Week 34

Lotsa matza

What day is it? For that matter, what month is it? Our schedule for this new project is all over the place, and it’s really starting to throw off my internal clock. I honestly had to check my watch twice the other day to find out if it was April or May.

I found myself back in my old life one day this week in that I was working in an office. Jacquie and I designed an information brochure for Wolf River Conservancy as well as a newsletter for a fundraising event that we’ll be helping prepare for, and carry out on April 30^th. We spent a good portion of one of our days off working on this too, but we figured it was for a good cause, and we don’t have much to do on days off anyhow. Both the brochure and the newsletter came out fantastically, and the ladies we’re working for were very pleased, so that was rewarding.

Working out in Lovett Woods.

A couple of days ago I worked with a few of my team members to clear a new trail through the woods, and I now have a much higher appreciation for the hard work that goes into that process. I felt like Daniel Boone out there, but instead of a machete, I carried only a pair of loppers. The privet problem here is really becoming real to me, and I now have a personal vendetta against the stuff. It’s EVERYWHERE, and so thick it’s difficult to even know where to start cutting, its branches sticking out all over the place. For shrubs that are still relatively small, I’ve found they can be pulled out by the roots, which is the most satisfying way to deal with it if you ask me. We came across a cotton mouth snake while forging this new trail, but to be honest, I was more annoyed than scared. I guess I’m getting used to them. We gave the thing time to slither away, and then resumed our work.

Post basketball game.

Yesterday we worked the Down to Earth festival at Shelby Farms Park, which is the biggest city park in the country. Real live buffalo are the first thing you see when you drive through the park’s entrance, which is pretty surreal. There’s a beautiful pond with islands of trees and preserve space threading throughout. A paved walking trail goes around the entire thing, and there are branches off of it on one side that lead to dirt pathways through the woods. The park has a frisbee golf course, multiple playgrounds, off road bike paths, and a huge nature preserve with trails through it. The festival, which celebrates Earth Day if you hadn’t guessed, was a lot of fun. Our group helped lead the scheduled nature tours. I got a lot of walking in and learned a lot about animal tracks, tree types, and the kinds of animals and critters that live the woods at Shelby Farms. What I wouldn’t give to have a place like that in Lexington…

The weather has been so cool and clear here in the evenings, we’ve made several camp fires, despite the cruel mosquito population. The best advice I can give you if you ever visit this area: bring lots of bug spray! Cain and I have been busting out our stringed instruments and having a great time playing them by the fire. What a great time of year!

One more thing to mention is our outing to the Memphis Roller Derby on Saturday night! I’ve never seen anything like it, and now all the girls on my team (including me) want to join a roller derby team. We watched Whip It last night, so I guess you could say we’re a bit obsessed with this sport at the moment. If you’ve never been to an event, buy a ticket right away, because it’s incredibly entertaining. Oh, and Sarah and I took the opportunity to drink beer, which was a big event in and of itself. We barely go out these days, so having a Blue Moon in hand was more than a little luxurious J

The Evely girls (well, most of us) at Trish's wedding.

Week 33

Drip, drip, drip. A trail of sweat makes its way down my nose and falls onto my ankle as if guided by the beat of the drum being thumped beside me. The heat encompassing my body becomes almost too much to endure, but the sweat seeping steadily from my every orifice is the offering I make for my prayers, and I slowly begin to feel a connection with everyone in the lodge with me, and with God himself.

On Friday night, some of my teammates and I attended a traditional Lakota ceremony (with some traditions from other tribes incorporated as well, Nakota being a strong influence) to pray for healing for another teammate’s step-sister, who is in a coma and not expected to recover. The ceremony takes place in a sweat lodge and there are four main sessions. Each session gets progressively more intense, and most of us newcomers had to leave at one point or another. It was one of the neatest worship services I’ve ever been to, and the leader was really amazing and explained all of the traditions as he went along. The thing that I truly love about the Native American traditions I encountered is that you can participate in them no matter what your religious principles, as long as you have an open mind and are respectful of everyone’s beliefs. If only every church operated under that mindset…

We finished our first week of work here in Memphis, TN, and I just have to say that I’m really excited about this project. We are working with two different organizations: The Wolf River Conservancy and Arkwings. To get a grasp on what all these organization do within the Memphis community, I sat through two days of orientations, and to relay all of the information I absorbed would take a very long time. Therefore, I’m including the links to their websites so that you can see for yourself all of the great things they do here. (http://www.wolfriver.org/ & http://arkwings.com/) Yet again, the sponsors and supervisors we’ll be working with are incredible people with amazing stories to tell. I have so many role models now; I hope that I’ll be able to live up to their examples for the rest of my life.

This week we had our orientations and then went out to see the finished part of the Memphis Greenway, which is a project of Wolf River. Upon completion, this walking/running/biking trail will be over 30 miles long, running along the Wolf River through the poorest parts of the city to the richest neighborhoods. The Greenway will in a sense be breaking class barriers and help the people of Memphis connect with their community: both its people and environment. We also worked one day to help clear a wooded area of an invasive shrub called privet, which grows rapidly and chokes out native plants, much like kudzu.

Yesterday we made repairs to a broken down horse fence in front of Arkwings, which is the same property we live on. Later in the day we visited the community center in Frasier and met the director, who I’ve only met once but could probably write a book about. He grew up in the projects, worked hard in school from a young age, became a lawyer, and eventually realized that his calling was working with kids who are growing up like he did. Yet another wonder in this ever surprising country of ours. Never look at a problem area and assume it’s a lost cause, because I’ve discovered that there are ALWAYS incredible people putting their mind, body, and soul into making improvements to the places they love, no matter how lost the cause may seem.

Upon returning from the community center, we AmeriFolks met up with some middle and high school students at Arkwings and paired up with them. The idea was to get to know a kid one on one, and then we took them to a part of the Wolf River to explore. Later we played volleyball with some of the younger kids. We hit some snags in the plan, and I’m not sure you could call it a success, but it definitely wasn’t a failure either.

Oh, the other thought dominating issue from this week was the budget crisis going on. A constant threat, we spent the week knowing that if the government shut down, we would be sent back to campus, still fed, but unable to use our government vehicles except for food shopping. We were all sick thinking about leaving our new sponsors, who have already been so kind to us and are excited to have our help with all kinds of projects they’ve prepared. You can imagine our relief when we found out late Friday that we wouldn’t have to pack up and move back to Vicksburg, in order to sit around and do absolutely nothing. Hopefully the extension will provide enough time to figure this thing out so that this looming threat won’t continue to make us anxious.

Love,

  k