new.home.base.

here's what's been blowing my mind a little each day since august 15:

i live in Camden, New Jersey. this is a home of mine now. this is where i will sleep, eat, sing, dance, garden, teach, learn, cook, clean, speak, listen, walk, run, read the newspaper, surf the internet, drive a minivan, smile, cry, swing in the park, buy groceries, take out the trash, pray, and breathe for the next eleven months.

Camden is one of the poorest cities in the United States - for the past several years it has consistently ranked in the top 3 for crime and poverty. there are over 4000 abandoned properties scattered throughout the neighborhoods, where drugs are bought and sold like hot cakes. i live in Cramer Hill, which is in north Camden, probably one of the nicest sections, with an active community development corporation (the CHCDC) that has helped to create much safe and affordable housing, and yet just two blocks down the street from me is a row of three houses that have been sitting abandoned for about 20 years, during which multiple fires have burned out their insides, and if you just push on one of the sideboards with your pinky finger it flaps back and forth - this thing is ready to fall anytime. it's been labeled an 'imminent hazard' by the city since fall 2008, which means that it should have been demolished, at the absolute latest under LAW, by about 10 months ago. and yet it still stands. 'still stands tall', according to the Courier Post today which carried the story of the local churches' action to try to get the city to take care of this dirty business. i was there.

;-) i carried a banner and a cardboard bulldozer. you can read the story and look at pics here.

i have three housemates - one girl and two guys - who are working with the same program, Franciscan Volunteer Ministries. we like to drink tea and laugh together. i'm excited to get to know them more.

there's so much more i could say about my past 13 days of living here, and about what my day-to-day activities for this year may look like (my schedule is still kind of in process of being developed), but i mostly want to say that everyone i've met here has been wonderfully kind and welcoming. a neighbor down the street told us how he makes sure everybody puts their trash out so that it's easier for the trash man to pick it up. a lady from our church gave us an overflowing basketful of peppers and tomatoes and eggplants and canteloupe from her garden. a man at the HIV/AIDS hangout center gave us a heart-felt concert of Michael Jackson karaoke. the maintenance man at a recently-shut-down Catholic school across town lent us his truck and his own sweat and effort to help move all the textbooks, gym equipment, computers, and other useful materials to the school here, which hasn't had enough money to buy new things for years. so he helped us move it all, and then he gave us several bags of mocha cappuccino mix from the coffee company he works for. the lady who runs the HIV/AIDS ministry just brought pasta, rolls, and salad over for us for dinner, since we were working on that school job all day. our supervisor, Father John, canceled one of our meetings one day and just took us to a nature preserve on the banks of the Delaware river and we walked the trails and shore for a while.

i think it's gonna be a good journey.