I AM GOING TO LOVE SICKLE CELL CAMP! We had the parent/camper meeting today. It was really fun to work the room and meet all the kids. I was a bit apprehensive, since camp was usually counseled by older teenagers with sickle cell, and they did away with that this year. How would the kids respond to a whole bunch of white young adults coming in?

It was fine. It was FUN. I can't wait, and I'm so glad that I took the leap of faith. I loved all of them! I know I've said it before, but I love kids. I feel so lucky to have that as my gift! Resilience, a willingness to be silly, laugh and have fun, and a desire for fairness. I appreciate all those characteristics of kids. And black kids? I find that they (in black culture) just like to laugh all the more, in hard and in good times. I hope that they can instill what good traits they bring (the power of a social network, strength from SCD) in me, and I can instill what I bring (working hard/making hard-work fun, silliness) in them. I can't wait for small-arm hugs with all my children! They were all so polite!

I knew kids at HH didn't have attitude, but I still didn't know if I was going to encounter that here, with the strong neighborhood identification/clashes. I saw not a whit of it. Though I too have my moments of apprehension about stepping into a different culture, I'm glad that I persist in experiencing it. There's no better way to overcome our internal biases. As my Missouri homeboy Mark Twain wrote, "travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many people need it sorely on these accounts." EXACTLY one month to go!

Till times like these.