Week 13

At a park for a cookout on Friday that our sponsors
put on for us. I'm near the back in this pic.

As of last Monday, I am officially a resident of New Orleans for the next 2 months. So far, getting to know the city has been a really neat experience. Where to start…hmmm.

Well, for starters I live in the office of a non-profit organization called The Phoenix Project, or PNOLA. PNOLA’s focus is to help people rebuild their dilapidated homes when they aren’t able to afford it themselves. All labor is free for the home owner, but they put as much of their own money into the project as possible.

For instance, if a homeowner is in desperate need of home repairs, and the materials alone are going to cost $20,000, and the homeowner has $10,000 to contribute, PNOLA will review their case, and if they find that it’s a project they can take on, they will direct the homeowner to government grants that they might be eligible for to cover the remaining $10,000, then PNOLA will do all of the labor for free. For the most part, their permanent staff members (there are less than 10) are employed directly through state AmeriCorps programs, and then they supplement the labor with volunteers and NCCC teams when they can get them. It’s a really cool program, and I’m excited to be a part of it. The guy that runs the program and all of the sight supervisors are very nice, and they seem to really know what they’re doing.

Last week at the art gallery party.

As far as the living situation goes, it’s as unique as any I could try and imagine. Two blocks off of Canal St., on the corner of Bienville and Niro, there sits a small, two story brick building with a PNOLA sign by the front door. There are bars on the windows of both stories, and each doorway contains two doors, each holding two heavy locks. The neighborhood is not really that dangerous, I’m told, but to a girl who was raised in Wilmore, KY, a Mayberry type town, where locking your front door before going to bed is a superfluous action, four locks in conjunction with barred windows is slightly intimidating.

This building houses the PNOLA office in the bottom story and bedrooms in the second. The upstairs living space has three bedrooms and two bathrooms: one bedroom designated for boys, one for our TL, and the largest is for us girls, of which there are now 5 in total after losing one of our female teammates last week for reasons I don’t wish to discuss. One of the bathrooms is part of the girl’s room, and PNOLA went above and beyond their sponsor responsibilities by buying us a bunch of things that girls need in bathrooms and fixing it up really nice. The bedroom itself is a little crowded with army style bunks, but they are surprisingly comfortable once you figure out how to sleep in them ie stick to the middle, and don’t flail about too much.

Were we told to stay in our rooms during our free time in the evenings, it’s quite likely we’d kill each other due to the close proximity. However, after the office folks go home, which happens at about the same time we get home from work (our work week is now 9-5, Mon-Fri), all of the downstairs is ours to utilize however we want. Not only does this give us plenty of space, we also have access to a wall projector and speakers that we can hook up to laptops and watch shows from Hulu or DVDs. It’s like having our own personal movie theater, which needless to say, is a giant luxury.

Another perk is that we are only about a mile from downtown. For PT on Friday, we jogged along the Canal street car line, so that was pretty cool. Yesterday morning some of the other girls and I walked down and got coffee at a shop on Canal, and then went to Jackson Square in the French Quarter and watched the world go by. There are street performers everywhere you go, and really neat artwork to boot. Sitting in the square, I felt like I was in some faraway European town. Everything around me is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. People are friendly everywhere you go, making it easy to start a conversation, or just say hello. I’m excited to spend time getting to know this city better.

Love,

My team in front of our house in Mobile just before we left.

 k   

Week 12

Admiral Ackbar's warning concerning Judge Chewy.

This week was spent back on campus in Vicksburg, and it went surprising quickly. It was so strange to go from working until you’re too tired to physically work anymore to hanging out in classrooms with friends again. During the days my time has been filled with preparation for and attendance of meetings, giving reports about our last project and preparing for our new one. One day we attended classes taught by corps members on random topics of interest, such as Yoga, origami, slam poetry, disc golf, digital painting, etc. We also did a fun activity where every team created a mascot, which we had to drive around Vicksburg and take pictures with in specific spots. My team’s mascot was Chewbacca, and we made outfits for every picture that related to the site we were at. He had a whole back story and everything that I wrote and we read when we presented him to the rest of the unit. It was pretty fun.

Some of the evenings we were required to attend certain functions, but they were all really fun. There was a fish fry put on for us by community members, a party at an art gallery with live music (The gallery is a part of the artist’s home, and she invited us in, gave us food, entertainment, and a floor to dance on, all because she really appreciates us and has a great deal of respect for the program. She said that after Katrina, she was in New Orleans helping and painting, and everywhere she looked there was an AmeriCorps crew working as hard as they could. She said she is honored to host our members.), and Open Mic night, which wasn’t actually mandatory, but it was incredibly fun.

Saturday was National Make A Difference Day, and our entire Corps left campus at 6am and headed to Jackson. We worked with a bunch of local volunteers (mostly young people, which was cool to see) to help clean up a run down forest park that is part of a zoo. Some groups painted buildings, but mostly we did tree and brush clearing to try and make the forest usable. I got use a chain saw for the first time since training (hurray!), but soon after I began, the chain malfunctioned, and we couldn’t use it anymore. Cain and I were able to do a lot with a bow saw though, and overall, our team in conjunction with volunteers got a lot accomplished. Sack lunches were provided for us, and then in the afternoon we got to visit the zoo for free. One thing I’d like to note is the size and quantity of the poison ivy here in Mississippi. At home I’ve been taught to look for three leafed plants on the ground, but here it’s not only on the ground, but it also takes the form of a thick hairy vine that grows up trees. Considering these vines are absolutely everywhere, large buckets of water with Technu were available for everyone to wash themselves with after our project had been completed.

We’re now getting ready to head off to New Orleans and begin our next project, so stayed tuned for updates.

Love,

 k

Last week's birdhouse event.

Week 11

This week I only got to work on my rehab house one day, and I spent the whole time measuring and cutting shoe molding for various parts of the house. It was slightly dull up until the end, when I got to use a propane powered finish nail gun to put all the pieces in place, and that made everything else more than worthwhile.

Our last workday in Mobile was a big community project where my team worked with 100 high school students to build 150 bird houses. A few of my teammates and I spent the entire day before the event prepping, which involved cutting a ton of wood and getting tables ready with wood pieces, wood glue, hammers, nails, etc. This event was our Project Outreach for our Mobile work round, and since this is my specialty role on my team, I was involved in setting it up and seeing it through. It went over really well, so I was very encouraged!

The students nailed the blue bird houses together and primed them, and then in the spring, Habitat is going to take them to local VBS programs and have kids decoratively paint them. They’re going to talk to the kids about how Habitat is a program that builds houses for people to live in, just like how the blue bird houses give the birds a place to live. It seems like a neat idea, and I was glad that my first community project was such a fun one.

We went out for a team dinner on Thursday night and then cleaned our house, packed our stuff, and headed back to Vicksburg. As soon as we pulled onto campus, we immediately unloaded our stuff, cleaned our van and had a debrief meeting, one right after another. I wrote a little song for the creative closure they encourage at our debrief, took my guitar in and played and sang it, having the whole team sing the chorus. It was really fun, and everybody really liked it.

After that, we had pretty much the entire weekend off, and it’s been so nice to be able to get a ton of sleep and rest and reunion time. It’s so strange to think that I’ve only known these people for only a couple months, and yet, they’re some of my best friends. Getting to come back and see everyone and catch up on everything from the past 6 weeks has been incredibly fun and refreshing.

Now it’s Monday, and we were up at 5am for Baseline, which is our exercise progress check held out at the Military Park. I did 17 more push-ups than last time, so that was kind of cool. It’s now just after 8am, and I’m getting ready to leave for the first event of the day, which is setting up for a fish fry to take place this evening for the whole corps. Huzzah!

As always, I love and miss all of you guys desperately, and though I’m really enjoying myself, I’m counting the weeks until I’m back in good ol’ KY for Christmas. I can’t wait to eat some of the new batch of applesauce, so make sure you save some for me.

Week 10

Our last day at new build site.

My regular site being closed on Tuesday, I started out the week at a different site that my friends Jacquie, Cain, and Danielle work at on a regular basis. I love working on my house, but it was a nice break to get to work with a different small group than usual. Jacquie and I were assigned to exterior painting for the entire day, so we got to talk as we went, and it turned out to be a very enjoyable work day.

The following days were spent at my regular site, and I did a lot of work putting laminate wood floors together on top of concrete that used to accommodate pee carpet. Putting this stuff together for 3 days straight was more than a little warring, but the end result was well worth the bruised knees, bloody fingers, and heartfelt laments. And as always, we ended our week by working on our new build house, causing flooring to become a pleasantly distant memory.

Almost all of the roof work has been completed, some of the wood siding has been nailed in place, and the soffit is up. This house has been my team’s baby, and it was definitely a blow to leave it on Saturday, knowing we’d never get to complete the work we’d begun, or even see it again for that matter. I suppose it’s just one of those things where you have let go and trust that someone else will carry on your work after you’ve moved on to something else.

The weather has been so incredible, I’ve spent most of my free time before and after work on the porch, swinging away with my guitar, or a book, or in a group of friends talking, crocheting, and drinking hot tea. Two of my teammates, Ruth and Mac, are anxious to learn guitar, so I spend a lot of time fielding questions of, Does this sound right? It’s fun to share what you know.

Cain, one of the guys on my team, is a music fanatic just like me, so we’ve spent quite a few evenings on the porch passing the guitar back and forth, seeing how many songs we can remember well enough to play, and then pulling out our iPod’s and DJing new music for each other. I love these nights, because I almost feel like I’m home, sharing music back and forth with Dad on the front porch in Wilmore.

On another note (Get it? Like a music “note”!), I’m getting used to 5am PT, and I actually kind of like it, because it makes the regular days when I don’t have to be up until 6:15am feel like sleep-in days. Everything really is completely relative I suppose…

Week 9

Having Jacquie and I drive a helicopter was a poor choice on the Coast Guard's part...

My white wale wall; this sucker almost got the better of me.

This week blended into last since I never got a day off, but it was pretty great, so you’ll hear no complaints from me. Sunday we did an ISP (Independent Service Project) at a local men’s shelter, where we did some demolition work in a closet. It was rewarding and obviously pretty fun to be given a hammer and crowbar and told to destroy something, but I’ll tell you what, that sort of work takes its toll on your body. I was sore for days afterwards and had trouble reaching my arms above my head, but it was definitely for a good cause, and as Teddy Roosevelt once said, “The greatest reward life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”

My exhausted team after the demo project waiting for a ride.

We were fed a hardy meal of red beans, rice, and cornbread at the shelter too, so all in all, it was a great experience. After we finished our demo work, we got to go on an SLI (Service Learning Initiative) to a Coast Guard training base located about 25 minutes from where we live. We have to get a certain amount of SLI hours in each community we go to in order to immerse ourselves in the culture of our temporary homes. One of the guys who volunteers at our Habitat projects every Saturday is currently in training at the base, and said he’d be glad to have us come out and observe the goings on. It was really neat, because he gave us our own personal tour, allowing us not only to get inside the jets and helicopters while he told us about them, but we got to go inside of and operate a helicopter simulator as well. After the tour, we ate in the cafeteria where we paid $4.25 for an all-you-can-eat buffet that offered platefuls of deliciousness to my companions and I.

Coast Guard fun.

The start of my Habitat work week brought a new house to work on. It’s a really nice place, but it needs quite a lot of restoration work before it’s fit for anyone to move into. We pulled out the carpets and insulation, which were completely soaked through with animal urine, then carefully pulled out the kitchen cupboards, which will be resold at ReStore. Ruth and I knocked out a closet ceiling that had water damage, but it’s not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. Loose fiberglass insulation got everywhere and we had to clean it up. Not having any masks to speak of besides our t-shirts which we pulled up over our noses, and considering we both have asthma issues, it was not a pleasant task, and after we finished we ended up outside for a while hacking stuff up and taking puffs on our inhalers.

Tearing up pee carpet.

We also painted the three bedrooms this week, which was quite fun since Ruth, Mac, and I worked together, talking and listening to music as we went. I was thinking about a saying Mom always used to bring up when we’d do group work: “Many hands make light work.” So much of the work I’ve been doing would be completely daunting were it not for my teammates.

We went to a different house one day and did pressure washing and backyard tree/bush cutting and cleanup. The weather here has been absolutely beautiful and Fall-ish all week, so it was great to get to work outdoors. Most of my teammates are from Northern states, so we’re all pleased with the cool temperatures and low humidity. Fall is my absolute, hands down, favorite season, and for a while I thought I might not experience it here in the South, but luckily Fall makes an appearance here too. Every day after work I’ve been laying on one of our porch swings at the house and reading until dark with my headphones on. In those moments, I’m completely content. When autumn hits, I get severe hankerings that cannot be ignored to read classics. I started To Kill a Mockingbird the other day after Mom was talking about rereading it. I’ve read it before, but it’s kind of neat to read it now, because the setting is South Alabama, and some of the characters travel to and from Mobile. When Harper Lee discusses weather and traditions, I feel like I have a better idea of what she’s talking about now that I’ve experienced some of that. But to get back on topic…

Operation asthma attack.

My team cut out of work a little early on Friday in order to attend a Habitat home dedication. It wasn’t for a house we had worked on, but other NCCC teams had in the past, so we were representing them. It was so incredibly cool to participate in this event, because we were able to see the end product of what we work towards every day. A large family of Sudanese refugees was moving into the house, and they were really excited to begin the next chapter in their lives.

Since moving to the United States, they have been subject to the mercy (or lack thereof) of a slumlord for their housing. Besides being far too small a space to accommodate their familial needs, raw sewage leaked from the kitchen ceiling on a daily basis, just to name a couple of the problems. It’s difficult to put myself in their shoes and attempt to comprehend the hardships they must have faced in their own country, then the struggles to gain access into this one, only to be mistreated again upon their arrival. How unfair that their lives are so much more difficult than my own and the people around me simply because they happened to be born into a different family within a different country. I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to help improve the lives of people who until now have not been able to catch a break.

My scariest roof task so far: felting.

Saturday was fun, because we got to work on our new build and we had about 50 volunteers, most of whom were from a local college. I worked on the roof all day leading a group of them, and we got a lot of felting done.

Only two weeks left in Mobile, and I’m kind of sad when I think about leaving. I’ve gotten so attached to my projects and supervisors; I want to continue on for a while longer. However, we did find out our next project this week, and I’m excited about moving onto it. It’s in New Orleans working on more houses! Right up my alley J

Ruth and I contemplating world issues in our pee carpet living room.