It must have been something in our cornflakes, because the year after college several of the friends that I had grown up with, and I, were in service programs. While my friends traversed faraway (from California) regions of the world and our country: Nepal, Kenya, the Appalachian Mountains, I remained in the border town of Chula Vista as a VISTA Volunteer.

Choosing VISTA over a service program that would take me outside the country was a conscious decision. As a teenager I had fingered Peace Corps leaflets with a reverent lust. However, after college, when I moved back to Southern California, I was struck by the industry, needs, and poverty around me in my own community; if I ignored it, how would I be able to help out in a distant place?

My first job, post-B.A., was as a temp at a government agency that was cleaning up a failed S & L. At this job, in downtown San Diego, I xeroxed photos of large estates that were bankrupt and for sale. The documents seemed endless, eighties excess captured in thick manila files. I stared out of the windows during this exercise in monotony noticing that the streets were green with urine. Then, I noticed that port-a-pottys were being set up for the people that lived on the street. San Diego was a prime location for homeless people because it was warm in the Winter. The contradictions in the environment struck me. Wealth, shiny and fabulous, mirrored by poverty that was broken, slimy, and didn't smell very good.

I saved up money in order to satisfy my need to travel and I backpacked around Europe (Prague, Krakow and Budapest) before returning, completely and utterly broke, to VISTAdom in California. I still had jetlag from my flight from France when I had to hop on a plane to San Francisco for the quick, speedy version, VISTA training. The training was at a Catholic Convent South of the city (the city of SF). Beside statues of the Virgin Mary, and smooth wooden benches, there was time to contemplate my commitment to VISTA. I really waivered between saying "yes"and "no" at the end of the VISTA training weekend; I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to make it on my stipend and Southern California is a hard place to be poor (I suppose all places are hard to be poor in, but in the face of materialism and wealth, poverty is highlighted with a particular brand of prejudice). I knew that some of the people that I grew up with were going to be prejudice against me, they might notice that I wore the same clothes a lot, that I couldn't afford to go downtown, or that I didn't get my hair cut anymore. I am not a saint, so some of the SMALL things bothered me. During the training, the announcement that ACTION no longer existed and that President Clinton was going to be creating a program called "AmeriCorps"arrived. This punctuated my fear of being nameless, destitute, and overworked in my own childhood city. My family had made a blanket statement that they were not going to help me, this was my own thing.

The literacy program where I did my service was established in the eighties by a ladies club, it occupied a "California" bungalow around the corner from the public library, the sign out front, "Learn to Read, Free," was a big draw. Adult learners would relay stories to me about riding their bikes up and down the street eyeing the sign, the tutors, and the staff for YEARS before they worked up the strength to come inside. Once inside, we worked hard to make this a safe place and a hopeful place. I am still in awe of the kindness and resourcefulness of the staff at this literacy program. It was contagious. There was a VISTA volunteer there before me, her shoes were the size of Texas. I couldn't begin to fill them. One of the things that I did was "interview" new learners. In order to meet the needs of the adults that wanted help, we spent a lot of time trying our best to evaluate the abilities and goals of new learners, and learners that were already in our literacy program.

The stories that learners told me were various. They were: dramatic, honest, veering towards the last brink, sad, misguided, but they all spoke of courage and hope. Something was not working for the people that wanted literacy help. Something had brought them inside our little office. The suburbia that crawled around the city like a bougainvilla vine, had a no trespassing or "beware of dog" sign hammered into it. The people that I talked to wanted to know what was going on inside this locked, industrious community. Our goal was providing them with the key, or at least a clue on how to get the key. "You need to be independent, capable, confident and able to read the signs, we said." Some people wanted to read books to their children, some people wanted to get their GED, their driver's licences, write a check, a love letter, a recipe. The difficulty of living in a world that was indecipherable became more real to me each time I wrote down the stories and goals of adult learners.

One learner had difficulty learning because of the lead paint he was exposed to as a child. After work each day, he arrived in our office wearing his greasy blue shirt, ready to read, and read again, and write his name.

A woman that had a learning disability worked on her literacy skills and became courageous enough to leave an abusive marriage. She was able to support her two young children after she passed a truck driving exam that her literacy tutor had helped her to prepare for.

A young man that had a brain tumor sought solace in the non-judgmental screen of a computer in our office. The constant beep of a leaping frog from the educational computer program, "Spell It!" filled the air.

There were hundreds of stories.

Reaching out to find enough volunteer tutors to meet the needs of the mobs of people that wanted help was a big part of my job. In this respect, I wish that I had done more. The brochures, flyers, posters, and speeches I worked on did NOT polarize the community. I think my idealism got in the way sometimes. At one point I suggested to the program's director that I do a "Read-A-Thon" in the middle of a crowded street. I said, "okay, I'll wrap myself up in blankets and read for two days straight or something, we'll call the media." I think that coming up with wacky, creative ideas in order to further promote your programs is a good idea. But, it seems like a lot of my time as a VISTA was spent becoming a framework, a brick in the building. Just as the VISTA before me had done, I tried with all the weight of my being to hold up the planks of a building that I felt was very important.

The weight of my being varied during my year of service. Half way through my term I got a bad case of non-viral pneumonia. I was coated in a green hue and I lost weight. I think I coughed the weight away, and broke some ribs in the process. AmeriCorps* brought on a different medical provider, so let's just say the governmental/medical office papermill was 'a churnin' at record speed. I was frustrated by the paperwork, and having to explain that I was a government employee, but not really a government employee, that I worked here, but send the bill there, etc. The paper mess lastest over a year after my service was over.

Also, near the end of my year of service our site changed and our program changed in the process. Getting to our new site, a bilingual library, that enchants me to this day (it sits on a hill above the sparkly lights of Tijuana, Mexico) became another project. There were books to move, new PR materials to create, equipment to evaluate, and, there were the "outreach events"and everlasting list of phone calls to make. The library that we moved to was controversial in the community. The yellow color with purple columns caused some people to walk into our office and "vent" on us.

I loved the building. I loved rubbing my fingers on the bumpy yellow stucco. There was a hummingbird nest in a magnolia tree outside the office window. It was a symbol, one of many, that this place of learning, instruction, outreach was a place of rebirth in the community. There were sad things that happened too. A hostage situation across the street, a teenager on PCP wandering through the office at night. But still, I was Titania staring at my Oberon, it was a beautiful thing to be a part of.

Okay, it wasn't all a fairy paradise. I had to sell my CD collection one month, in order to pay a bill. I sold squash on the side of the road to make spending money. Also, amid changes, a new agency identity needed to be carved out. The community that I worked in, Chula Vista, has grown from 25,000 to 125,000 people in about 25 years, making a wholistic identity an enigma. Mobilizing volunteers, reaching out to hidden corners is like running backwards when the face of a city is an enigma. What will this city become? What name would this library take on? What businesses will fill the empty storefronts on the main street?

The stories I heard, the ideas that I forged during my VISTA year, live inside me like a frog in my gut. If I see a person that seems to be walking off the edge, moving towards a broken fountain, I hear the frog in my stomach go, "CROAK! Do something! Croak! Save this kid." Okay, sometimes I've got a belly full of tadpoles, good intentions, but there is something about facing up to poverty, to my good fortune, facing up to the needs of my community, that tells me: I could work harder. I believe that writing and reading can be an avenue out of poverty . I suppose I am in direct lineage of a Shangrai-La, idealistic, hippie past, but i like to salt myself with realism. The face of the nation is continually changing, supporting the changes, easing the burdens, writing and reading the maps, these are things I'll always find important; these are some of the things that my VISTA service taught me about.

How effective is VISTA? The literacy program that I worked in was effective, it won awards from the state of California and our director was dynamic and quick to follow the needs of the population. I worked 50 hour weeks at least, while trying to regain the 45% of my lung capacity that I lost from my pneumonia. I did resent that some VISTAs were collecting food stamps and welfare while they collected their VISTA checks, because VISTA was my only source of income and I was devoted to it. I wrote some letters about that. Had I been somewhere else my story may have been bitter or perhaps it would have filled up my resume some more. But it was the stories from families in our program that made it worthwhile, real stories, about patience and effort. Parents read books to their children. A 50 year old woman wrote a check for the first time.

My friends came back from abroad, they had ridden buses with goats to get to Kathmandu, fled from Elephants in Northern Kenya, lived in huts and learned new languages. But, when I go to visit the library, as an anonymous patron, I touch the stucco and know that for a while, I helped hold up this building, and when I see a learner that I know riding his bike down the street, I know that he probably has a book in his jacket, a book that he is gonna read to his little girl that evening and then, I think, even if these things are small compared to the whole world, they are important.