A busy weekend...

On Saturday morning, we all piled into vans and headed over to Norris Square. Norris Square is a little Hispanic community in North Philly. Apparently it used to be one of the most prosperous little neighborhoods until after World War 2. It started falling apart after that and people began leaving. In the past 15-20 years, though, Norris Square has been undergoing changes as people are trying to revitalize the community. A lot of efforts are put into it, and you can see that fact when you enter there. It's a nice little part and in the middle is a square park. There were 250 of us that went because the other half worked in Germantown in another community. While some cleaned up the park, painted things, or weeded butterfly gardens, I went with a group to clean up a Presbyterian church. The church has been around since the Civil War. It's really cool looking inside. After we finished dusting, moving things, de-molding things, and picking up general clutter, some of the guys found an old safe encased in cement. The turn knob was broken off of it. The pastor gave us permission to break through the safe. They hammered away for a good half our, getting rid of the cement, and prying apart the metal. We ended up finding stuff like the original deed to Norris Square from 1823, an almanac from 1874, and lots of church-related papers from the early 1900's. It was pretty cool. We had to go to lunch before we could really look at some of the stuff.

After lunch, all the participating universities had been asked to bring games for a children's festival. We just set up our games and the kids showed up. It was a really nice day for it too. We didn't have all that many kids come to our group so the PBU students ended up having our own little private water balloon fight. It was a great time in the sunshine. :)

We left at 3 but came back at 6 for a dinner hosted by some Puerto Ricans in the community. The food was fantastic. They also had a "Bomba" group (some type of Puerto Rican dance) perform. It was... interesting.

Anyway, the whole day was a lot of fun. I appreciated seeing the community and all the kids. I like how Hispanic culture passes it on from generation to generation. I think culture is important and I wish Filipinos in the States worked harder to pass on Filipino culture, rather than try to be as American as possible.

Today, obviously, is Sunday. We left at 9 to get to The Greater Exodus Church. We ate breakfast there at a charter school that is connected to the church. The school is really cool! I liked it a lot. It's very nice and seems to really be thriving and making a difference in the community.

The church service, to say the least, was interesting. It was very loud. My ears are still ringing. It was definitely the epitome of a "Black church." If this is how an African American church is like, I wonder what an African church is like. Anyway, yeah... we'll leave it at that.