Hey Folks! This is Eric, your Opening Minds, Opening Doors (OMOD) project
coordinator and resident birthday dude. I have been tasked with blogging about
our recent OMOD program launch in El Paso, so here goes:
On Thursday afternoon, August 28th, I flew to El Paso with Celia,
our OMOD project director, and Caleb, my Mexican-American, punk-rock personal
care attendant of four months. Despite my ever-present distrust of airport wheelchair
handling, we arrived safely in El Paso, and I got my wheelchair back from under
the plane without any serious problems (of course, I only fly with my back-up
wheelchair, so it’s not like I even give the airlines a chance to break my chair.)
The three of us settled in nicely at the Radisson Hotel just outside of the El
Paso Airport. After enjoying an appetizer of chips, salsa, and popcorn at our
hotel’s happy hour, Caleb and I embarked on a journey to El Chihuahuita’s Tacos
Al Pastor, just a few miles down Montana Avenue.
Caleb and I had such great faith that the little hole-in-the-wall
of a place would deliver us to the taco promised land that when we saw it was
not accessible, we decided to just get our food to go and take it back to the
hotel. Upon our return, we set ourselves up at a patio table in the hotel
courtyard, spreading out our chicken fajitas, carne asada, barbacoa, and buche
tacos on Styrofoam platters amidst three different salsas, charro beans, and
Tecate by the can, and feasted like kings of the desert. After eating, we made
our way to the hot tub, where we told each other wild tales from our childhood
and let our stomachs digest the tacos.
The next afternoon, Celia and I made our way across Airway
Boulevard to the Region 19 Education Services Center, where we met with Rick
Razo, our warm, white-bearded project partner and rockin’ director of the El
Paso del Norte Youth Leadership Forum, and prepared for our OMOD El Paso
Training of Trainers. In addition to Rick, we also trained three lovely
graduate students from the University of New Mexico in Las Cruces, who will
serve as our trainers for our first El Paso class: Christine, our writing
instructor, Madeline, our public speaking instructor, and Gerri, our coach and
general classroom assistant. They were all excited to be a part of our project
and passionate about our ultimate goal: to train and support people with
developmental disabilities statewide to write and share their stories at conferences
and other events.
In this initial training, we guided the ladies through all
of the necessary paperwork and read through our six-week class curriculum with
them. Then, Rick acquainted us all with the facilities of the Education
Services Center, a building with innumerable circuitous hallways and keycard-swipe
locked doors, much like the Pentagon. As a wheelchair-user and tech nerd, I was
most excited that each classroom was spacious and equipped with a computer, projector,
screen, and booming speaker system as well as both a high-quality handheld and
wireless lapel microphone. After the training, we reunited with Caleb, and soon
we were off to nearby Dominic’s Italian Restaurant for yet another feast before
heading to bed early.
Caleb and I awoke before dawn Saturday morning and rolled
downstairs for a power breakfast of burritos and coffee. We rendezvoused with
Celia and drove to the Volar Center for Independent Living, the location of our
first OMOD class. Here, we met our fabulous group of seven participants (see the photo below), all active
leaders in the El Paso del Norte Youth Leadership Forum. Being a former
delegate and peer counselor from the Youth Leadership Forum in California, I
was struck by how similar this El Paso group was to the group with which I had previously
been involved. The participants here exhibited the same kind of compassion,
camaraderie, and earnestness as those I knew in California. They were all eager
for advocacy, change, and speaking up.
Pictured above is our rock star lineup of participants and instructors.
Back row, from left to right, is Paul, Jamie, Jesus, Madeline, Stephanie, Christine, Gerri, and Rick.
Front row, from left to right, is Alina, Roxana, Roxela, and myself.
Christine and Madeline led the participants through the
usual first class activities, including an informal interview activity, a big
group brainstorm using the phrases “Open Minds,” “Open Doors,” “Closed Minds,”
and “Closed Doors” to generate a variety of topics for stories, and individual writing
responses.
Roxela dictates her story to Gerri.
In the last half-hour of class, the participants shared their
writings, a beautiful mixture of heartfelt stories covering a broad range of topics
from “listening” and “diversity” to “opportunity” and “preparedness.” Of course,
there was room for improvement in these self-advocate speakers – as there
always is – but I know that I was not alone in my excitement to work with such
an impassioned and enthusiastic group of participants.
Jesus shares his story with the class.
Then, Saturday night, Celia, Caleb, and I drove out through
the desert to eat at the legendary Cattleman’s Steakhouse at Indian Cliffs
Ranch. While waiting for a table, we wandered around the ranch in search of an
appropriate backdrop for a group selfie, but instead we found a multitude of
ranch animals, including rabbits, peacocks, goats, longhorns, bison, horses,
llamas, an ostrich, and a donkey.
Rabbits!
Llama!
Ostrich!
After viewing the
photographic evidence, Caleb insisted that my true spirit animal is a donkey. Though
I’m not sure I agree outright with his statement, I can say that I felt an uncanny
closeness with the donkey; I seemed to understand his sadness as well as he
understood my own.
And of course, here is the donkey and I.
Do you think we're connected in some deep, cosmic way?
Our wandering came to an end when my name was announced over
a loudspeaker indicating that our table was ready, and I raced back to secure
it. We then enjoyed a hearty dinner of steak and bottomless pineapple coleslaw,
ranch beans, and rolls. For a moment, I looked contentedly over the table full
of food and felt completely at peace with the world. There’s nothing quite like
a good, hearty meal to make everything feel all right. I know Caleb and Celia
must have felt the same.
As Celia drove us back to the hotel, Caleb and I drifted to
the border of consciousness, satiated and calm. I gazed through the windshield at
the city lights ahead and wondered where El Paso ended and Ciudad Juarez began.
Celia told me that Juarez glowed blue because the streetlamps there were neon
and that wherever I could see a blue glow, I would be looking at Juarez; almost
everything else would be El Paso. I tried hard to see the difference, and I’m
not sure I did, but I do remember thinking about how magical and interconnected
everything seemed to be. I imagined the future of our El Paso program, the
stories that our self-advocates would write, the lessons they would learn and the
lessons they would share, the ways they might change or grow as I have grown through
my own involvement in the program. I didn’t know exactly what the future held,
but I was excited for it.
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