14th of July, 2014

Intern Shareef's Blog #19:

  Today was my first day riding the MetroBus alone. It wasn't that bad because it was just like tri-met back home. It also helped that I only had 3 stops and have ridden it almost everyday now so far. I didn't really enjoy it because it's not fun being alone, worrying if some one will ask you a question or something in a language that you do not speak but in the end it worked out fine. When I got to the campus it was like usual and I went to spanish and learned more about clothes and colors. After spanish class we had a discussion on what we thought the number one challenge in latin American communities as well as the number one thing that would help. We had to write each thing on these sticky notes and then we put them on the board. Then we seperated them in to different categories. After all the categories were made we got 3 dots of different colors. Each color meant a number of importance, (red=1, green=2, yellow=3) we then put our dots on the categories we thought were most important. The top 2 for challenge were Poverty and Language/Culture. The top 2 helpful things were Community Resources and the second was a tie between Fare immigration policies and Therapy. It was a very interesting conversation and it was nice to see other peoples perspective on these topics. 

  After the discussion we watched this documentary called Crossing Arizona. It was a very sad movie on illegal immigration to the U.S through Arizona. It was a very depressing movie and it showed real people trying to cross the border for better life, more money to support their families, and one man was trying to get money so he could pay for his wife's surgery that she needs. It also showed the people who are trying to keep the immigrants out. It was really sickening to watch and hear these people treat the Mexicans like they aren't even humans. One man talks about how he wants to deport all the children in the schools and he said "I will even go to the hospitals and take the IV out of their arm and kick them out myself!" This to me was very absurd to hear and it made me feel really bad for these people who try so hard to get to the U.S just so they can be paid fairly. Personally it makes me think if they were able to get in to this apparently "really secure, intelligent, strong" country they deserve to be there. Most people who live in the U.S could not walk for days with little food and water just to attempt at getting in to a different country. Also if it weren't for the illegal immigrants working those hard labor jobs. The U.S would be much different with vegetables being much more expensive because no one wants the job to go harvest them, and all of the businesses close to the border would probably be shut down because they do not have any customers. Even though we saw some really ugly people in the video we were able to see some nice people as well. For instance this man would go around to different stations along the desert and set up water sights, where if they have ran out of water and are thirsty they can get some there. There is a lot more stuff about what I could say on this topic, because I have a very strong opinion on this topic but it would take me forever to explain all of my feelings for immigration.

  When we were done with our discussion after the movie Leticia and I went to go excersise and we did a lot of running, push-ups, burpees, squats, planks, sprints, etc. It was a lot of fun and it felt really good but it was hard because I am still not used to this high altitude and all of the pollution/smoke. Leticia worked me really hard and it was good, even though every time I have done this so far I've felt like I am gonna throw up it is good for me to excersise. I  also have seen how my diet is really affecting my fitness so now I am trying not to drink soda out here, and try to stick to agua. So now I am going to start doing it three times a week so then I can stay in shape and hopefully I won't have trouble with this after a few times more. After that we went back and went to go look for an Arjen Robben piñata

 but we could not find one. So then we went to have some really good ice cream. I got cotton candy and chicle (the gum.) When we finished our ice cream we went home and I started watching a movie while uncle Jason tried to type but kept getting very distracted. Then we headed to the pizza groove language exchange like every monday and I talked to a few people I met previously and also talked to this guy named  Tomas. He was really cool and had played soccer in high school and enjoys theater. So he was kind of like me and he talked to me about his experience in oregon at Ashland for the Shakespeare festival and he also talked to me about Portland and how he enjoys biking. After that we headed home and ended our day.