the last week...

So I have been tasked to go out to the community and do outreach which means to survey the area. I enjoyed going out to the community and meeting people although it is hard because they see me as someone foreign to them so basically an outsider. Although I was able to get some positive responses from a couple of people I also encountered many negative opinions.
These are some of the thoughts
- People want a community garden and a park, some believe that this will bring the community together and positive project for the community
- on the other hand some people do not want the park because the believe that the park will be taken over by the gangs and that much more violence will break out and that the people playing at the park will be sitting ducks for the gang bangers to just pick off.
- Others are scared that if they get the plot of land for the community garden and it is given to the community, then they will use that as a standpoint to develop the area and raise taxes, which would then run families out of their houses.
- One lady told us that she " would send the army of god to get us if we continue with the idea of the park" because she does not think that the location of the park is adequate.

On that topic the park will be located right behind a jail and on a plot of land that is being illegally used by a lady to provide parking for trailers. Although it will be located behind a jail, the park, will have a wall of trees and a mural that would be placed in front of the jail to provide a visual barrier. The ladies point is that some of the people in jail will see women and children and since they are convicts that their sexual appetite will grow by seeing these people in the park.

Also, during this week I went to the court house to see where the case was at, in relation to the lady selling the plot of land for our park. During this time I was surprised to find out that it is the city that has been taking so long on getting their appraisal in, but as always the real problem is that the money from both sides is off by a couple million dollars. So now if both parties cannot come out with an agreement then it will have to go to a trial and well you know how long this can take:(

Now back to some gang action. During our outreach we encountered a car called the rammer and that belongs to the Latin Kings gang. this car is used to ram into other cars of rival gangs. I was able to see this first hand. Peter and I were walking out of the gas station towards our block to go do outreach and while we were crossing the street we heard this very loud revving of an engine we looked back and it was a black SUV that had no windows and a big metal bumper and about four people in it. The rammer crashed into a Tahoe or a Yukon, Another SUV, and almost flipped the car. The girl that was in the car seemed to know what was going on and as soon as the car bounced back down on all four wheels she hit the gas and took off and the gang bangers followed. After that I have no clue what happened but this seems to be a usual occurrence because we were informed by someone else that was walking down the street about how all this works.

On an even more exciting topic we pulled some more radishes out and some amazing Lettuce from the garden. I mean the lettuce is beautiful! it has some amazing crisp leafs that are just full of life and an amazing green color, i mean every bight I took of the salad we made with it later was just so flavorful and it was way better than all that store bought stuff.

That's all for this week