To Skin A Lamb

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"How is it so easy for you to be kind to people he asked. Milk and honey dripped from my lips as I answered cause people have not been kind to me." - Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur 

CHARITY

"These people are in unfortunate situations and don't even know to ask for help." He shouted, throwing his arms in the air.

I watched his outburst with slight amusement. "Not necessarily," I said under my breath, continuing to write notes down on my notepad.

He heard me and chose to press me about it.

"What is that supposed to mean?" My classmate asked, folding his arms across his chest as if he was offended by my analysis.

I looked up into my glasses lens and looked around the room. The whole class stared at me, waiting to hear my argument. So I conceded and gave the people what they thought they wanted. "It's very simple to say that they don't know any better and in some cases that may be that case. But we have to stop associating lack of resources with not being able to express oneself."

"Meaning?" A girl beside me asked with raised eyebrows.

I sighed and dropped my pencil. "Meaning that if I walked to your house and saw an imperfection, that I deemed worthy enough to solve, then it's okay for me to walk into your home and fix it? The answer should be no." I explained the purpose of the case study we were reviewing.

"So what should we do instead?" The professor pushed me into answering.

"Ask." I answered simply. "This whole debacle could have been avoided had they just asked if it would be helpful instead of assuming."

My professor smiled at me with a large grin. "Ladies and gentlemen... Charity Garcia. The rest of you should analyze the text instead of just reading it because it was assigned to you. Ms. Garcia did a mixture of the two and it seems to be paying off well. Great response, I could not have said it better myself!"

I smiled a little and went back to writing down the notes. But not before hearing the girl beside me call me a 'fucking pick-me,' even though I hadn't asked to be in the spotlight, I just landed there.

I rolled my eyes and went back to studying. Classes with Political Science students are difficult. They think about governmental policies and try to expand those policies. We need those kinds of people so I'm not knocking it, but I am a Social Justice/Nonprofit Studies major so I see things from a different view than the rest of them.

I hate that Braxton University mushed our curriculum together because I'm deemed as the 'star student' when they really just are lacking foundational principles that make you acknowledge the other side. (1)

I couldn't have flown out of the classroom faster, but Professor Nichols called me and another three students to the front of the room. "You three are my best students and I wanted to offer you an opportunity. This is invite-only because it is a prestigious program that only allows 8 students every year."

I looked at the other two classmates, Phoebe Taylor whom I've known for a while and consider to be a friend and then some random Poli-Sci dude who has always been quieter.

Bebe (Phoebe) looked back at me with intrigue laced in her eyes.

"The Social Impact Study abroad program allows students to live in Chiapas for the first half of the semester." He started and then reached into his bag to hand out flyers. He handed us each one. "The donor will completely pay for your flight, housing, meals and insurance while you are there."