Week 8

Cutting floor tile on a wet saw.

Comparatively speaking, this was a fairly slow week. I worked with four of my teammates on finishing up two new builds. They’re going to be dedicated this coming Friday, so we’ve been cleaning, installing major appliances, touching up paint, changing locks, tending to sod, and the like. I got to level out water pipes and the meter in the sidewalk for one of the houses. That sort of stuff has to be perfect, and getting things where they should be was long, tedious work. I perked up when we got to mix and pour the cement though, and we passed inspection, so I felt pretty proud of myself.

My finished sidewalk.

My other big accomplishment was reversing the swing and handles on a refrigerator. Honestly, before being asked to do this, I didn’t realize it was possible. I guess I just figured you bought a fridge that swung to suite your kitchen. Some of the stuff I’m learning is pretty random.

Our new build house is progressing quite nicely.

We also got to see what a Rater does, and helped prepare three houses for energy conservation testing. This is to check the seals and insulation for the houses, the purpose being that if they are properly made, they will get a rating that qualifies them to be stamped Energy Star Efficient. This is a pretty big deal in this day and age, and though we don’t know the results yet, our site supervisor said Habitat houses are usually rated far below what they need to qualify (low ratings are a good thing), so there’s nothing to worry about. They go out of their way to get materials and use procedures that make the houses extremely energy efficient.

Yesterday was our big volunteer day and it was the only day for the whole week that we got to work on our new house. There were a lot of high school student volunteers, and we got quite a bit finished in the morning, and I got to be on saw duty the whole time, which is always fun, but we were rained out in the afternoon. That was a bit frustrating since new construction is my favorite part of the week, but it wasn’t all bad since they let us go home early and I was able to take a substantial nap after participating in team Yoga.

Having just discovered the
existence of grouting bags.

This morning we went to a Black Southern Baptist church, so that was a new experience. We had been invited by a member of the church who works for a non-profit organization in Mobile called South Alabama Cares, whose focus is on AIDS/HIV testing, education, and support. We did some work there a few weekends ago, and the lady invited us to attend her church and then have lunch afterwards. Two of the church ladies prepared a feast for us and it was so good, I almost felt like I was home eating Mom’s cooking.

The pastor had us stand up in the service and gave us a microphone to introduce ourselves and say where we’re from. His sermon was on stepping out of your comfort zone and doing something for the good of your fellow man, and he kept holding us up as examples. He told us afterwards that we are truly an inspiration, and he believes that if young people like us are willing to leave our families and do something to make our country better, then there’s hope for our society.

Everyone at the church made us feel incredibly welcome, and people kept coming up and encouraging us and giving us hugs. The church is quite big, and we found out they have, among other things, a homeless outreach program where they go into the streets and areas they know homeless folks preside and they help them by providing basic health care, dentistry, optometry, etc. I mentioned to the pastor that we’d be glad to get involved if we could help further this program in any way. He said they’d love to have us.

At the church that welcomed us with open arms.

Most of the people on my team are not “religious”, but everyone was impressed by the kindness, caring, and love we were shown. What a great example of what a church should be. Though we all have differing beliefs, we can all agree that serving men in a practical form is the most worthwhile thing a person can do with their life.

Earlier this week I worked with a soon to be Habitat for Humanity home owner. She has 30 more hours of service to complete and then she’ll be finished with all of her requirements for getting a house. Right now she’s living in a holey, rat infested house, and she’s really excited about moving into her new house. It’s so neat to spend some time with people who will be getting the houses we’re working on, and seeing the bigger picture. Some days are boring, and the jobs we have to do are disgusting, or make you sore, or they smell bad, but what it comes down to is that there are good, hardworking people who would be living in horrible conditions for the rest of the their lives if other people didn’t complete these uncomfortable tasks. Thinking about it in this way makes it all worthwhile and even the grossest jobs don’t seem so bad.

The girls with Gary, one of our beloved site supervisors.

Did you ever read that book when you were little called “If Everybody Did”? It was just a short sketched, picture book type deal, and it had all these funny scenarios about every day things and how they would be different if everybody did them. I remember one of them was about stepping on Daddy’s toes, and what if everybody did, and there was a picture of a little kid standing on her father’s toes and him not really caring, and then a picture of hundreds of people standing on his toes, and his face showed great pain, and his toes were stretched to a grotesque length.

Anyway, I was thinking about that book this week, and wondering what our world would be like if everybody did something seemingly small. Like, what if everybody donated a few hours of their time to building houses for people who don’t have a lot of money? Or what if everybody picked up a piece of trash from the ground as they walked down the sidewalk? Or what if everybody bought a second a lunch every once in a while and gave it to a homeless person that they passed on the street? Or what if everybody just took the time to smile at other people as they passed them at work, or in the grocery store?

Showing a volunteer something about decking.

These things aren’t very inconvenient for each individual to accomplish, and yet if everybody did, think of the giant impact it would have on our world. Perhaps that’s a silly notion: just a dream. “But there’s were things have to start—with a dream. Of course, if you just go on dreaming, then it stays a dream and becomes stale and dead. But first to dream and then to do—isn’t that the way to make a dream come true?” (The Wheel on the School by: Meindert DeJong) Changing things for the better doesn’t have to mean leaving home, or changing your routine, or getting up earlier. Just start by smiling at a stranger and take it from there…

How many AmeriCorps members does it
take to screw in a vent cover?

Week 7

Reunion in NOLA.

Hurray for productive weeks! My shoes are filthy and my clothes should really be burned, but I had a lot of fun. Sometimes I feel like a little kid again, playing in dirt and coming home with a sunbur, and a big appetite, excited to do it all over again tomorrow.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday I worked at our new building site where we did more truss work and started decking. Thursday and Friday I worked in two houses that are almost finished and are going to be dedicated next Friday. The indoor work was great, and I learned a lot about tiling, grouting, and caulking, but my true passion is working outdoors on new construction.

I came up with a few sayings relating to my tasks this week, and my teammates tell me I should write them down, keep adding to them, and call them Kari’s Construction Philosophies. I have three so far.

Life is like grouting a tile floor; to fill the gaps of inexperience, one must first make a mess and then clean it up.

If a neat finish be the food of sight, caulk on.

Roofing is a like a Broadway show. The shingles take center stage but the decking works behind the scenes making sure the show runs smoothly.

Chillin' by the Mississippi River in NOLA.
It was BEAUTIFUL and we could hear Jazz
music coming from a boat near by.

Call me a nerd, I don’t care. You’re probably just jealous. When I come to work with a new one, I tell my site supervisor, and I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m a little off, but it makes him laugh. He told me the first two were too confusing and sophisticated for lowly contractors and to make them easier to understand, thus the third Broadway saying, which he really liked. It’s fun, because I can be my weird self here and I’m weirdly appreciated for it.

Me, Jacquie, and Sarah in the French Quarter.

This weekend I went to New Orleans with 7 of my teammates for a little vacation. We rented two cars, got a great deal on a hotel room downtown, and had an absolute blast! There are quite a few AmeriCorps teams based around NOLA, so we got to visit a lot of our friends while we were there. It was such nice break from work, and seeing friends was a breath of fresh air. We got to spend time exploring, clubbing, hanging out by the river, and sleeping in beds that don’t shove springs into your back, which was a nice change. Our housing in Mobile is fairly disgusting, and I would never EVER consider taking a shower without shower shoes or walking around the house barefoot. Staying in a hotel for two days was more luxurious than I can describe.

Now I’m back in Mobile, and though my temporary home here is gross, it feels good to be back, and I’m refreshed and ready to start the week tomorrow.

The last thing I’d like to say is that I’m so very grateful to you guys for the emails and snail mail you send. Please keep it coming and know that it means a whole lot to me. It’s nice to still feel so connected to home, and there’s nothing more exciting in the course of a week than receiving encouraging words when I’m able to find internet or when the mail comes through every so often.

Love you guys!

  k

Our clean, comfortable hotel room may as well have been the Ritz.

Week 6

Crazed with joy on the construction site

My first full week of working construction is complete, and I can’t even begin to tell you all that I learned. The main thing I’d like to convey is that as it turns out, I love construction! Give me a hard hat, a hammer, some power tools, and a hot day and I’m happy as a clam.

Ruth and I popping lines at the beginning of the week.

We started popping chalk lines on Tuesday for the new house, and I can’t believe how much work we’ve gotten done on it in the last 5 days. After chalking the wall lines, I got to saw the top and bottom boards for them. Some other people on my team sawed and knocked together window and door frames, and sawed studs for the walls. We had volunteers come on Thursday and Saturday, so we pre-made some things like that to simplify things when we had enough man power to do what we could not do with a small group. 

You Hotwork people might be interested to know that I worked with a bunch of volunteers from BASF Chemical! I asked a few people if they’d heard of Hotwork, and they gave me blank stares, but it was kind of cool anyway to be working with people that are Hotwork clients, whether they know it or not.

Mid week progress

One of my highlights from this week is that I got to use a semi automatic concrete nail gun to tack the wall frames to the concrete. It cocks just like a gun, and I felt like an action movie star as I made my way around the house with it.

My site supervisors are awesome guys, and they are making this learning experience really fun. If you make a mistake, they don’t get mad or impatient they just tell you to do it again, but right this time. When they show me how to do something I’ve never done before, they watch me do it once, and then they trust me from then on out not only to do it myself, but to teach others how to do it too. It feels good being trusted like that, and I’m doing my best          not to disappoint.

John and I in the trusses.

My reaction when Justin told me to
climb around on flimsy boards in midair.

My big accomplishment this week was working in the trusses, high above my comfort zone. I jumped on a ladder when they said they needed someone to help stand on it (the ladder) and help pull the side truss up as other people pushed it over the top wall. That was fine and dandy. What I didn’t know was that there was much more ominous tasks to follow for ladder volunteers. I ended up like a monkey mixed up in jungle trees, hopping from one truss to the next as new ones kept being pushed up. The first time I was told to stand with my feet on parallel boards in the middle of two wobbly, boughing trusses, I laughed, thinking it was a joke. But when I looked over, my teammate John was climbing to the freshly set truss, lining up to take hold of the next one coming up. I panicked a little when they told me to just crawl through a small opening between some slanted 2 x 4s while standing on nothing but 2 x 4s in the first place. I said, “I think I need to switch places with somebody”, but there was no time for fearful cry babies as the next truss was already on its way up. There was nothing to do at that point but accept that my time of death was upon me. I went over the top, stood on floppy boards suspended in midair just in time to catch the coming truss and pull it over to my supervisor standing next to me. I got more comfortable when I put my weight on the boards and felt they were sturdy. It’s weird how the things that scare you the most are also the most satisfying at the end of the day. I guess the lesson to take away is that I should face my fears more often. The next day, I was the first person to volunteer when they said they needed manpower in the trusses.

Mac and I in action.

My team and I went to Dauphin Island Beach on Monday. I got fried, but had an amazingly fun day. No oil to speak of, and the water was the perfect temperature. I even made my first drip castle, which was pretty fun.

Even with working long, exhausting days, we are still required to do PT three times a week. This week we did ab exercises, jogging, karate type stuff, and yoga. Strangely, it feels pretty good to do non work related exercises during the week, but I’ll tell you what, I’m not a big fan of getting up at 5am to do them. One Bible verse that keeps popping up in my head is the one from Timothy: “I beat my body and make it my slave.” That’s exactly what it feels like I’m doing right now.

I did a lot of hammering this week, and it’s enough to make me feel like an old woman. In the words of John Lennon, “I’ve got blisters on my fingers.” I can hardly even pick up a crochet hook at this point, so it’s good I got my baby booties finished early.

Anyway, that’s the news from Mobile, AL;

Where all the days are hot,

All the nail guns are semi automatic,

And all the tan lines begin at the elbow.

Weeks 4 & 5

I got to help chop Jacquie's hair off. Fun!!

Sinking into bed as I write this is such a relief. I cannot recall the last time I was this tired and sore. Between working hard on site and getting my butt kicked with PT exercises of all types, it’s a little hard to move sometimes. I know I’ve been neglectful of you all who read this, but I’ve honestly been so busy the last few weeks, I haven’t had time to catch my breath, let alone write an update. Also, internet access is hard to come by at this point, so bare with me.

My teammates and I built this fence.

I finished my corps member training last Thursday after a solid month of lectures. That same day my team, along with five others, drove to New Orleans to take part in our first service project. August 29^th was the five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and since AmeriCorps NCCC has been very involved in rebuilding after this disaster, and even established the Vicksburg campus to specifically address this issue, about 100 of us went to celebrate the progress that has been made so far and to work towards furthering the rebuilding projects currently going on. We took part the 50 for 5 project, which was headed up by an organization called Rebuilding Together. Their goal was to mark the 5^th anniversary by engaging in 50 home building projects in 5 days. It was really neat to take part in this rather ambitious goal, and it was pretty great to actually get out in the sun and do some work!

Charlie & I

The first day I helped on a project to build a security fence around an older gentleman’s home. His name is Charlie, and he had some stories to tell to anyone who’d take the time to listen. By the end of the day, we were buddies. And though I’ve always known I harbored a love of power tools, my appetite for them was wetted when after getting to use power saws and drills I realized that I’m really good at it.

The site supervisor for this project was a woman from Oregon who had come with her sister and a few friends to participate in 50 for 5. She and her sister have been working in construction since they were little girls, and they really knew their stuff. It was hard work, but I now know a lot about how to build a fence. We had some volunteers from WD-40 come out after a meeting  they were in town for, so we got to supervise and work beside them. It’s amazing how situationally diverse volunteer bases are. People come out of the wood work to be a part of something that’s bigger than what an individual can accomplish, and I think that’s what I love about this type of work. People show up because they want to make things better for their fellow man, and that’s a cause I can get behind.

The second day we planted trees all over the city, and I even got to lead my own group of volunteers: freshman from a local university. It rained all day, so by the end, we were completely soaked and covered in mud. I’m not sure there’s anything that brings people together faster than adverse weather conditions, and as proof of this, my group had a blast.

We stayed in barracks like apartments kept by a United Methodist Church fairly close to downtown, and our curfew was 10 o’clock each night. Since we didn’t finish working and eating until about 7 o’clock, we didn’t have a whole lot of time to explore, but it was enough. I got to ride the trolley down to Bourbon Street, so that was quite an experience. I also got to see a brass street band, which was the only thing I truly wanted to see while in New Orleans. All in all, it was a great trip.

We got to meet Anderson Cooper!

Driving back to campus was a smelly experience, even with Febreeze in the mix. Think of 11 adults who have spent the last three days working in heat, rain, and mud, sharing one shower between them, sitting shoulder to shoulder in a van for 4 hours. Needless to say, my dorm room felt like the Ritz, and it’s funny, but I felt like I was coming home.

Since returning from New Orleans, there have been a million things to do. For starters, we cleaned vans, rooms and dorm buildings at all times of day. We had to prepare for and actively attend a clearance meeting before we were approved by the organization to go out on our first projects. Then there was rehearsal for our induction ceremony, after which we had induction and became real corps members. There was a big party following the ceremony and all kinds of city officials and other affiliates attended. It was fun to have everyone in the same place one last time before heading out on projects with our teams the following day.

I’m now sitting in Mobile, AL and have completed my first 2 days of work, which involved a lot of painting to finish up an older house that has been fixed up by Habit. The lady who is soon to become the owner was suppose to move in last Friday, so as you can imagine, she’s pretty anxious for the work to be finished. I learned how to grout a tile floor and install a doorknob, so I’m pretty elated about my growing list of skill sets to say the least.

Our house here in Mobile is spacious and has a large front porch with two porch swings, which has caused much rejoicing amongst this group of peasants. It’s sort of filthy and disgusting, but we’ll soon remedy that, and we’re excited to add to the murals and quotes made on the walls by other AmeriCorps groups before us. I found a recipe in Mom’s cookbook for baby wipes and all purpose cleaning wipes, so I’m going to buy the ingredients for those this afternoon.

As always, I love you guys and hope good things are happening back home. In my free moments, I’ve been teaching a few of my team members how to crochet, and making sea creature baby booties for my sweet nieces in the process. I’m really loving my team members, and it’s fun to pool everyone’s skills and talents and teach each other what we know. I think I’m going to learn a whole lot this year.   

Painting in my Habitat house. I also learned how to grout!