person is 20 tons of CO2-equivalent per year, or 5 times the rest of the world's average, just seems short-sighted. Overall, we want the trend to go the other way, if we are to survive as a species. (Bhutan, according to this article, is struggling to stay "carbon neutral"––but they're also the assholes who booted the Nepalese from their country.) What is it they say? The road to hell is paved with good intentions?

I don't want to minimize the suffering the family endured in being moved from Bhutan to Nepal and living in a refugee camp, but the suffering they have endured and will endure here––not only from living in abject poverty and being separated from the rest of their family, but from the loss of respect the parents will endure from their children, who, during our intense game of Uno today, slapped cards out of their parents hands and treated them like children––may not be an even trade.

Part II Day 92: May 22, 2010 (refugee beach day, food lost in translation, and fear of a fake blond planet)

Position: Driver/Beach Goer

Number of Days Officially Unemployed: 127

Hours Volunteered: 3.5

EDD Check: $250 per week

We had agreed that no one would bring food, that we'd all eat before we went to the beach, so we could easily make it through the afternoon. But that's not what happened. Today is the official IRC beach day, when tutors and their families will all spend time together at Coronado beach. Last night, Etel stayed up until 2 a.m. with her Brazilian friends making vegetarian empadinhas––miniature pot pie-looking pastries filled with palm hearts, olives and cheese––and Argentinean tortilla made with eggs, peas, potatoes, and carrots. I am in charge of buying apples, waters, and Cokes, which I do.

When we arrive at the Bhutanese family's apartment, not only am I surprised to see the mom dressed in new jeans, a button up shirt, and a jacket (Western clothes), she has a backpack stuffed with their own Cokes and food. Down at the cars, we decide the women will go with Etel, the men will ride with me. Our ride is mostly silent, while Johnny Cash's older, American V voice croons about lost love and God. (I hit them with the more upbeat Cuban sounds of the Buena Vista Social Club on the way home.)

As we drive over the Coronado bridge, the father and son strain to get a good look at downtown San Diego and the massive aircraft carriers idling at the Navy base. Seen through their eyes, the world looks new and amazing, even to me. "Pretty crazy how big those ships are, huh?" I say. Then, I'll try to imagine what it was like, especially for the grandmother, to board the plane to America, not knowing if you'll ever see your country again and knowing you must adjust to this new one. (On the way home from the beach, the son will tell me he's never been to downtown San Diego, and I'll promise to take him sometime.)

As soon as we get the quilt spread out at the beach, the grandma, sitting cross-legged, points to the ocean and puts her hands together in prayer. "I think she wants to go pray in the ocean," I tell Etel. When we first met the family, we asked them if they'd ever been to the beach, and they told us they had, because when the grandfather died shortly after their arrival in America, they needed to immerse themselves in water to pray as part of the mourning process. In Bhutan and Nepal, they would have done this in a river.

Etel and the father gingerly help the grandmother to her feet and walk her into the ocean. I run back to get my camera and I miss the prayer and the throwing of gold coins into the water, but I shoot some good pictures of Etel, the grandma, and father reemerging.

Once we're settled back on the quilt, the Bhutanese mom hands us warm Cokes out of her backpack and then breaks out flat fry bread and curry paste and puts them on plates for us. Etel says she's not yet hungry, but I dive in. The food is excellent, as always. While the grandma, mom, and I are eating, Etel pulls out her South American food and says, "I made this for you. It's from my country, Brazil." The mom smiles as we push the plastic Snapware containers of food toward her and the grandma and encourage them to try it. They have clearly never see anything like this. They both slowly remove empadinhas from the container, examine them, and then take a small bite.

Their faces immediately go sour, but then they smile, trying not to betray their distaste for the empadinhas. We laugh and Etel tells them they don't have to eat them. They pretend they'll continue eating them, but Etel sees the mom dispose of them on the sly. The grandmother, feeling adventurous, I guess, even tries the tortilla, which she says she likes, but she only eats one small cube. I devour the empadinhas, which are dry but super tasty, and the tortilla.

All around us, spread across a small section of beach, Vietnamese, Somalian, other Bhutanese families and the American tutors share food. Etel decides she should take her fare around for the others to try, and I join her. The Americans, our palettes used to exotic foods, love Etel's empadinhas.

A relative of our family (everyone seems to be a "cousin"), calling us both Teacher, invites us over to their blanket to share food. They say they'll try Etel's food, but every one of them has the same reaction after the first bite, like they bit into a poo sandwich. We laugh and tell them it's okay, but one of the fathers, who speaks decent English, says, "No, Teacher. I like it." We laugh, but he insists on finishing the whole thing while the others spit theirs out. They feed us vegetarian samosas in return. One of the daughters, who spit out her empadinha, eats Flamin' Hot Crunchy Cheetos, which seems to be a favorite American junk food of the Bhutanese.

I spend the rest of my beach time playing football with our family's son and his cousins. I enjoy showing each one how to grip the ball to throw it with a spiral. Some get it, some don't, but we have a blast. The son of our family struggles with throwing a tight spiral, but he catches everything I throw at him, even doing dramatic jumps when catching easy passes, like I would. That's it, I think. You get it.

Around one o' clock, right after the sun comes out, the families begin packing up and heading for the bus. We drove our family, so we tell them we can stay as long as they like. They pack up, anyway. In the car on the way home, the youngest daughter asks Etel if the yellow-haired people at the beach are real or fake, meaning she isn't used to seeing blond hair. It makes sense; outside of relief workers, she wouldn't have seen many blond people in Bhutan or Nepal, and where she lives now and attends school the children are everything but blond.

It's great seeing these small revelations: the specific palette of the Bhutanese, which embraces Flamin' Hot Crunchy Cheetos and Cokes but rejects empadinhas; the grip that suddenly makes a football spiral rather than flutter; the 19th century seriousness with which they pose for pictures; and the fear of a fake blond planet.

Part II Day 86: May 16, 2010 (learning Hinduism through metal figurines and belly buttons, a walk to the store, and free food for the rich)

Position: Volunteer

Number of Days Officially Unemployed: 121

Hours Volunteered: 3

EDD Check: $250 per week

For today's lesson, we decide we'll walk the Bhutanese refugee family to their local store and name food items for them in English. But before that, while we're waiting for the son to get home from his Christian church, we decide we'll go around and ask each other questions in English. Etel and I begin with basic questions, such as "how are you today" and "how was your week," to which the father answers "good" but sounds like "goot." We tell the youngest daughter to ask her father a question in English, and she blows our minds by asking, "How much chicken do you want?" Her father, going along with the role playing, his daughter being the butcher, says he wants two pounds of chicken.

This leads to a discussion about meat, and the parents say they don't eat chicken, only goat, sometimes. "But I saw chicken in your freezer," I say. They tell us it's for the kids, that they like chicken, but that none of them will eat beef because it's sacred in Hinduism. The daughter begins an explanation, which is as frenetic and enjoyable as a Jimmy Hendrix guitar solo, of their religious beliefs. (Sorry, I'm listening to Hendrix while I write this.) She runs to the bedroom and returns with metal figures of gods and their goddess spouses, shouting out their names, which I can't follow. Her descriptions are so quick and confusing, we think cows are god, or a representation of god, and people are born of dots on their foreheads or through their belly buttons. The parents don't know enough English to clarify what the daughter is saying, but they keep nodding their heads in agreement with her descriptions, anyway. This we know: married women wear a dot on their hairline. I think.

The son returns from church and, after some discussion, decides he'll come with us and the parents while the little sister stays home with the grandma. As we walk down the street, I point to things and say the words, which the parents repeat: cars, sidewalk, fence, etc. Once we're in the small, cramped store, I point to items, and the parents easily identify them: oranges, tomatoes, lemons, bananas, and even avocados, which they say they have in Bhutan. The mom knows "milk" but shrugs when I show her a rectangular block of packaged cheese. I soon realize I'm blocking the aisles for the local customers, who are mostly Somalis, and bumming the Middle Eastern store owner out by touching everything for our lesson. While we're naming items, the son picks out three small bags of spicy potato chips (flaming Cheetos and "fire" chips are their favorite) and the dad picks out a large bottle of apple juice, which he says his mother loves, and six, 35-cent packs of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum. We tell the son that chips are bad for him, and he says his teacher tells him the same thing. He buys them anyway.

Lesson failed.

When we get outside, I ask the dad, who is holding the receipt, how much everything was. The son puts his hand on the receipt and says, "Two hundred and thirty-eight dollars left." I lean in and realize the receipt is a balance of some kind, possibly of their monthly welfare account. I tell the son that corner stores like that are more expensive than grocery stores, which is a revelation to him. "We go there because it's close." I said I know, that's why they call them convenience stores, but they charge for the convenience.

Back at the house, we're all seated on the quilt overlaying the floor, and we talk more about food. The mother says, "I'm sorry, Teacher, but I don't like shopping." She describes, in her broken but understandable English, that she prefers the old way of picking and gathering crops as opposed to going to stores and buying it in packages. (Turns out, she knows what cheese is––she used to make it herself––but it was completely unidentifiable in rectangular plastic.) "We don't have stores," she says. I announce that I hate shopping too, but must admit I'd be lost without them. The parents tell us about all the animals they had in Bhutan, and how the father sometimes traveled to India to work on farms.

"You're a farmer," I say. The dad nods, and everyone smiles. Then what the hell are they doing in San Diego, we think, landlocked in urban hell? Etel and I can't help but think they would have been better off settling in Nepal, somehow. Last week, it came out that they have another daughter who ran off and married in the refugee camp without their permission. She now lives with her husband in Denmark, and I assume they'll never see her again. (When we ask them how many children they have as part of our lessons, they always say three, not four.) It will be tough enough getting reunited with the mother's sister out in New York, where the mother's parents are arriving soon from Nepal.

We talk about possible jobs in the future, and the mom says she wants to care for children, to be a nanny. I think about possible connections in San Diego for nanny work, but everyone I know lives up north near me, which is 24 miles and hours of bus rides away from City Heights, where the Bhutanese family lives. I appreciate our country's attempt to help these families, it even makes me a little proud, but this whole situation is crazy and screwed up, the transition nearly impossible. When they get cut off from welfare, the mom will have to single-handedly earn enough money to support five people, because the dad's going to stay at home and care for his ailing mother. Even living in the poor part of San Diego, paying rent and eating would be impossible for a nanny who speaks limited English.

When Etel and I put our shoes on and get ready to leave, they say, "Wait, Teacher," then bring out a plate of pea and potato samosas, some fried flatbread, curry vegetable paste made of tomatoes and cauliflower, and coffee for Etel and tea for me––"since you don't drink coffee, Teacher." We watch an Indian movie, partly in English, partly in Hindi, while enjoying the food and drinks. Of course, Etel and I feel terrible for eating their food, since we assume they have so little. But this is what makes their culture great: they share what little they have. They even pack a plastic bag from the 99 cent store with the leftovers and add more from the kitchen before we leave. We protest, but they insist.

When I get home, keeping in the spirit of the gesture, I share the leftovers with my brother, my roommate, and the neighbors while we watch hockey on T.V. They all agree the food is pretty damn good, even cold. I feel like I've been transported out of time and space, into this different reality where I live, twenty-four miles from City Heights. It's discombobulating, but my memories from today, the mutual compassion we shared, and the food smells filling my house are what keep us connected. Namaste.

Part II Day 78: May 8, 2010 (rolling with Mr. D, diabetic lunches, last meals, and a one-legged candy lover)

Position: Volunteer

Number of Days Officially Unemployed: 113

Hours Volunteered: 1.5

EDD Check: $250 per week

I arrive at the Oceanside Presbyterian church early, so I walk around to find the bathroom and the spot where the Meals on Wheels truck rendezvous with the route drivers. I'm to ride along with Mr. D today to learn the Oceanside route and begin subbing next month. By the time I find the truck in the large church parking lot, Mr. D has all his food loaded in his red pick-up and is ready to roll. He looks like a computer programmer in his mid-forties, sporting a thick '80s mustache and a salt and peppered, parted, regular guy hairdo. We ride to the first house in awkward silence, with not even the smooth sounds of soft rock to break the tension.

We arrive at a mobile home park and head right to number 123. Mr. D half-knocks on the screen door in the carport on his way in, comfortable with his route of twelve years. Mrs. C is ready, seated at her low kitchen counter end, which is covered in mail, prescriptions, newspaper, and whatever else old people keep on their counters. Mr. D is moving quick. He's got the fridge open and pulls out what looks to be a fat plastic pen and a Diet Pepsi. He hands the pen thing to Mrs. C, and then pulls out a glass and fills it with the Diet Pepsi. "Whoa, your meals are stacking up in here, Mrs. C," Mr. D says when he sees four or five frozen Meals on Wheels meals inside the freezer. Mrs. C seems confused and ignores him while she fiddles around with a prescription box before extracting what looks like a small, clear plastic, syringe head holder. The diabetic label on the food we brought should have clued me in on her condition and what the pen-looking thing and syringe head are for. He asks about her son, wishes her an early Happy Mother's Day, and gives her the standardize Meals on Wheels Mother's Day card. We're out the door, and Mr. D is inside his truck and starting it before I can even get in.

We whip around the corner to another mobile home in the same park. Mr. D makes me help him check the food, then we're into the house without knocking, since the screen door allows the residents to see our presence, and Mr D loudly announces "Meals on Wheels" at every door before he barges in. Once inside, Mr. D is putting the meals on the counter and introducing me to a husband and wife in their eighties. The husband stands near me in his white T-shirt and shorts or underwear, but doesn't reach out to shake my hand. He smiles. He's thin and not only is his skin loose and marked with liver spots, his forehead has a crusty skin barnacle. His wife sits on the couch reading the paper, and since she's wearing shorts, I see her exposed legs, which look like loose skin draped over bones. The mobile home is tidy but has the smell and feel of the grim reaper's impending arrival. He might be coming this week, but at least the couple will go out together.

Once we're back in the truck and speeding up what Mr. D calls "the expressway" but is only Highway 76, I ask him if we should be concerned about Mrs. C's meals stacking up in her freezer. He tells me it's not a problem, because Mrs. C's son is her caretaker and comes by daily. But she looked so alone and sad, I thought.

After a short time on the expressway, we cut through a few streets in coastal Oceanside into a predominately Mexican neighborhood. The streets are lined with weekly yard sales that include clothes spread over dying lawns and tables with toys and bags of pork rinds, or chicharrónes, in clear bags. We pull into a the parking lot of a large, run-down apartment complex, park, and get the food out. We walk into the middle of the complex, where a Snoop Dogg song bumps from a neighbor's apartment. The note says the resident we're delivering to is hard of hearing, but I'm sure that even if she can't hear Snoop Dogg's dirty lyrics, she can feel his beats.

An elderly black woman in a well worn nightgown and hole-riddled head sock cracks open the door. Mr. D asks her if she wants us to bring the food inside, but she either doesn't hear him or doesn't want us inside, so we hand her the food through the small opening she's allowed. She thanks us and says it's good work we're doing, which, of course, makes me feel useful and my time well spent.

On our next delivery, Mr. D pulls into the parking lot of a nice apartment complex and says it's a nightmare to park here. He leaves his truck in a red zone and says, "We'll be out of here in no time," and he means it. We power right into the man's apartment, and Mr. D has the food in front of the man before I can even realize the guy is sitting in a wheelchair, has one leg, and looks like a gray-bearded, pony-tailed, Vietnam Vet, biker dude. Mr. D hastily introduces me while I stare in amazement at the man's pile of candy and snacks on his coffee table, which is clearly his main post-up spot. The man says nothing to me, and Mr. D turns and is out the door before I can really say hello. "I think he recently had a stroke and can't talk," Mr. D says once we're outside the man's door. "Jesus," I say. "Yeah," Mr. D agrees. We're back at Mr. D's truck, which he's again started before I'm even inside, when he tells me, "I've been cussed out at this place before for the parking situation. 'I'm trying to deliver food to your neighbor,' I tell them. But they don't care."

"Old people," I say, like that explains it all.

Mr. D powers on, gunning it up streets and testing his brakes at stop signs. The man is on a mission, and I admire his determination. Our route is short today, since half of the ten customers have posted a "Do Not Deliver" message to their address page. For our final delivery, we pull into a solidly middle-class neighborhood where all the houses are decent sized and the yards are all well maintained, except the house we're delivering to. The walkway is dirty and weedy and there are old, dusty bits of cardboard here and there. An elderly white woman, looking like she's dressed for church in her light-brown pantsuit, answers the door and says, "I thought maybe you got lost," which is the kind of lame thing I'm used to hearing while delivering food to the rich. Her stairs and floors are bare, in the midst of being re-carpeted, but Mr. D has the food on the counter and is out the door before I can ask about the remodel.

On the way back to the church, Mr. D asks me if I'm comfortable with the route. I lie and say yes. The truth is, I'm still a little shaken up from what I saw, and the breakneck speeds at which Mr. D maneuvered the route and the houses has me wondering if I can match his feat. But, quite honestly, the job seems much more important and meaningful than delivering pizza to the rich. I just hope the elderly are understanding if their food isn't so hot.

Part II Day 71: May 1, 2010 (tagging household items, a partial home tour of the poor, and lunch in Eritrea)

Position: Volunteer

Number of Days Officially Unemployed: 106

Hours Volunteered: 2

EDD Check: $250 per week

When Etel and I arrive at the Bhutanese family's house, they already have the quilt we used last week to sit on laid out across the floor. The oldest daughter enters from the back room, walks into the kitchen, then presents us with a tray containing two mismatched coffee cups of warm rice milk. It's delicious, something like warm horchata, minus the cinnamon.

I ask to use the bathroom, and this is the first time I see any part of the house other than the front room. The bathtub is home to large plastic containers filled with wet clothes, which, I assume, means they've been doing their laundry in here. A small cup sitting on the old sink holds the family's toothbrushes, which are well-used and worn out. While we're mostly here to tutor the family in English, seeing objects like the frayed toothbrushes makes me want to share what I have, to use my own money to buy new toothbrushes, but I don't know what the protocol is for such a gesture.

When I come out of the bathroom, we jump right into the first activity, which is having the family members––except grandma, who watches from her perch on the couch––write down the household item words they know on Post-It notes and stick them to the item. For one of his turns, the dad writes "soup" and then walks off into the back of the house. Later, the younger daughter brings out a bar of soap on which the dad placed the "soup" Post-It. I explain the mistake, and now it's the daughter's turn to disappear into the back bedrooms. She returns with an unopened instant Ramen noodles in a Styrofoam cup. "Yes, that's it," I say, and we show her dad. The Post-It note idea is a hit, and by the time we're done the T.V., radio, couch, oven, walls, and several other things, including the soap and soup, have been tagged.

For the second activity, Etel works with the children using the portable dictionaries we bought them, and I sit with the parents at the kitchen table having them draw small pictures of household items I name. We use the pictures to play a form of bingo where I describe an item and tell them a number, and they have to put the drawing on the bingo space with the corresponding number. While we're doing this activity, I notice a small cockroach crawling on the wall. Then, another one, followed by two, ant-sized, baby cockroaches. My instinct is to smash them, but, like the parents, I ignore them and continue with the activity. The family doesn't seem to share our same abhorrence of cockroaches, because a few weeks ago the kids asked Etel what cockroaches were, and when she pointed out one on the wall by the T.V., the kids shrugged and said, "Oh," like their familiarity made them friendly.

At one point today, I'm trying to explain the difference between the oven and the stovetop, that there are two words for these different sections of the oven, so I walk the parents over into the kitchen. They stare at me blankly, then smile. I open the oven and pretend to put something inside. "For cooking food," I say. "Hot." The mother nods and smiles some more, and I notice that spiderwebs span from the oven door to inside the oven. They obviously aren't using the oven.

I move on to the stovetop, where an empty, dented green pot sits with the residue from our warm rice milk. I point to it and say "pot." Next to it is a pressure cooker, which I also simplify to "pot." Sitting on the counter is the most used item in the house, where they do most of their food preparation: the rice cooker. Between the rice cooker and the refrigerator, a microwave sits unplugged. The couple knows to say "micro" to describe the microwave, so I have them write out "microwave oven" on Post-Its and put them on the appliance.

Before we leave, the oldest daughter tries to give us the usual Cokes, but we thank her and say we're fine with the rice milk. She seems confused and leaves one of the two Cokes for us. When we're all done, I put the Coke in the fridge, where a handful of vegetables and a semi-wilted bunch of lettuce sit among the empty shelves. Since I did a quick, impromptu lesson with the younger daughter earlier, describing the difference between the refrigerator part of the fridge and the freezer, I know the freezer contains only two miniature, frozen chickens and a tray of ice cubes. Again, I think how strange this world must seem to the refugees––the freezer, the oven, the microwave––and how crappy it must be to have no means for making a living, to completely rely on the kindness of strangers. But there's also something appealing to me about the simplicity of their diet, since I've spent my own time eating an oats-rice–salad daily meal routine, have given up on microwaves (not necessarily by choice, but I don't miss it), and I'm more horrified by overstuffed fridges than sparse ones.

After we leave and are driving back toward University Heights, we decide to stop and eat at an East African restaurant Etel's been wanting to try. It's called Asmara Eritrean Restaurant, and the food is from the little-talked-about country of Eritrea, which is sandwiched between Ethiopia and Sudan. Similar to Ethiopian fare, the veggie sampler platter is served in small mounds of different items––"lentils cooked with onions, tomatoes and hot peppers, a tumeric-scented cabbage, a carrot-and-potato mixture, and a velvety stew of collard greens and spinach"––on a large, spongy, and mostly flavorless, pancake bread. You can read an accurate review about the place in this San Diego CityBeat review. Etel and I sip Ethiopian beers (they were out of the Asmara beer from Eritrea––the server/owner said it's hard to get) and snack on the sambusas, spicy "triangles of flaky pastry that hold a lentil, onion and jalapeño filling," while three white women, who speak in San Diego-ease ("totally") and have adopted African children, sit at a nearby table and say borderline offensive things to their one-year-olds, such as, "Does this smell remind you of home?" making me wonder if the adopting of African-children-trend started by Angelina Jolie and Madonna is more helpful or harmful for the kids.

Etel and I talk about a possible move to New York City and what that would mean for us. Thinking about all the interesting places there are to eat and see in New York, Etel comments on our recent rash of San Diego adventures, saying, "I've never had so many stimulating experiences like I've had lately with you." She knows I'm down for anything, and I love that she it, too. Yes, New York might fit us just fine.