Orientation: School & City

This morning we had orientation with San Francisco School Volunteers program.  Simple enough right? Not for our group---we quickly reached their supposed building (puffed with an air of confidence at the MUNI bus system relatively smoothly) only to disrupt a design firm from their usual Tuesday morning work.  Oops, wrong building.  The real building was only 10 city blocks north and so we got a nice little hike in.  Orientation was easy and then we hopped on the bus to the Mission District to tour the school I will be working at for the next month: Everett Middle School!

Everett is a beautiful school, with a Spanish hacienda feel- complete with courtyard, high ceilings, colorful tiled murals and adobe walls.  Our volunteer coordinator Ko Kim gave us the rundown on the school and explained that the school is about 70% Latino, 20% African American and 10% Southeast Asian & Other.  They explained that this creates an interesting race dynamic sometimes, as opposed to other schools that are more homogeneous.  We met a great amount of the administration from Principal Curci to Luis the Beacon Community center coordinator (created by an initiative in California to have schools be the hub of their communities) who runs the after-school programs.  He said he would love to have us join in the community center work, which is very focused on social justice for the neighborhood.

This took us till mid-afternoon, and so we were ready for a break. Bi-rate Ice Cream was recommended and so we wandered to 18th & Dolores and I had the most delicious honey lavender ice cream in the world- reminiscent of my Seattle favorite Molly Moon's.  Eating ice cream, in the sun under palm trees was definitely a sacrifice that somebody had to make, and I was quite willing to do it!

In the late afternoon we took the bus down past Union Square to the San Francisco Modern Art Museum, affectionately called the MOMA by locals.  After viewing lots of naked women by Francesca Woodman, we were all exhausted and so we went back to the Kenmore for some dinner.  Meals are served cafeteria style by a super adorable lady named Petra.

Overall it was a hectic, exciting and a getting the lay-of-the-land kind of day.  Tomorrow I start in my classroom with Ms. Olguin (supposedly a strict teacher) in Room 215. Wish me luck!

My school: Everett Middle School