"I was pretty paranoid and scared, but she knew them...so I felt better." he says, "She feared nothing...she was really tough."

Dake spent the summer in the Mission District of San Francisco working for a non-profit organization which helps youths stay off the streets by providing them with jobs and activities.

"A lot of them [the youths] had been in gangs," Dake says. "Lavista was the leader of an all-women's gang [which] raped men, robbed, killed, sold and did drugs."

Dake, who eventually helped Lavista apply to a local college, says working for the organization was an eye-opening experience.

"I was really naive," he says. "I thought I knew what was going on...I was surprised."

Dake says the program is a very important system to teach youths skills they can use in the workplace such as computer literacy, autoshop and other clerical tasks.

"There's a great need for people to do this service," Dake says. "Anything helps."

During the early days of the ArabIsraeli peace accord, Christopher P. Glew '96 was up to his elbows in dirt--very old dirt.

Weekdays, Glew says he helped to excavate a tel, a mound in which newer cities have covered older cities for centuries.

He strolled the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on weekends. Israel, both old and knew, says Glew is an experience not to be forgotten.

While sifting through the earth which covers the Tel Beth Shemesh, Glew says he helped to uncover one of the oldest cisterns in Israel and a gate which dates back to the time of Solomon.

Although he says digging on his allotted square was "grunt work," Glew says he was fascinated to be part of a blend of the old and the new.

On the site he worked among ancient ruins. In the streets of Jerusalem and on the kibbutz where he lived, he saw signs of a new peace.

"Most of the people I talked with were kibbutzniks," Glew says, "They were excited but skeptical about peace."

In Jerusalem, Glew says he was surprised by the strong military presence.