Odane pays his own phone bill and shares his paycheck with his family, even if they don't want it.
The frigid February air stings Odane Campbell as he slogs across ice and snow toward the bus stop. Huddling with friends, the only thing to do is hope the bus isn't late this morning.
It's moments like this when the 18-year-old realizes how far away from Jamaica he actually is.
"Jamaica is not this cold out there," he said. "It's like pretty warm, like summer all the time."
He’s from Saint Elizabeth Parish on Jamaica’s southwestern shore. Like many parts of the country, it’s a mix of farmland and tourist areas, inhabited by places that sound like they’re straight out of a pirate movie: Treasure Beach. Black River. Lovers Leap.
School, like the weather, is also different in Jamaica. There aren't free or reduced lunch programs. If you don't wear your uniform, you get sent home. Even getting to school can be tough for kids who can’t pay the bus fare.
Students are also different. To Odane, many American students suffer from a lack of respect.
"You cannot be disrespectful in class in Jamaica," he said. "Because if you did, the teacher could beat you for it."
Odane then clarified that kids aren't beaten anymore in Jamaica. Corporal punishment ended in schools the year after Odane left in 2012. By contrast, many students in the U.S. tend to not care about punishments, he said.
“Students nowadays, they just don’t really care that much, if they get sent home or not, it doesn’t really matter,” he said.
But it matters to Odane.
His morning starts at 5:30 and he sometimes doesn’t get home until nine. He plays soccer, baseball, acts in plays, volunteers. He often cooks dinner because his dad works late and his mom is still in Jamaica. Three of his siblings live with him, and four are still on the island.
He pays his own phone bill and shares his paycheck with his family, even if they don’t want it.
"When I'm working in the summer, I use some of the money, I give like my brothers and sisters a little of it," he said. "I give my dad some, and I put some in the bank. Most of the time, my dad doesn't want it, but, I just put it in his wallet. He's not going to take it just like that, but, that's how he is. He would not accept it. You have to just force him to take it."
When he graduates this year, Odane plans to attend college and eventually med school.
Odane’s big heart reveals itself in just about everything he does. He’s currently working on a play with other high school students, including Eddie Castro, a senior at Hartford’s Bulkeley High School. In this performance, Odane plays a black police officer who intervenes when a white police officer tries to arrest a young black man because he's in a white neighborhood.
Odane and Eddie met through the Youth Play Institute, which is a project of the HartBeat Ensemble theater company. The students get to write the play themselves, and later perform it. They meet twice a week for a while, and then meet five days a week as the performance date approaches.
Hannah Simms, a program manager at YPI, said that kids learn skills like collaboration and active-listening through the after-school program.
Before they hit the stage for rehearsal, the thespians discussed their self-generated storyline. As they chat, Eddie keeps referring to his character as Michael Brown, the black teenager who was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, last year.
Eddie's co-stars keep reminding him that he's not Michael Brown.
"If you the black cop, feel me, and I'm Michael Brown, and she the white cop..."
"You not Michael Brown."
"I don't care who I am."
"We're not doing Michael Brown, we're doing something similar to it."
"Alright, so give me a name."
Odane smiles.
Odane asks why the intervening cop has to be black, and the arresting cop white. The answers seem obvious in America's cultural context, but not to Odane, who is black.
"I don't really have a problem about police," he said. "Sometimes they are good and sometimes they are not. You expect both."
Every Thursday, Odane joins fellow JMA senior Bishnu Khatiwada at her house on Franklin Avenue for bible study. The group is an eclectic mix of old and young, from all over the world – Mexico, Nepal, Jamaica, the U.S.
Guests are welcomed upon entering by the smells of clove and cardamom tea and the presence of Subway sandwiches.
On this evening, they’re talking about Jesus healing on the Sabbath, and how the Jews chastised him for working on the day of rest. But then Odane asks a simple question that throws a wrench into the chat.
He asked why modern Christians worship on Sunday when the Jewish Sabbath is on Saturday. The answer -- that Sunday is the Lord's day because Jesus was resurrected on that day -- didn't seem to satisfy him. Someone looks in the bible for the passage to explain this, but it can’t be found.
Odane asks a lot of questions. It's something he's encouraged to do at his school, the Journalism and Media Academy magnet school.
He seeks opportunities to learn. And he’s grateful when he finds them. He’s grateful for lots of things most teenagers take for granted, like his school’s often unsavory cafeteria food.
"I assume that other people in the world wish that they have a little food like this to eat, but we have the chance to choose whether we want it or not," Odane said. "But they don’t. If they get it, they would really eat it."
After he graduates this year, Odane plans to attend college and eventually med school. He wants to be a surgeon, though he might change his concentration.
One of his teachers, Jim Moffett, said that even though Odane struggles, his resilience and drive will help him succeed.
"If he gets down, he gets right back up," Moffet said. "And that's a quality that's rare with some of these kids, especially with their tough backgrounds."
What kind of kid is Odane?
"He's the kind of kid you want your son to be like," Moffett said.
Odane's parents would probably agree.
“My parents are already proud of me, but I want to make them more proud," he said. "I want to make them happy, more than how they is right now. Like if they’re home they could like sit and say, 'That’s my son. That's my son, that I grew up one day. Yeah.'”
