In 2013, the Third Ward, also called "The Tres" was rated the 15th most dangerous neighborhood the United States, according to a ranking system made up by the people behind Location, Inc. a research company that rates communities based on their crime rates, school quality, and real estate trends. According to their statistics, 1 in 13 people in this zip code will likely be the victim of a crime every year. In my old life, if I were to find myself driving through these streets, I would roll up the windows and lock all the doors. There's a variety of factors that might make this place seem threatening to an uninitiated passerby: crumbling infrastructure, heaps of trash where people from outside the neighborhood have dumped their refuse, stray dogs, and the lack of businesses (except gas stations and corner stores). The Third Ward is a drug and prostitution hub, it has some of the most under resourced schools in Harris County, and a lack of local business has created expansive food deserts. Men often wander around the streets or sit in front of the few shops, calling out to any feminine figure that crosses by. To be on the streets means to feel hyper vigilant, checking over both shoulder to make sure no one has the worst of intentions in their minds. In other words, this place is a new world for me, the girl who lived in the lap of luxury at one of the best pruned and safest college campuses in Houston, maybe Texas. In the first six weeks of living here, I've had to fight the dread in my heart at the thought of walking through the streets and confronting a reality that is foreign to what I've known. But one of the reasons I chose this Mission Year was the opportunity to enter into a space known by its scarcity, and to see what it is really like from the inside. To live in solidarity with, and experience both sides of. I was following a deep heart conviction that this classification was hiding a greater beauty. That the light must shine brightest in the places that seem the darkest. That abundance must abound in places where poverty also abounds. Mission Year has been an opportunity to be fully immersed in this paradox, of bright light and dark darkness. There is darkness. It is mostly expressed in relationship to the lacks we are adjusting to. A lack of mutual respect means that, in this place where women are often sold and bought for what their body can offer, we don't know which men that drive or walk by us are predators and which ones are just neighbors. Our lack of the ability to trust our safety means that we constantly have to be on guard, looking around us in suspicion. My shoulders are squared and tight with tension until we step in to our house and lock our door after work. Sweet relief. It is expressed too in the sheer grief of realizing that we live in a place where fullness of life seems far away. The lack of safe public spaces, the prevalence of trash everywhere, these cast a shadow over the streets of our home, too, and it is uncommon to see children or adults enjoying recreation. Probably because this is so close to my heart, I strongly feel the absence of this strongly. And yet, what I heard in my heart is proving to be so true, too! Despite the "scarity", our team has experienced so much abundant goodness here! This has come in the form of relationships and many gifts. There's Mr. Spider-Man next door, who knows our schedules sometimes better than we do, and is always quick to tell a joke (laugh at it), and then divulge to us the happenings on the streets around our house. His yard and cars are impeccably clean, too, which makes my dirty car look like a shame. There's Ms. Ree near the bus stop Saaj and Taylor and I take to work every morning. She drinks her coffee at 7am on her porch, and one day we approached her to say hi. She quickly decided we were her friends, and the next morning she presented us with a sleeve of Shipley's donuts! We started the habit of visiting her every morning, and we constantly are gifted with a rotation of coffee, sausage and egg mcmuffins, hash browns, or donuts (see below). Ms. Ree is the Queen of the block - she's lived in the Third Ward her whole life and much of her family populates the houses of our street. We were gifted with free tuition to a retreat weekend with our Church, St. John's Downtown, where we were surrounded by the love of women who ranged in occupation from minister to recovering alcoholic to recently off the street to CEO to retired journalist. When Pastor Juanita, the co-leader of St. John's introduced our team and (unexpectedly) announced that we were living on a communal budget of $110 dollars a week for food and $70 monthly personal stiped, we were swamped by a crowd of women asking to take us shopping and give us gifts for the house. In a single day we were provided with months of house supplies, a microwaves, and a treasure troves of each of our favorite snacks (I scored enough popcorn and almonds to keep me content until Christmas!). We were given free cookies at the opening of Crumbville, a vegan sweet shop in the Third Ward started by a single mother who began her baking career making cookies for her son's birthday (http://theboxhouston.com/9555095/single-moms-rock-htowns-own-ella-goes-from-dreamville-to-crumbville/). I could go on and on and on about the goodness that is so abounding here - the smiles and food and hugs and money given to us by neighbors who seem to be overcome with the desire to give away what little they have. We live in the constant duality of being amazed at the people we've befriended in our community and wariness of the very real darkness that lives in this place - the inadequate school systems, children without access to sound nutrition and a solid education, drugs, violence, human trafficking, and the walking shadow figures who might not want our friendship - only our bodies. Maybe it's because the darkness exists that the light here is so beautiful. Like a moth I am drawn toward it with a hunger that I've never known before. I love it here, the collision of comfort and fear, the duality of love and pain. That is the Third Ward in all of its fullness! To reduce it to anything less is to toss out a Tolkien novel just because it is missing a glossy cover.
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Author/soil science research assistant @ Rice U/ Archives
March 2017
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