Island Retreat

Thompson Island is a bit like Angel Island back in the San Francisco Bay. When I first stepped off the ferry onto the sandy soil, I was reminded of the one and only time I had traveled to Angel Island, years ago – the weather was bright, clear, crisp, the view was blue and green and grey and tan, just like Thompson Island.

I had woken up that morning at 5:30 in order to make it to the ferry station on time so I could meet my boss at the LEAH Project and help out with the high school kids serving as mentors for young children in Boston Public Schools out-of-school programs. It was freezing outside, and dark. The Tufts shuttle – the Joey, we call it, a nickname since the company that operates the bus is called Joseph’s something-or-the-other – wasn’t running this early in the morning. I happened to turn the corner onto College Ave, resigned to walking down to Davis Square, at the same time an MBTA bus rolled to a stop. Does this bus stop in Davis Square? Yep, said the driver, and I clambered on, sitting, waiting, watching the sky turn from evening blue to early morning light gray.

At South Station I wandered around a bit, trying to find the stop for the number 7, which would take me to the dock I needed to get to. When I finally found the stop, the girl next to me struck up a conversation – coincidentally, she, too, was from the Bay Area, and is friends with the Mertol family at Monta Vista.

Of course, because this always happens when I travel around Boston by myself, I missed my stop on the bus and had to ride the whole loop – which was short, thankfully, and I was still an hour early – before the bus driver kindly waved me to the front and pointed out where I was supposed to go, handing me his own CharlieCard with a smile, a laugh, and a this will make traveling on the T more efficient, eh!

His older brother went to Tufts, actually, and he was very pleased when he heard that I go there now. He was also rather amused when I told him I was from California, because they don’t have real winter where you’re from.

I was nervous, quite honestly.

I was standing at the dock with my boss, a youthful, energetic 20-something, and a couple of high schoolers who I guessed were sophomores. It was absolutely freezing cold next to the ocean, and I wondered how I was going to do on this first day on the job. I needed to talk to these kids, I needed to keep up my energy all day, and I was tired and sleepy. My insomnia coupled with revealing dorm events had kept me up until 3 that morning.

I shouldn’t have worried.

My God, those kids.

I love the LEAH Project. I love working for a non-profit, I love that I’m doing something real and world-changing and actively making myself a part of the Boston community. And I knew I was happy to work for the LEAH Project before I accompanied the group on their retreat and training at Thompson Island, but what I didn’t realize was how much I would then come to believe in the project and in the kids who devote their energy to it.

Naively, and in true fashion of a privileged suburbanite from the high-tech high-income high-everything bubble of the Silicon Valley, I didn’t expect the LEAH mentors to be who they were. I don’t know what I was expecting, really. Maybe I was expecting not to be surprised – whatever that means.

But these city kids, the majority of which are from Roxbury, Dorchester, South Boston – in short, the underprivileged areas of Boston – are smart. They are talented. They are ambitious and passionate and kind and full of belief in what they do. They take it seriously, because they understand the implications of the work they do. Teaching. Keeping little kids safe. Breaking the cycle of poverty and lack of education. Giving young kids who need it most a leg up.

I didn’t expect that I would laugh as much as I did, or that when we formed a “FamiLEAH” web with string at the end of the day I would feel the telltale pressure behind my eyes that meant the the tears might just fall if I didn’t rein them in. I didn’t expect the kids to be so accepting of the new kid – me, “the college girl”, the intern, joining their family for a year. It wasn’t just me that had to make the effort to introduce myself to everybody. They opened their arms and their hearts and joked with me, laughed and talked and brought out their radios and made me sing along with them.

When we parted ways at the end of the day with me on one side of the tracks and them on the other, we waved at each other and smiled. I knew I probably wouldn’t get a chance to talk to many of them ever again, and they’d never know what an impact they had on me. As the trains roared in and the doors opened, I gave a little sigh – and then a start - Ricardo? He laughed at me and I realized that Jesse and Ricardo and Lisa, it turned out, were on my side of the tracks. Ricardo was the last one to reach his stop before me, and before he left, he gave me a hug, a smile, and “Take care!” – and I smiled because I knew that he, and all those wonderful, wonderful kids actually meant it.

So now I believe, too. And you, the LEAH kids - thank you for everything that you do.

 

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