Hula Hoop Samurais

It's 10:30 am, the marine layer which has covered most of LA this morning is burning off and the sun is starting to make it's presence known. It's still cool, but the heat and a hint of humidity float on the breeze like bright orange booeys bobbing in the ocean, and will be undeniable by 2 this afternoon.

I'm sitting on a bench in the school's playground, watching my roommate Sara do her job, which at the moment is opening smooshed Susie Q's and bags of fruit snacks for hungry, uniformed kindergarteners who still have breakfast smeared on their cheeks and blue polo shirts. One chubby boy, Jose, has managed to smother a cracker in imitation cheese and stick it to the side of the bench. As he unsticks his snack and brings it to his wide-open mouth, Sara orders him to throw it away, a command that results in her chasing him around the playground as he holds the cracker out in front of him (presumably out of Sara's reach) and his round belly bounces with each little step and ends in him pouting because she took his dirt-crusted-germ-infested cracker away from him.

While Sara is managing Jose's crisis, there are a few young girls in plaid jumpers practicing their hula hooping skills. This could be a normal scene, only their necks are the point of balance, not their hips, a concept all the girls but one have grasped - this other poor girl, who is adorable in her efforts, tries to make the hoop go around on her neck, but instead of moving her head back and forth wiggles her hips instead. I have no doubt she'll be a fantastic salsa dancer some day.

The girls aren't the only kids on the playground who are getting use out of these striped plastic circles: The boys have claimed domain over the kinked, bent and otherwise unspinnable hoops and are using them to "fight" each other as they wave them in the air like a ninja would his nunchucks, or like Jackie Chan would any random object that happened to be in the scene. Complete with "hee-ya" and "woosh woosh" sound effects, these boys have managed to escape their reality of poverty and socio-economic oppression into a fantasy world of heroism and victory over the conqueror's crushing grasp. With hula hoops.

Surprisingly no one gets hurt, until the end of recess that is, when the 8th graders come out for their play time and a boy comes sprinting from out of nowhere, steps on one of the hula hoops, slips and lands flat on his back on the black top. It's a comical incident, but one that is met with relief when the boy gets up laughing and Sara realizes she doesn't have to make a trip to the hospital today.