A day in the life of casa

Chicas, headcount!!! -The phrase we woke up to every morning. But shortly before that I would have already woken and kept my eyes closed hoping for a miracle to happen- that when I opened my eyes I would not be staring at the bottom of a bunk bed. I would be staring at my glow-in-the-dark stars on my blue ceiling and laying in my bed at home with my cat snuggled at my feet. But every morning headcount came and I was still staring at the bottom of a bunk bed. At Casa, the days were basically all the same. The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months and slowly but surely those months turned into years. 

After headcount, we would head to the Commodore to eat breakfast. Breakfast consisted of either cereal or porridge and yogurt. It was really the only meal that I didn't mind eating there. After breakfast usually came group time. Group was basically where we all sat around and read an entry from our journal. We would then have to give each other "feedback" on whatever it was that we wrote. Meanwhile, the mama and the case manager would listen and chime in as they saw fit. Some of us got off easy and others were quite obviously targeted. They were either used as steppingstones for girls to be able to have someone to give feedback to (so that they could 'show up' in front of the case manager) or they were made an example by the case manager. Casa somehow did a really great job of turning us all against each other. A big part of their success in that came from never allowing two people to talk to each other alone. Any form of nonverbal communication was also strictly prohibited. And one persons actions could have consequences for the entire facility. 

After group, we made our way (in lines of course) to the classroom. In the classroom, we had dozens of out-of-date high school textbooks to choose from. We would basically just pick one, read the whole thing, do the exercises at the end of each chapter, and then take a test on it. Did I mention I got straight A's at Casa?! During some point in the day we had PE. For about 30 minutes we were allowed to walk around in a circle outside. After PE came showers..(yay). Next was lunch. 

Our lunches were typically a sandwich or some kind of weird meat like spam or something we called 'chicken heart soup'. To this day I have no clue WTF that stuff was. It wouldn't surprise me if it was seagull soup. After lunch, more school. Dinner was typically fish, soup, or chicken. Thursday's we got this really yummy pasta with meat and white sauce(not being sarcastic it actually was really good!). 

After dinner we would head back to the 'house' and change into our pjs, brush teeth, wash face, ect.. Then we would get on our bunk and write our 'reflections' for the day. This was the journal entry we would read the next day in group. After lights out the night staff would come in. They sat by the doors to make sure no one tried to escape. They would walk up and down the hallway and look at us and write things down in a notebook. Not sure what they were writing about.