Cammy

Here are two words that sum up last weekend: hard work.

On Saturday, I went to school to work on a mural that my friends Dionisia and Grace have designed. They created a Mural Club at our school this year and I’m really proud of Dionisia. She’s really good at art so I’m happy that she made this space for her and other people to express themselves and make beatific art.

The mural is a mosaic and one of the figures in the mural is a huge black goddess. She’s so so pretty. We had to work on finding tiles and then spread a weird concrete onto them. The lady helping us kept saying, “Spread it like cream cheese!” But…I don’t even like cream cheese?! Anyway, we were there for SEVEN hours, ww got so much work done, though. I was in charge of music and I think I did a really good job of making sure everyone liked the songs I played.

On Sunday, I worked at a block party—an anti-gentrification, neighborhood cleanup event. My Black Studies professor offered volunteering here as an alternative to a midterm. My city has been dealing with a lot of gentrification, which pushes rents higher. This area is severely affected because its inhabitants have less money. In the past, those inhabitants had lower rent which accommodated their income level. Lately, richer (and usually white) people have been taking advantage of the neighbourhood’s lower rents. They renovate houses and stores, which pushes the property values higher. As it starts becoming a so-called “nice neighborhood,” the rents go up and people are evicted.

I learned that, each month, there are over 1,000 evictions in my city. There’s been a spike in the number of people without homes, especially in this area. The event was meant to raise awareness, but the people behind it also regularly make food for, and donate clothes to, people who are homeless. Over the course of our six-hour shift, we did some gardening and some cooking. Having my friend Chris with me made the whole day better. Not that it was bad in the first place, just tiring. ♦