The Tenderloin district of San Francisco, California is notorious for its unusual amount of homeless people and transsexuals, as well as the heavy drug usage and gang violence. Therefore, my predominantly upper class, white, Christian youth group was not received well when we pulled up to our one floor apartment on Ellis Street one dark and rainy night. Surrounded on all four sides by the Tenderloin and all the things that it encompassed, everyone was a little bit out of their comfort zone. The leaders in charge did not wait for us to adapt before we were thrown onto the streets to begin our work as evangelists for the week.

On the other hand, the renowned Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco is also heavily populated with homeless people and contributes equally as much as the Tenderloin to the existing drug culture. However, the day we ventured off our Tenderloin turf and into the Haight, it was a sunny day full of alluring affairs. Maybe we were just more accustomed to communicating with homeless people by that time. Maybe it was the psychedelic lights, mood rings, and old record shops that covered the streets. For any reason, my friend Lauren and I felt at ease with our mission for the day. We were instructed to pack an extra lunch before we left our Ellis Street apartment. Once we arrived at the Haight, we were told to share our extra lunch with an itinerant friend in Golden Gate Park.

The large mound in the center of the park, “Hippy Hill,” as it was dubbed, had a way of communicating to tourists to delight themselves at their own risk upon entering. Nothing was out of the ordinary there, because there was no clear definition for the word ordinary.

“It certainly won’t be hard to find a homeless person with which to share my lunch,” I remember thinking, as my eyes scanned the scene and my mind adjusted to the atmosphere. I had met many interesting people in the Tenderloin in the past week – none of which, however, intrigued me more than the hippy I met on Hippy Hill.

“Hey there ladies,” he said to Lauren and me, as we turned a corner to see the magnificent hill that was in fact infested with hippies. He was selling hemp jewelry on the side of the walking path as his singular source of earnings. “I do tricks for food. I can sing and dance. I make some nice jewelry too,” he cooed as we passed.