HOT.
Sitting under the shade structure. It’s already eighty-nine Fahrenheit here, whoo. Everyone talks about the summer with an ominous tone, especially to those of us who aren’t from here – “you ready for the summer?” I hear skepticism, but with a smile.
I’m beginning to suspect that even my 18 years of North Carolina summers aren’t even enough to prepare me for The New Orleans Summer. Evidently the okra has found a way to cope though. I’ll try to take some tips from the okra. Last summer season – the first year of Our School’s existence and so the first year of cultivation– we had okra coming out of our ears.
Our School at Blair Grocery.
That’s where I’m working; that’s the site of this internship.
To start, I’ll work on orienting you, bringing you up to speed. Although my CPGC internship only runs from May 14th until July 5th, I’ve been here since January. It feels like the dates of the internship are irrelevant in a sort of hilarious way. Does the fact that I am now here under the auspices of Haverford College change how I am here?
I certainly don’t have an answer for that yet. My instinct tells me it shouldn’t. That if I am acting and being here in a way that shows any integrity, my position here will not change. Yet, part of my knows it’s more complicated than that. That *College* has a power and an authority that comes with it. It certainly has a wealth that comes with it, in the literal sense.
I want to try to be as upfront and direct as possible with you, with this blog. Part of that is acknowledging the role of this internship and this blog in my work here. It feels like a foreigner. Right now, at least. I am unsure what place the internship and blog will have in an already working relationship with Our School and everyone here. More specifically and pressingly, I have no practice talking about Our School (at all, or for an academic audience). But it is all those same concerns that made me recognize the value of the blog: that gives me an incentive to process my experiences, and that it requires me to be accountable (to both schools, OSBG and Haverford).
The practice of bridging two worlds, two languages, two frameworks, is what makes this blog process seem worthwhile.
I will close with that, sit with that tension for another day.