Kari Goes To Mississippi

One nail in every square foot of the floor? Gladly... The countdown to Winter Break is at an end as my bags lay packed at the foot of my bed on this the eve of my departure for home. I’ll be coming back to Vicksburg in a couple of weeks, but this break marks the halfway point in my 10-month journey. So far, it’s been pretty life altering…in a good way. Last week was extremely bitter sweet as I finished my last week of work with PNOLA and left New Orleans, which had become my temporary home. The people I met there were kind and unique, and I’m grateful for the 2 months I got to live amongst them. Monday through Thursday was spent sheet rocking a second house with a new group of volunteers. This time I knew what I was doing, and everything went smoothly. We got a good amount of the place finished before leaving town, and it was nice to leave on a high note. PNOLA gave us a dinner send off party on Thursday evening, and then it was back to Vicksburg for debriefing and such on Friday...

PNOLA + Union College volunteers + Me, Ruth & John. I can sheetrock!!! I’ve wanted to learn for a while now, and at long last, I know how. It all started on Monday… PNOLA had a volunteer group from a college in New York come and work this week (the project is part of a Sociology class they’re taking), and first thing Monday, we began sheetrocking a house that was nothing more than a room full of studs. When sheetrocking, it seems that you work from top to bottom, therefore, the first day we worked on ceilings. It was pretty brutal from the get go.  Have you ever worked in a group with two other people, none of you having done a particular task, which requires two of you to lift and hold 54 lbs of cement over your head until the third person drills at least 4 screws into strategic places across the board (Lord only knows where these places are), making sure to hit a stud and sink the screw exactly flush with the board in question? It’s not a party, I can tell you. There were...

The mathmatics of digging holes... I laughed. I bled. I concentrated. I was bored. I failed. I succeeded. This week involved a little bit of a lot of things. Now it’s Sunday, and sitting here with my mug of coffee, listening to music as I reflect on the week’s events, I find that it was a pretty productive one. Funny how when there’s a lot of work to do, you don’t always feel like you’re getting much done while you’re doing it, yet upon reflection, you wonder how you accomplished so much. Indoor framing was the highlight of my week, because I learned a ton of new stuff, and I now feel pretty confident to create a doorway, or a window, or a wall where something else existed before. When it comes to learning this sort of thing, I ask a million questions so that I can feel comfortable to do the task alone if I have to at some point down the road. My supervisor Chris is super patient and answers all my questions and then some. I’m learning so much from him. Next on my list was putti...

Mac insisted that I throw mulch at him for a picture idea he had... As the creaky flatbed slowly made its way down the narrow street, my hope of ending the day with a light workload turned to incredulity at the sheer volume of sheetrock my eyes had focused on, which then turned to despair when the notion set in that I would be carrying each piece into the house. Friday afternoon, 10 people, 37,000 lbs of oversized sheetrock going into a house with stairs. The task seemed impossible as I stared at the two massive piles of 150 lb floppy, easy to damage white boards, but like most things, a difficult task does not automatically translate into an impossible task; what must be done can be done. Once of the three benches my KaBoom group built. So heavy awkward piece by heavy awkward piece, our strained and tired bodies carried every single board into the house. I’ll tell you what, there was quite a sense of accomplishment that came along with the muscle strain, but humbleness was i...