Devereux’s Nights and Weekends Part 1
Not long after I first came to Devereux I was made aware of the fact that Devereux operated several private houses on its campus. These houses were places where “developmentally challenged” men and women lived, under the care of hands-on workers. Some of these workers–there were both men and women working there–had full time jobs with Devereux and worked evenings, overnights, and weekends. However, because of the depressing and messy–most residents were incontinent and threw up sometimes–parts of this job, there existed openings in the house schedules for people who wanted to work part time and earn a few extra dollars.
Soon after I started working there I was a regular part time employee, spending some evening and weekend time and an occasional night shift in two houses: “Spruce House” had eight men and “Gatehouse” which had six women. Why did I get involved in this? It was hard work; I didn’t need the extra money. I won’t say that from the first times I worked there, I liked it–but soon I was confident that I could do any job that was needed in either house.
The kind of skills needed for this cannot be learned in school. You got trained on the job and you either hated it–this happened often due to the fact that you had to deal with a great many oddities and just plain weird stuff–or you grew to love it in an odd way. I was in the second category. I just liked the work.
What does this have to do with race relations in the United States? Most of my co-workers were Black or brown. Some were African Americans, some from Africa, and another group came from the island groups. (What lovely accents those people had!)
Most of these people spoke poor English and chattered to each other in their many dialects; this used to make me feel very awkward and left out. None were cruel to me, though; and I asked myself over and over again in those days– what was I doing there if I didn’t need the money? Somebody once said that I “had a heart for this kind of work” and that answered my question. I had never done anything close to this job so how could I know what was in my heart? But there it was.
The people of color I worked with couldn’t make sense out of me. Why was I there, in what lots of people called a “hell hole?” The main answer to the question finally came after a long time of pondering. None of them had been treated nicely by a white woman. White people abused them, put them down, denied them access. And here I was, changing dirty diapers, cooking meals for the residents, patiently loading everyone into one of Devereux’s super size vans. Didn’t make sense! Finally I achieved an interesting relationship with most of the women of color. They thought I was funny but in a cute way. As I said–they had never met a white woman like me so because I wasn’t stuck up I eventually was included into their group.
lgmwriting 