Saturday in the rain

This past Saturday, I had domestic violence training for 6 hours with SAFV along with about a dozen community members (including 3 members of my house.) The day's focus was on presenting some facts about domestic violence to the community, helping to explain why victims stay with their perpetrators, and beginning to talk about the impact that domestic violence has on individuals, families and communities. It was a long day but I found the conversations interesting and one video in particular that we watched presented a number of interviews with DV and sexual assault survivors, their families, and included interviews with perpetrators. The perpetrator interviews were particularly striking because each of them was in a different place of awareness of their actions and gave a perspective on the violence committed that I had never been exposed to before. I personally feel that it is important to understand and approach an issue from every direction and found this aspect helpful in beginning to understand and question why someone would abuse a loved one rather than trying to question why someone stays with an abuser (which often is the case in the media and in American society.) The blame often is pushed onto victims both for their abuse (they somehow caused it) and for staying with an abuser out of fear, financial security, lack of an adequate support system, lack of knowledge about community resources or any number of other reasons that help to explain why someone would stay. I have 2 more Saturday trainings and 2 Mondays left so be on the lookout for further reflections on what I see and learn.

On a much less serious note, Greg and I rode our bikes to Kelly's Pub on Saturday afternoon to meet our friend Ben (from Ohio) for the USC-Ohio St. game. This little trip deserves mention here because the pub is almost 2 miles from our house, it was raining hard, and it didn't open until 5! I was extremely surprised because this game started at 4 and I for sure thought that a sports bar would be open for a game between 2 top 10 teams...nope! The three of us walked around for a half hour having a really good conversation about JVC, Americorps, faith and Sitka and eventually got into the pub for the game. It was really nice to just kick back, watch a game in that atmosphere (even if we were the only people there) and make a connection outside of the house. After the game we went to a bar in town to watch a band called The Glorious Youth Parade perform. Words cannot adequately describe this experience. It was a pretty big band with a variety of instruments, the public defender on lead guitar and others dressed up in crazy outfits, including one man who I am pretty sure was dressed up like Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons.