I took MUNI to the Civic Center yesterday to avoid that parking dilemma I faced at the Mission Campus where I was picking up the material for the Enrollment Campaign and got 4 minutes of parking per quarter. Besides, in a car you don't get to hear a guitarist at the base of the stairs and see a bazaar when you get to the street level. I liked taking in the whole scene.
In
the Coalition on Homelessness, 468 Turk, the person at the desk said, "I
love city College. It's bullshit what's going on there now." I
knew he didn't mean our courses! In fact, he said he might take a course
or two himself. I also met the man he called his boss, Miguel.
The
Cross Cultural Family Center was right next door to a store with a poster
advertising a way to send money back home during Ramadan, and so I wasn't
surprised that all the women there were wearing hijabs. The very warm and
welcoming woman I talked to said she had a son who'd be going to CCSF, so she
was really happy to find out about the Saturday help with enrollment, etc,
and the other flyers, which she acknowledged would be shared with people
besides her son!
I
emphasized the importance of getting the flyer about Saturday to people in
time, and I was told that they'd put it up right away.
My
last stop was at the Vietnamese Youth Development Center, where two young men
expressed thanks to CCSF for our outreach, and one of them quoted the phrase,
"Education is power."
I'd
gone to the Tenderloin when I was taking CCSF material around to bookstores in
several areas, and I spent a little bit of time there when I was taking a
course in Comparative Religion and visited a mosque. But this walk gave
me a new perspective. I saw the Exit Theatre, where I've gone on occasions
without realizing that it was right next door to the VYDC. A cousin
sent me a wonderful video about a man who sets his sewing machine down in what
they called "The Tenderloin National Forest" and sews whatever people
bring him to sew on the 15th of every month.
I
was thinking of the days when I thought SRO meant Standing Room Only! I
was also touched to see hotels named "Camelot" and "The
Ritz."
On
my way back from the MUNI, I took this photo:
I
wonder who the buyers will be!
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