A one-day trip field trip to Malibu turned into a summer-long adventure and the chance of a lifetime for Darreyon Johnson, a 12-year-old from South Central who spent last summer surfing with the help of a volunteer mentor and Malibu’s West Coast Riders.
By Kasaan Steigen / Special to The Malibu Times
PART I – Far From Shore
Darreyon Johnson was a surfer without a beach. It took a day at surf camp to see that, though. Darreyon could do a back flip over one seat into another on a moving school bus like nobody else. His small, light frame balanced easily on the top of the seats, and he could masterfully twist most of his body out of the window to yell at passing cars before you even noticed him up again. In a school bus, this made him look like a week’s suspension. But in the ocean, these natural skills made him look like a surfer. Seeing Darreyon on a surfboard that first day felt like someone finally gave me the right prescription for my glasses.
I was working for a non-profit foundation that works with children in Los Angeles’ inner city. We took 50 children from Compton and Watts on field trips every month to expose them to things outside of their everyday lives-the Los Angeles Opera, museums, television studio sets, Beverly Hills restaurants.
Darreyon was one of the “bad” kids. Bad by 12-year-old standards, that is. He didn’t listen to directions; he didn’t pay attention in classes; he didn’t do his homework; he talked back to teachers and everyone else; he yelled at the other children and screamed when he felt like it; and he just would not sit down in his seat on the bus.
Darreyon was the kid I caught in the lounge at the opera house trying to get two other boys to paper the men’s bathroom with him during the second act. Maybe the opera was just a little too much sitting around for Darreyon. But I decided he should be kicked out of the program, and soon, if he didn’t shape up. I didn’t want him taking down some of our good kids with him.
That was until the day we took them to Malibu for a surfing lesson. Most had never even been to the beach. It is hard to imagine this when you live in a city where the beach is only a few miles away. But if you don’t have a way to get somewhere, then it is a long way away, no matter how close it is.
To these children, we might as well have gone to another planet. I cannot describe the looks on their faces that day-awkwardly squeezing into their wetsuits like space travelers, hesitantly dipping their toes into the water, clutching onto their boards with shaking hands. Two hours later, we couldn’t get them out of the water. The smiles on their faces radiated a mile down the beach. After all, these were 12-year-olds. These are not faces you think carry the weight of the world in their eyes, until you see it lifted.
It is easy to forget they are just children when you start to get a glimpse of their lives. Innocence is long lost in days that regularly witness violence, death, poverty, hunger and hopelessness. These are words I used to think were an exaggeration, trumped up for special news reports and speeches at fundraisers. But, unfortunately, these things are real and happening nearby.
Eighty percent of the children who go to Darreyon’s school are living below the poverty line. His principal told me once that when he moved to Los Angeles and started working at the school, he had never seen children so consistently eat every bite of their food at lunch. Not a bite was wasted. It took him several weeks to learn that, for many of them, this was the only real meal they would get that day.
We did an essay contest at the foundation that asked middle school children to write about their experiences with violence, and we were shocked to read that almost half of the five hundred children who wrote essays had witnessed a shooting or death. This surprised me because I had lived in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, and I had never actually witnessed a shooting. The children weren’t surprised at all. Working with them, I saw quickly how much tougher their skin was than mine.
But then a simple field trip reminded me that theirs’ is false skin-hard but thin-protecting a tender and curious soul who still needs help putting sunscreen on his nose, who wonders what coral eats, and who has never seen a beach.
Watching Darreyon in the waves that day, I realized I had never really seen him.
Read Part II next week …
Darreyon attends West Coast Riders surf camp in Malibu, headed by Brendon O’Neal. Kasaan Steigen was formerly program coordinator for the Chaka Khan Foundation and is the creator of the American Exchange program, which seeks to provide domestic exchange opportunities for at-risk youth. Inquiries about American Exchange can be sent to: Kasaan Steigen, P.O. Box 692026, Los Angeles, CA 90069, or email americanexchange@roadrunner.com