<< Back to Xploregon Media Page
Naomi’s Experience
It started and ended with a game of cards. I was the outsider until I learned to play their game: ‘Hood Rat’.
When I learned that my summer fate was sealed and that there was no avoiding the upcoming two-week long service learning road trip titled ‘Xploregon’, I was terrified, enraged and at a loss for how to deal with the lack of control I had in my own life. The program promised to be the perfect combination of summer camp, a road trip and service learning while engaging teens in leadership and high adventure activities. The problem was that I didn’t want any of it. I was perfectly content with spending the beginning of the summer before my junior year with my friends, avoiding the homework I had and spending lazy days in the park. My parents had different plans.
I arrived to the launch of the trip crying so hard I was having trouble breathing evenly (quite a feat considering that I’m not an easy crier). Once I was able to calm myself enough to acknowledge the 19 teens I would be living with, I realized that I was one of only four girls, nine of the boys were able to speak Spanish, they had no reservations about doing so. They clearly knew each other. I later learned that the boys were participating in the trip as part of a soccer team they belonged to that attempted to prevent “at-risk high school students” from joining gangs. Here I was the minority in so multiple ways, and that alone was something that I would need to adjust to.
After an awkward car ride to our first camping site and the initial set up the group separated to relax. Five of the boys who were already friends ventured into the underbrush to find the makeshift toilet we were subjected to, the group of ten that had just met seemed to become new friends quickly, more out of convenience if nothing anything else, a small group of four boys pulled out the camp chairs to play cards and I did nothing. It was clear from the start that I was not happy, I did not want to be here, and I cared very little about the people surrounding me, all of which were completely different than how I would typically regard a social situation. As I observed the newly forming (or already formed) friendships develop, I left myself out of the equation. But soon after I chose my isolated seat, one of the boys playing cards beckoned me over.
I thought the motion was intended for someone behind me until I realized I was alone. I hadn’t said more than “Hello” to him and I couldn’t imagine why he wanted to talk to me but I picked up my chair and moved it over. Four sets of eyes looked at me and then acknowledged my presence with a smile or a wave as the one who had called for me simply asked “Wanna play?” Not wanting to be rude I replied, “Sure, but I don’t know how.” So they taught me how to play the game they called Hood Rat, or Three Up, Three Down and somewhere along the way we become friends.
The game was constantly being played by one group of people or another; we quickly learned that we could not play with more than five people. Everyday that we played this game learned a little about each person; that Edgardo could cheat so well nobody noticed for the first three days, and that Victor hated losing but always pretended it didn’t bother him when I was playing. Regardless of all the differences between us, and there were many; it was that one card game that created my friendship with nine boys from a soccer team. The greatest lesson I learned on this trip blossomed from a deck of cards; while our differences in life may keep us apart, it’s the small things shared in common that bring us together.
– Naomi