The American Bahá’í/Volume 9/February Extra/Text
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[Page 1]
Teachers Sweep into El Centro, Imperial Valley
California Launches Victory Drive![edit]
Southern California’s tranquil Imperial Valley was shaken from its slumber early in March as Bahá’ís from throughout the state and from as far away as Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Colorado and Illinois launched a dramatic California Victory Campaign with a two-month teaching project at El Centro, a city of some 20,000 people in the heart of Imperial County.
In a few short days the campaign had set the area ablaze with the intensity of its spirit while inaugurating an explosion in direct teaching whose repercussions may be felt before long in every corner of the country as the Five Year Plan enters its final and decisive year.
The El Centro project, which had its genesis several months ago in an appeal for help from the city’s jeopardized Local Spiritual Assembly, has produced a response to the Faith from area residents unlike any ever before experienced in this bountiful agricultural region just north of the Mexican border.
TWO PROCLAMATION events the weekend of March 18–19 featuring England Dan and John Ford Coley and other Bahá’í entertainers drew a combined audience of nearly 600 including around 400 non-Bahá’ís; hundreds of interested persons have visited the El Centro Bahá’í Center, a newly-redecorated store on the city’s Main Street; many others have phoned the Christian Science Reading Room or the public library in El Centro to ask about the Faith; the Bahá’í Message is being widely broadcast on radio and television via spot announcements and interviews with England Dan and John Ford Coley; publicity also has included several comprehensive articles in the Imperial Valley Press and nearby Brawley News; police and public officials have been made aware of the Bahá’í principles and attitudes, and the local school board backed the Bahá’ís when their request to use the largest public school in El Centro for a proclamation was challenged by a citizens’ group.
Estimates of the number of persons signing Interest Cards in the first few days of the campaign ranged from 50 to 100 including some 21 who by March 27 had declared their belief in Bahá’u’lláh and their intention to become Bahá’ís. Eight of the declarants are in El Centro itself, bringing the number of believers there to 15, while the others are from nearby communities; two of the declarants are American Indians from the Viejo Reservation some 80 miles west of El Centro at Alpine.
On the weekend of the first proclamations more than 100 Bahá’ís were teaching and distributing invitations in El Centro and other communities in the Imperial Valley. Among them were around 40 to 50 youth who were using their Easter vacations to teach.
IN THE MIDST of this initial effort, the friends were overjoyed to receive a phone call from Canada from the Hand of the Cause of God William Sears who expressed his regrets at not being able to come to El Centro for the opening of the campaign but conveyed his love and assured them of his ardent prayers for its success.
Nineteen of the youth and several adults remained in El Centro after the
Left: England Dan and John Ford Coley entertain at one of two proclamations in El Centro during the first weekend of the California Victory Campaign. Above: Some of the friends prepare to welcome seekers at the newly-redecorated El Centro Bahá’í Center, a converted store on the city’s Main Street.
Planning, Plain Hard Work Mark Campaign[edit]
Monday, March 20, 1978. It is late afternoon in El Centro, a drowsy city of some 20,000 in Southern California’s lush Imperial Valley. In a few short hours a new Bahá’í year—B.E. 135—will begin. In El Centro, the California Victory Campaign has been under way for three days.
Marion West, a Bahá’í from Las Vegas, Nevada, is at the home of Laurene Ravellette, one of the seven members of El Centro’s jeopardized Local Spiritual Assembly.
Mrs. West is busy stirring beef stew for the 20 youth projecteers who soon will be returning for supper after a long day of teaching. Later, she will bake a birthday cake for one of the youth.
THE PHONE rings, interrupting Mrs. West’s cooking. The telephone company was to have connected the same number that day at the week-old Bahá’í Center on Main Street, but it hasn’t been done yet. Mrs. West answers the phone.
She is one of several Bahá’ís from other parts of the country who have been asked to help with the Southern California campaign. Her area of expertise—management and administration—is being tapped to help organize it. She has been in El Centro for a week, and will stay for another week to help launch the two-month-long campaign.
The caller wishes to know what the El Centro project is all about. Marion lowers the flame under the beef stew and begins talking.
“What started as a project to save the jeopardized Assembly in El Centro has become a statewide teaching campaign,” she says.
“Behind this project is a great deal of in-depth planning, analysis of whatever possible difficulties might lie ahead, intensive consultation and plain hard physical work.”
PART OF THE “plain hard physical work” Mrs. West refers to has been the week-long task of refurbishing a rundown shoe store to make an attractive Bahá’í Center. She says townspeople have noticed the renovation, and “some go in and gawk, but there’s been no general stir over the improvements yet.”
She says “a lot of bi-lingual teaching is going on because many Spanish-speaking people live in this area.”
Besides teaching in El Centro, the friends are helping the two Bahá’ís in nearby Brawley and the two in Calexico, a few miles south of El Centro, to bring in enough new believers to form Local Assemblies in those communities.
To convey an idea of the need for outside help to teach in the El Centro area, Mrs. West says, “The nearest Local Assembly in any direction is almost 100 miles away. The one closest to the town going east is 300 miles away.”
ONE OF THE people who has walked the streets of El Centro to spread the Message of Bahá’u’lláh during the first weekend of the project is John Conkling, secretary of the National Teaching Committee and a member of the National Information Committee.
El Centro, he says, “has all the elements of being a very important project. We hope it’ll be the starting
Wave of Bahá’í Teaching Engulfs El Centro[edit]
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first proclamations to continue teaching and consolidating. Further proclamations were planned for March 25 and 26, this time at Calexico, about 12 miles south of El Centro.
At least 60 Bahá’ís have pledged to spend the summer teaching throughout the state as a part of the newly-formed California Victory Team. The team will travel from the Mexican border to the northernmost areas of the state, then return southward again, teaching wherever requested, but mainly in rural areas, with its itinerary coordinated by three Bahá’í youth through the California Regional Teaching Committee.
“There’s a very positive and exciting spirit in El Centro,” said Richard Betts, a member of the National Spiritual Assembly who has been closely involved with the campaign from its inception. “The support offered by Bahá’ís all over the state has been exceptional.
“El Centro is the starting point for intensive teaching throughout California this summer that, hopefully, will initiate the process of entry by troops’ referred to by the Universal House of Justice. The challenge, of course, is to sustain and even increase the momentum generated in these first exciting days at El Centro until all the goals in California have been won.”
On the surface, El Centro and the Imperial Valley seem an unlikely area in which to start a teaching revolution. As 1978 dawned there were fewer Bahá’ís in Imperial County than in any other county in Southern California; the county boasted only one Local Spiritual Assembly, in El Centro, and its membership had dropped to seven. The closest American Assemblies are almost 100 miles away.
On the other hand, there are several positive elements that make the Imperial Valley an attractive area for a widespread teaching campaign.
Seeds already were planted by Bahá’í teachers in the Mexican Border Project, a part of the National Spiritual Assembly’s “Design for Victory” program that was introduced in 1976. The Border Project was carried out by Bahá’ís from Mexico and the U.S., and was coordinated in this country by the National Teaching Committee and the International Goals Committee.
EL CENTRO, at the center of the county, is a meeting place for peoples of many minority backgrounds: Spanish-speaking, blacks, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Basque, Swiss, German, and others. Within a three-hour ride from El Centro are at least 19 Indian Reservations including California’s goal areas of Rincon and Pala.
El Centro is only a few miles north of the Mexican border. Just across the border is Mexicali, the capital of Baja California, with a population of more than 700,000. Mexicali serves as a funnel into the U.S. for thousands of farm workers who cross the border every day.
Above: Singers Leslie and Kelly were among the entertainers at the El Centro proclamations. That’s Kelly on the left. Top Right: The emcee for the proclamations was popular comedian Stu Gilliam, a Bahá’í from Los Angeles. Bottom Right: Singer-guitarist Walter Heath, who often performs with Seals and Crofts, was among those who delivered the message in song at the El Centro proclamations.
Many of these farm workers find jobs on harvest crews that travel from the Imperial Valley to areas in California as far north as the Sacramento Valley. Some follow the fruit harvest as far north as Oregon and Washington, while others travel to Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. A few even reach Illinois, Wisconsin and New York.
Many of these workers find their way to metropolitan areas, or have families there, thus linking El Centro and the Imperial Valley with many parts of the country.
IT WAS AGAINST this backdrop that the Spiritual Assembly of El Centro last January requested a meeting with District Teaching Committee in Southern California’s District No. 2 to discuss ways in which to save the Assembly.
El Centro’s first proposal was for a week-long teaching campaign with follow-up visits by traveling teachers. The District Teaching Committee liked the idea, and suggested a two-week campaign instead.
Before the planning was over, the El Centro project had grown to two months with assistance from Bahá’ís throughout the state and from other parts of the country. By this time the National Teaching Committee and California Regional Teaching Committee also had become actively involved, pledging their resources to help bring the campaign to a successful conclusion.
In March the El Centro project began in earnest when local believers and District Teaching Committee members were joined by volunteers from several areas of the state and by Janice Carter, secretary of the National Information Committee who coordinated media publicity and contacted public officials.
ALSO AMONG the first to arrive were long-time Bahá’í teachers Marion West of Las Vegas, Nevada, and Vahid Hedayati of Wichita Falls, Texas.
A vacant store was found on El Centro’s Main Street and rented for use as a Bahá’í Center. Extensive renovation was needed, and this was accomplished in only a week by a team of Bahá’ís that included Ernie Lopez, who heads the maintenance and grounds staff at the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois; Jan Wolf from Hawaii, and Tom Frank from Palm Springs, California.
The team re-wired the store, sanded the walls, filled holes—some as large as a man’s fist—and painted. Meanwhile, Marion West made curtains.
The Center now has Bahá’í displays, an area for viewing filmstrips, and places for deepening, socializing and enjoying coffee and doughnuts. There is a kitchen that is used to prepare meals for the Bahá’í teachers, and an upstairs area in which briefing sessions are held. Since the project began the El Centro Assembly has met daily, and sometimes twice a day, to map strategy.
IN THE WEEK before the first proclamations, Bahá’í teachers canvassed El Centro and nearby communities such as Brawley, where there were two Bahá’ís, and Calexico, which also had two Bahá’ís, handing out invitations and telling interested persons about the Faith.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Carter made the rounds of area radio and television stations and the newspapers, distributing tapes, live spot announcements and articles about the Faith and the upcoming proclamations, and arranging for interviews with England Dan and John Ford Coley.
She also delivered Bahá’í information kits to city and county police and public officials.
On Wednesday, March 15, England Dan and John Ford Coley arrived in El Centro and were interviewed by three radio stations, a television station and the local newspaper.
PUBLICITY of an unexpected nature was generated that same day when a group of El Centro residents petitioned the Central Union High School Board of Trustees to deny Bahá’ís the use of the school for a Saturday evening proclamation and a Naw-Rúz observance the following Monday.
A number of Bahá’ís were present Thursday afternoon when the Trustees met to consider the issue. Among them were Mrs. Carter; Mrs. West; Mr. Lopez, and spokesman Neil Gerber, a lawyer who is treasurer of the Spiritual Assembly of El Centro.
After hearing both sides, the Trustees ruled that the Bahá’ís had followed proper procedures in making their request, and thus there were no grounds on which to deny it. Use of the building, the Trustees said, does not imply an endorsement of the Faith, as the citizens’ group had argued it did.
The controversy and its resolution were fully reported in Friday’s Imperial Valley Press along with information about the proclamations at the high school and at the El Centro Community Center on Sunday evening.
ALSO ON Friday, National Information Committee members John Conkling, Joan Nemour and Jim Redson
More Help Is Needed[edit]
With the California Victory Campaign now scheduled to last at least until September 1 and probably well beyond it, much help is needed to sustain the momentum gained during the first few exciting days in Southern California’s Imperial Valley.
Friends with all manner of talents and abilities are needed and welcome: cooks, babysitters, teachers, or people who simply wish to go into the streets and pray.
If a believer wishes to participate in the Victory Campaign, he or she should contact Carol Allen, secretary of the California Regional Teaching Committee, at 805-498-0129.
Local Spiritual Assemblies, Groups and isolated believers who want the services this summer of the California Victory Team also should contact Mrs. Allen.
The Victory Team, which will travel northward through the state beginning in June before doubling back to complete its journey in Southern California by September, will go to an area only if it is guaranteed that local Bahá’ís will provide a follow-up to its teaching.
The team will try to avoid urban areas such as Los Angeles or San Francisco, and go instead to Indian Reservations, as well as to rural areas to teach migrant workers. Team members, some 60 of whom already have pledged to spend the summer teaching, plan to try and continue on weekends after September 1, and possibly to have a special project during the Christmas holidays.
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Bahá’í teachers (left photo) at the El Centro Bahá’í Center receive a briefing from Vahid Hedayati (center) who came to the California Victory Campaign from Wichita Falls, Texas. Mrs. Marion West (right) from Las Vegas, Nevada, was another of the many volunteers who helped organize the El Centro campaign.
‘The New Declarants Are Truly on Fire...’[edit]
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point for similar teaching campaigns in other areas of the country. With only a year left in the Five Year Plan, this is the sort of spirited, enthusiastic and well-thought-out teaching effort we need to win the goals.”
El Centro’s Bahá’í Center, only recently located and acquired, serves as a command post and focal point for the campaign. Passersby are invited inside by a placard that reads: “Bahá’í Faith: Information Inside.” The Center features displays, an area for viewing filmstrips, and others for deepening, socializing, and enjoying coffee and doughnuts. The kitchen is used to prepare food for the teachers; briefing sessions are held in an upstairs room.
“The new declarants (there have been more than 20 in the first few days) are on fire and in love with the Faith,” says Joan Nemour, a member of the National Information Committee. “They come to the Bahá’í Center and spend hours discussing the Faith.”
THE PEOPLE in El Centro, she says, are greatly interested in the Faith.
“The radio and TV station managers were flabbergasted that recording artists like England Dan and John Ford Coley, and Leslie and Kelly, would agree to be interviewed or perform for free. As a rule, El Centro doesn’t get this kind of live entertainment.
“It has given the performers an opportunity to say they’re in El Centro to share the Faith with the people in this area. After the proclamations we held last Saturday and Sunday evenings, the audience was invited to meet the performers at the Bahá’í Center and ask about the Faith.”
The people who came to the Center—and many of them did—were “caught up in the spirit of the Faith,” Mrs. Nemour says.
She believes the momentum created by the teaching around El Centro soon may result in the formation of six or seven Local Spiritual Assemblies in the area.
ONE OF THE first declarants is from Descanso, a town on an Indian Reservation about 80 miles from El Centro. Mrs. Nemour says this is especially important because the members of the tribe are related to another tribe in Mexico, where more teaching could be done.
El Centro, she adds, is a home base for many traveling people, particularly migrant farm workers. Once the Faith is well-established there, she says, it will be carried to many other places.
One of the three Bahá’ís who have spent a week renovating the El Centro Bahá’í Center is Ernie Lopez, the head of the maintenance and grounds staff at the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, who is a former resident of El Centro. During the early days of the project, he says, he has felt a receptivity to the Faith, especially in the Latino community, unlike anything he experienced while living in El Centro.
THE PROJECT is especially exciting, he adds, because it is beginning to look as though the formation of Spiritual Assemblies in Calexico and Brawley could become a reality. He feels the victories won in El Centro can be sustained with support from the large Bahá’í community in San Diego, some 80 miles away.
“The important thing about this campaign,” Mr. Lopez continues, “is that it has created a clear impact and a strong impression about the Faith on business and community leaders in El Centro, Brawley and Calexico. They’re having to deal with the Faith. With this project, it has become evident that there are material resources behind the Bahá’ís. The presence of England Dan and John Ford Coley has heightened that impression.
“On this project we’ve reached people who are literate, educated, who understand what they’re doing when they declare, and who will probably be dedicated Bahá’ís.
“I SPOKE with one new declarant. He’s married, has two children, and is clean cut. He told me, ‘I’ve been looking for a religion for a long time. I’ve studied many religions, and I believe there is only one God and there should be one religion.’ A lot of times,” says Mr. Lopez, “new declarants have trouble with progressive revelation, but he zeroed right in and understood it perfectly.”
What Mr. Lopez believes is crucial to the success of the campaign is support—material, physical and spiritual—from other Bahá’ís:
“If we win the victories in Southern California, we’ll be impelled forward to win the remaining Five Year Plan goals. And if a continuous stream of between 40 and 60 Bahá’í teachers works in Southern California, we’ll have no trouble breaking through for the Faith.”
With 40 to 60 teachers, he says, the tremendous power of unity will be evident, and the believers can rally to one another’s support.
MR. LOPEZ says the Bahá’í Center has been busy this day, the third of the campaign. “Monday’s usually a slow day for anything, and it was good to see two or three firesides going at once. Many Mexicans and some merchants have visited the Center.”
The following day, Naw-Rúz, a celebration is to be held that attracts a flower garden of humanity: American Indians, Blacks, Whites, and Spanish-speaking peoples, most of them non-Bahá’ís.
Mr. Lopez, who is to return to Wilmette shortly before the celebration, says, “I’ve been on many teaching projects, but this is the first time I’ve seen people come forward in considerable numbers and say, ‘This is beautiful,’ or ‘This is true.’ ”
Much of the teaching is being done by a corps of youthful volunteers trained by Vahid Hedayati of Wichita Falls, Texas. Mrs. Nemour says the youth are “among the most outstanding” Bahá’ís she has ever seen.
ANOTHER of the adult believers, Barbara West of Los Angeles, adds: “The project has been a tremendous experience for the youth. It’s marvelous to see their joy and reaction to the teaching victories. Bringing in the declaration of interest cards is a confirmation for them.”
One of the youth who is actively teaching in El Centro, and who performed with her sister, Leslie, at the proclamations the first weekend of the campaign, is 20-year-old Kelly Bulkin. She says, “The people in El Centro are lonely and have little to do. When you tell them about Bahá’u’lláh, they’ll usually ask for literature or go to the Bahá’í Center.
“We haven’t been turned away by anyone we’ve approached about the Faith. The people loved the concerts, and it brought their attention to the Faith, but I think they’re even more interested in the follow-up teaching activities.”
Leslie Bulkin, age 18, also has been teaching since the beginning of the project. The people of El Centro, she says, were amazed that performers like England Dan and John Ford Coley would give a free concert in their city.
ON NAW RUZ, when 15 youth visit the friends in Mexicali, Mexico, Leslie and Kelly will meet a Bahá’í guitarist and begin planning a musical proclamation there.
Unable to restrain her emotions, Leslie exclaims, “This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever been on!”
The El Centro Bahá’ís, says Mrs. Nemour, feel the same way: “They haven’t touched the ground since the campaign began. We’ve seen proof here of what Bahá’u’lláh says about teaching activities.”
Mr. Hedayati, a veteran of many teaching campaigns, arrived in El Centro shortly before the first proclamations to help train the youth, most of whom are college students on their spring break. That first Saturday he presided at a seminar on direct teaching for the more than 100 Bahá’ís who came to El Centro to teach that weekend.
“All of the youth here,” he says, “have shown a tremendous amount of understanding of how to dress and conduct themselves. Our daily routine is dawn prayers at 6 a.m., breakfast at 7, a briefing at 8, teaching from 10 to noon, lunch, teaching from 2 to 5 p.m., supper, free time, and firesides at 8 o’clock.”
THE BRIEFINGS, he says, begin with prayers and selections from the Writings. Projecteers discuss the previous day’s activities, their victories and mistakes. “We’re not afraid to make mistakes,” says Mr. Hedayati. “We simply discuss and correct them.”
He believes that almost everyone in El Centro has heard of the Faith through the mass media or direct teaching after only a few days, and says the teaching teams will now go back to teach in minority areas of the city.
He says the people have for the most part responded well to the Bahá’í Message: “Many people have said, ‘When you approached us we knew you had something good for us.’ ”
To sustain the California campaign’s early momentum, says Mr. Hedayati, “we’d love to have all the help we can get. But whoever comes should be ready for hard work and discipline. The campaign combines all kinds of teaching: firesides, one-on-one, the use of mass media, proclamations. Bahá’í teachers are used in many ways, depending on their talents.”
He urges all the youth in America to give this summer, the last of the Five Year Plan, to Bahá’u’lláh by teaching either in California or the other goal states, Illinois and New York. Such an effort, he says, would go a long way toward winning the goals of the Two Year Youth Program and the Five Year Plan.
Flushed with success, the newly-formed California Victory Team already has challenged the friends in Illinois and New York to undertake similar campaigns and to win, combined, as many victories as the California team does.
“The spirit here is simply impossible to describe,” says Mr. Hedayati. “Anyone who is in El Centro or in California this summer will personally see the miracles of Bahá’u’lláh.”
Volunteer Bahá’í teachers “sign in” at the El Centro Bahá’í Center before going into the community to take part in the exciting California Victory Campaign.
Getting the Bahá’í Message Across in El Centro[edit]
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joined Mrs. Carter in El Centro.
Besides meeting there that weekend, the National Information Committee members were actively engaged in teaching, continuing their response to the National Spiritual Assembly’s recent directive that all committees under its jurisdiction devote a part of their meeting time to teaching.
The Saturday evening proclamation drew a packed house of some 400 including around 300 non-Bahá’ís. It was emceed by comedian Stu Gilliam, and featured, in addition to England Dan and John Ford Coley, the singing duo of Leslie and Kelly, singer-guitarist Walter Heath and singer-composer Bob Gundry.
Following the proclamation, many in the audience responded to an invitation to visit the Bahá’í Center to talk more about the Faith.
TEACHER TRAINING sessions also were held that weekend with Mr. Hedayati presiding. Also present were Mr. Betts, representing the National Spiritual Assembly; Carol Allen of the California Regional Teaching Committee, and three Auxiliary Board members: Joyce Dahl and Fred Schechter from the U.S., and Arturo Serano from Mexico. National Information Committee members spoke at Sunday’s training session.
The Sunday evening proclamation, again headlined by England Dan and John Ford Coley, was held at the El Centro Community Center in a predominantly Black section of the city. The audience was estimated at 300 including around 200 non-Bahá’ís.
Sound equipment for the second proclamation was donated by a non-Bahá’í who also baked three large cakes for the friends.
A good-sized audience was on hand for Monday evening’s Naw-Rúz celebration that was capped by three declarations.
THAT SAME evening, three of the leading spokesmen for the citizens’ group that had objected to Bahá’í use of Central Union High School came to the Bahá’í Center and spoke for more than two hours with Mr. Lopez. Before leaving, they expressed the opinion that “Bahá’ís are sincere and believe in God.”
On Naw-Rúz the youth who remained in El Centro to teach played games in the morning, then traveled across the border to Mexicali to visit the friends there. They were accompanied by a non-Bahá’í who acted as translator, and the visit resulted in four declarations, including one from a man who’d been studying the Faith for four years.
That evening, the youth gave a fireside at the home of David and Susan Baral, Bahá’ís who live in Calexico.
Nightly activities continue at the El Centro Bahá’í Center, and community interest in the Faith remains high. The El Centro librarian said she has received a number of calls about the Faith, and has asked for literature. The woman who has manned the Christian Science Reading Room for the past 20 years also has asked for information from the Bahá’ís so she can answer callers’ questions.
THE YOUTH team was to remain in El Centro until the end of the spring break, a total of two weeks. Afterward, housewives and other local believers who are able to teach during the day or evening would carry on the work, with weekend teaching and proclamations as before.
The Calexico proclamations March 25–26 were to feature singer-guitarist Robert “Red” Grammer from Beloit, Wisconsin.
David Clayborne, secretary of the National Youth Committee, was to be in El Centro on Sunday, April 2.
From El Centro, the teaching campaign is to spread eventually to the nearby communities of Heber, Calexico and Brawley; to Niland (to increase the number of believers) and Ocotillo (to open); to Holtville, Imperial and Winterhaven; across the border to San Luis, Tecate and Mexicali, Mexico; then to the Manzanitas and Viejo Indian Reservations some 80 miles from El Centro.
In the summer, the Victory Team will cover the state from south to north and back again until September.
“The California Victory Campaign could be a very important project,” said Mr. Conkling, who besides serving on the National Information Committee is secretary of the National Teaching Committee.
“It has all the elements needed for success. It began at the grassroots, has elicited outstanding support from California Bahá’ís, both adults and youth, from national and state committees and individual Bahá’ís in other states; it combines effective use of Interest Cards with a well-planned program of proclamation, teaching and consolidation, and has a visible and attractive focal point in the El Centro Bahá’í Center.
“We’re looking at the campaign with a great deal of interest, and would certainly like to see similar projects undertaken in other parts of the country.”
Above: Members of the National Information Committee (left to right) Janice Carter, John Conkling, Jim Redson and Joan Nemour hold a brief conference before joining the ranks of the teachers in El Centro. Below: After a long, hard day of street teaching, a few moments’ sleep can feel very good indeed.