Have I mentioned that Georg and I are enrolled in the Durham Neighborhood College? Well we are. It's a ten week course about Durham city and county government; every week we learn about a different government office. What they do, their responsibilities and goals, where their funding comes from, how they make decisions, etc. It's really interesting. We learned about it from our friend D. who was in a previous session, and also a fellow poll worker during early voting last October suggested it.
We're about midway though the course, and so far the highlight has been the tour of the county jail. We've also had presentations from the police department, animal control, the board of elections, inspections, development, the register of deeds, emergency services, and others. Tonight was finance, budget, and taxes. Unfortunately we were in a new meeting room, which was so warm that I felt like I was going to nod off. It wasn't just me; during the break a couple of others said the same thing.
We've been split into small groups for a class project. The topic is "Perceptions of Durham" and my group is on the "pro" side. We're doing a vox pop, surveying Durham to find out what they like about living in Durham. We're going to pick about a dozen, record them and play the recordings while (this is the part I really love) holding up cartoons that represent each response, drawn by the daughter of one participant.
One of the participants went ahead and recorded all his responses, and they are wonderful. He's a great interviewer. One woman gave a bland boring response and he kept at her, asking pointed questions until she came out with something really heartfelt and touching.
I'm so excited about this project! I've asked the rest of the group if they'd be willing to adapt our project for Durham Noise Network, the half-hour documentary program on WXDU.
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