Greetings Everyone!
This is our first post to our blog. We are currently on Day 3 of our first Robertson Summer. Nina and I arrived in Cleveland, MS on Thursday, May 28th in the afternoon. We flew into Memphis, got a taxi to Oxford, and rented a minivan to reach our final destination in Cleveland. Day 1 was spent settling in and doing a little bit of exploring. We went to Poor Monkey's (or Po' Monkey's) that night and had a BLAST. It is a juke joint that is unlike anything I have ever quite experienced. The music of "Howler Mad" (I believe) and his band was AWESOME! I had so much fun meeting new people there and of course breaking it down on the dance floor.
Yesterday (Friday, May 29th) was mainly spent at St. Gabriel Mercy Center in Mound Bayou for our orientation. Starting June 1st, we will be running our summer program for kids Mon.-Thurs. from 12-3 PM. We finally had the chance to meet the head of operations, Sister Donald Mary Lynch, in person yesterday. We also got to meet many other people at St. Gabriel’s including Sister Donella who spent much of the day with us too. After getting a tour of St. Gabriel’s, we all went out for lunch in the neighboring town of Shelby.
Sister Donald Mary and Sister Donella gave Nina, Josh, I a tour with some commentary of the area. It was stunning to learn about some of the history and see the sights of Mound Bayou. We learned that Mound Bayou was founded in 1887 by two former slaves, Isaiah Montgomery and Benjamin Green. We even got to visit Montgomery’s grave. I was happy to hear that last summer the class of 2011 Robertson scholars helped to renovate the surrounding area of the grave. Sadly such a historic landmark was not very well maintained previously. Robertson scholars (class of 2009) also put up two nice white signs saying, “Welcome to Mound Bayou” within the last few weeks. Seeing the positive impact Robertson scholars have made on the community here made me feel very proud.
Today Mound Bayou is a predominately an African American community with a population of about 2,100 people. Driving around, it was immediately apparent of the lower economic status of many of the inhabitants. Still, as Sister Donella remarked, “People here are extremely spiritual – poor economically but rich in faith.” Looking at some of the rundown houses in the area was an eye-opening experience. It was a reminder of how the type of poverty exhibited here is very real and certainly in the United States of America. I was shocked to see that even both the mayor’s and superintendent’s houses were so small and seemingly oblivious. Sister Donald Mary showed us some of the projects that were built. Many adults were simply just walking around outside during the middle of the day. Shouldn’t they be at work? There is an identifiable drug problem in the community too. Passing by Smitty’s Grocery Store, little did I suspect that drug dealing is very popular all the time there (most likely with the knowledge of the police). As for kids, sadly many have fathers who are in prison. The statistics of the dropout rate of the local high school, John F. Kennedy High School, cite that the numbers might be as high as 54%. In last year’s graduating class of 44 kids, nine failed. Many kids struggle with basic skills, especially math and reading. This was quite disturbing and makes the work that we have to do this summer running our youth program all the more pertinent.
We concluded our orientation day at St. Gabriel Mercy Center by starting to plan our schedule for our first day of the summer program for the kids. Later on when we got back to the house, Amir, Michael, and I played basketball while Nina, Josh, and Hilary went shopping for groceries. We had a delicious “family dinner” of quesadillas and enjoyed the rest of the night in each other’s company.
Currently, Michael and I just visited the Emergency Shelter (Michael Bernert's placement here in Mississippi). I am excited for the weekend and ready to start planning for working at St. Gabriel's on Monday.
THIS HAS BEEN A WONDERFUL START TO AN UNFORGETTABLE SUMMER!
-Braveen
