The Farming Capital of California

Big Cities. Small Cities. Ah, the beauty of Up With People. From the beaches of San Diego to the fields and fields and fields of farmland in Corcoran, CA.

Yes, we are here in this town called the "Farming Capital of California" and the home of the JG Boswell company - the largest crop company in the United States, the largest producer of tomatoes in the world and controls 65% of California's premium cotton production. Take note, however, that California produces 90% of cotton in the world market.

Corcoran welcomed us with a parade led by a vintage firetruck (so cool that I was able to be on it! We also had a picture in the front page of the paper the following day!), police cars, balloons, motorbikes. Our arrival in this City felt so promising that day and now that I am on my 4th day, I can say that I am not disappointed.

This is my first time to have roommateS - I am staying with my host parents, Bob and Elaine - and with Gabe, Tyrell and Nikki (yup, same Nikki in San Diego) Nikki and I have a sweet room on the 2nd floor of the house that is just full of model trains! Our dad is crazy about them that he has a huge track in the second floor, and a more "scenic" track in our backyard - complete with bridges and lighthouses.

Crazy Corcoran had a Crazy Schedule!

Tuesday and Thursday mornings were full of Stand for Peace workshops. May I share again that Stand for Peace is an Up With People project which aims to bring awareness and understanding of culture and diversity into the classroom. We do this through an interactive workshop with the kids - so far we have done SFP with middle schools around the country. We also did mini-shows for these schools right after the workshops.

Wednesday morning treated us to a tour of the JG Boswell fields and cotton gin. I would say that Corcoran is Boswell town, I see the company's name in plaques around town-- donating this and that. The tour was fields and fields as far as the eyes can see! We had an intresting video about the cotton and the tomatoes that they produce and how they do crop rotation with alfalfa and wheat. Oh, Sam would have loved this tour! It was amazing how they use sattelite driven trucks to harvest the cotton and tomatoes (no drivers!). We also had a chance to see an actual tomato harvest!

Now, what exactly is cotton gin? Yep it's an alcoholic drink made from cotton!

Kidding.

The cotton gin is where the raw cotton is processed to be made into the clean fiber that manufacturers use. The JG Boswell cotton gin is able to process 12 loads of cotton per hour (and that's 26 tons of cotton per load!). The phrase for that day was remember, cotton is dangerous! If they are all compressed into big bales! The company is able to process 170,000 bales of cotton per year. Our lunch for that day was sponsored by the company and we got souvenir pens and caps! Ahh, and mini 1 pound cotton bricks!

For our late afternoons from Tuesday through Wednesday , the cast was split into 4 groups and were dropped off in different schools as we helped out with YMCA after school programs. Our group had 80 kindergarten and 1st grade students in our hands for around 3 hours. It was exhausting but fun! Especially on the third day when the kids really knew us already. They loved doing "Baila, Baila!" , a Spanish song that we learned during the Up With People Alumni Reunion back in Tucson.

Friday was an internal education day and I really had a great time. We first had a human rights workshop which I helped facilitate (kudos to Jeremy, the other education intern -- I think he did a great job!) and then had a guest speaker, Kathleen Andersen - the State Warden of the California Substance Abuse and State Prison.

Corcoran is home to this prison -- the population of which outnumbers the 12,000 population of the City of Corcoran, and is considered to be the largest prison in the free world. Charles Manson, an infamous serial killer in the US is there along with several other "famous" people.

It is amazing to know how "privileged" the prisoners in California are. It is mandated by law that they go to high school and to learn English (if they don't know it). High school graduates are offered vocational programs so that they will have skills if ever they are released. They have amazing healthcare benefits and it may even be possible for them to get free heart surgery if they really need it. I had a great urge to say : Hey, if I need heart surgery, I'll just kill a couple of people and go to prison for free healthcare!

Halfway through lunch we had an intern meeting where all interns did a small persuasive speech to practice for public speaking -- I'll tell you more about my speech later!

Friday afternoon was FREE TIME at the YMCA pool! We had Home Team Olympics where cast groups competed against each other in events such as -- Synchronized Swimming, Fastest group to go down the slide, Diving for Rings (getting rings 12 feet deep!) , and "Chubby Bunny". Chubby Bunny was a fun (but quite disgusting) game where people stuff marshmallow after marshmallow in their mouths until they could no longer say "Chubby Bunny!" -- the person who puts most marshmallows in his or her mouth wins the game.

Ah, 3 hours of free time was pure bliss. I did some laps and felt so stretched and refreshed.

I was so excited for show day because my Tita (Aunt) Miriam and Tito (Uncle) Conrad from Cerritos, CA , and my friend Tiffany from Los Banos, CA came to see the show! The John Muir gymnasium was again such an experience because it was so HOT ! I could feel the sweat streaming down my face and see steam and droplets coming off of everyone on stage.

But it was a full house! Tickets were sold out and we had an amazing audience. It really helped that we spent a lot of time in the schools around the city. The kids liked the show a lot and even asked for autographs!

Sunday, (today!) is free day! I spent the morning with Tita and Tito and Tiffany. We went to the next town to do some shopping (I got an extra pair of formal slacks because we wear them all the time, a new black top because mine is so tight already because I am gaining so much weight, new dance shoes because Tita Girlie said better to get them now than in Europe, some tops) and I ended up with more luggage than ever even if I unloaded some of my stuff! It was so fun to catch up with everyone and to speak my language again :-)

Tomorrow is Travel Day again -- after a Mexico culture presentation -- we will all board the bus to Redding, California. We'll spend the night in Redding then continue on to our next city, Winston, Oregon! The cast will be a big part of the annual Melon Festival.

Work, Work for the Education Team next week! Winston is Ellen and mine's city. As Education Intern, I play a big role in planning and executing internal education for the cast. For next week, we have Debate/ Dialogue and Public Speaking sessions coming up, as well as Community Impact projects and Stand for Peace classrooms. Whew. It's going to be a busy week! By the time we get to Coos Bay, Oregon -- I should be able to run cities on my own. I am so nervous about it!

Goodbye Corcoran! Loved this city!

Look, my own street!