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dearfutureladyfriend · 5 years

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Can’t believe it’s been five years since Kaci Hickox took Maine and the world by storm after defying her quarantine when she returned to Fort Kent, Maine. Hickox was a nurse who worked with persons who were infected with Ebola in West Africa. Caption of first photo: FORT KENT, MAINE -- 10/30/2014 -- Kaci Hickox (center) returns to her home surrounded by media after going for a bike ride with boyfriend Ted Wilbur in Fort Kent Thursday. The pair were followed by a state police car. Hickox returned last week to the U.S. from West Africa, where she treated Ebola patients. She I s fighting a 21-day home quarantine. Ashley L. Conti | BDN #fortkentmaine #ebola #ebolanurse #kacihickox #journalism #photojournalism #photojournalist #partylikeajournalist #breakingnews #spotnews #hireme #canonusa #womeninjournalism (at Fort Kent, Maine) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4Pad7wlZ1q/?igshid=695dbiis286j

#fortkentmaine #ebola #ebolanurse #kacihickox #journalism #photojournalism #photojournalist #partylikeajournalist #breakingnews #spotnews #hireme #canonusa #womeninjournalism

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95percentmaine · 6 years

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Meet Zsakiyah “Ziggy” Brown, photographed in Unity, Maine.

Zsakiyah Brown had transferred to five different public schools in and around New York City and spent part of her middle school years living in a homeless shelter. Still, the self-described perennial “new kid” graduated as an “A” student. But by the end of her freshman year at a New York college, Zsakiyah, known as Ziggy, was failing every class except for Algebra and her relationship with the coach who had offered her a basketball scholarship there had soured.

Ziggy made the 13-hour drive to Fort Kent, a small town on the Canadian border, to visit the University of Maine Fort Kent and try out for their basketball team. A year later, she admitted, she felt the urge to leave again. When she revealed to her coach at Fort Kent that she was thinking of leaving school, he warned her that scholarships and opportunities for an education wouldn’t last forever. Ziggy, who now works at Unity College as the assistant athletic director, decided to stick with Maine and get her degree.

While Ziggy expects she will move again before too long – “I feel like a nomad for sure” – Maine has grown on her. “A lot of Fort Kent was me making it work, finding the right people,” she says.

She discovered a love of poutine and learned how to ride a T bar; a necessary step to her desire to snowboard. She went showshoeing and shot a rifle. She crashed a snowmobile playing a game of tag, where participants zip around throwing snowballs at each other. She spent her first Thanksgiving with faculty and hosted dinners with fellow students who didn’t return home for the holiday.

Although she was a black student from New York in rural Maine, she didn’t feel out of place. She recalled that she inadvertently became a part of a cultural exchange with a white student when the student asked her if she tanned, burned or stayed “that color.” “At first I was like, is she being racist, right here? Right here in my face?” recalls Ziggy. But she kept the conversation going.

“Okay tell me what you are trying to say,” she remembers telling the student, “and I’m going to give you five seconds now, I won’t take offense. Tell me what you’re trying to say, I’ll reword it, then you’ll ask, and I’ll help you figure out what you’re trying to say.”

It took awhile, but the approach worked, she says. And over time, she learned about as much about rural white culture.

“They talk about rednecks, and I was never comfortable with saying the word ‘redneck’ because that’s just something you don’t say.” She would also hear the word “hick” being used, but was assured that some white people were proud to be “rednecks,” and that they aren’t necessarily racist. “So now we’re both learning,” she says, quickly adding, “[I’m] still not going to say the word.”

After graduating, Ziggy continued to pursue her love for basketball and played overseas earning her master’s degree in sociology and management. Her dream is to become the athletic director of a small Division II school, but she doesn’t picture herself staying in Maine long term.

“I don’t want it to sound bad in any way, but I don't want my black child growing up in an all white school,” says Ziggy, who grew up with a Dominican babysitter and a Jamaican stepfather. “I feel like sometimes white kids are missing out on other things in life because they have to ask those questions when they get to college. I want [my children] to be well-rounded.”

“I will probably come back, just because I love the outdoors. There’s just something here. There's something here that has a hold on me for sure. It’s special.”

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