I’ve been a Big Sister to an 11 year old girl named Jazzmen for about seven months. I used to meet her once or twice a week during her lunch period at Chimborazo elementary school. We were site-based and could only see each other at school, and even though I lived a block away, I couldn’t point out my house or give her my phone number.

As of this month, we are “Community Based,� which is what everyone thinks of when they think of Big Brothers, Big Sisters. We had our first outing on Saturday and this kid is amazing.

Meeting her mother two weeks ago was humbling. There is this feeling you get when you are doing something that someone else has told you is good – a feeling that you are extra-good, like you are some sort of hero. It is hard to fight; it is ingrained in us middle-classers. And it is embarrassing to admit, but you fall for all the stereotypes you believe that you are correcting some deficit, making something bad better.

I walked into Jazzmen’s family apartment and I felt love there. Her mother is fantastic and I know that whether or not I am around to encourage Jazzmen to read books, and do her homework, and express her feelings, she will do more than survive.

I like it when the hero in me is put in her place.

For our first outing we went bowling at Bowl America on Williamsburg Road. Going bowling at 1 pm felt kind of funny. BB/BS get a 2 for 1 discount at Bowl America, which I interrupted as two games for the price of one, like I would just have to pay for myself. But the cashier decided it meant for every 2 games I pay, Jazzmen gets 1 free. Then when I went to pay she said, “alright, you two played a total of 6 games, and at 2 for 1, you pay for 4.� Whatever.

Jazzmen was awesome. We played Trouble a lot at school and she would get really worked up and competitive and started to get a little whiny when she wasn’t winning. I thought she’d get that way with bowling, especially when it was the 5th frame and she had accumulated 5 points. But she cheered me on and when I tried throw the game she pointed out that I wasn’t doing as well as before and then crossed her fingers that I would knock some pins down with my next roll.

In spite of myself I took her to McDonalds to lunch, maybe next time I’ll take her to Ipenema instead. We saw the No Wonder bread guy buying a Big Mac (don’t tell all those vegans!). We sat out in the shade as she ate three chicken selects and a small order of fries as slowly as I had ever seen anyone eat anything.

“This girl told me I shouldn’t listen to Jesse Mcartney because I am black.�

“What did you say to her?�

“I told her I like him and I’ll listen to what I like. Then she said that I should listen to 50 Cent or something.�

“Oh yeah?�

“I told her ‘I don’t want to listen to 50 Cent, my mom told me I’m not allowed to.

“Then she said I was a geek.�

And then my heart broke a little…

“I was at Overhill Lake on Thursday and I didn’t want to play with my little brother and sister because they were splashing to much. So, I walked over to this Caucasian girl who was playing by herself and said, ‘Hi, I’m Jazzmen, do you want to play?’ And she looked at me and said, ‘My mom told me I’m not allowed to play with blacks.�

“Oh, Jazzmen.�

“I felt sorry for her. But then later I heard that same girl walk over to another girl and ask if she wanted to play. The other girl said, “I don’t want to play with you, you’re ugly.�

I tried not to laugh but I did. Haha, take that ugly girl!