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...

Working in the lumberyard at The Green Project. How many hours are in the day? Not enough. My time here in NOLA is flying by, and I can’t seem to slow it down. Things are going really well on my project, but it’s difficult to find time to do the things I usually do, like posting this blog for instance. Thanks for your patience. Last week I started working on a duplex for a lady who is going to be living in one side with her invalid aunt that she cares for, and the other side she plans to rent to another relative. She’s a really nice lady and because she is currently renting a place across the street, I get to see her every day. We had some volunteers from an Episcopal church in Virginia come help us do some painting. They also donated a large sum of money to PNOLA, and it was nice getting to know them, and getting to show them what sorts of things their money goes towards and who exactly they’re helping. Quarter round completed. Quite a lot of this project so far has involved pa...

Jacquie, me, Ashlyn, and Ruth - downtown. Jacquie almost got beatup for wearing a Redskins jersey. Sunday morning, and I’m so thankful for the quiet. I love every single member of my team dearly, but it can become a little wearing when you sleep, eat, work, and hangout with the same 10 people every single day of every single week. It’s difficult to find a moment to yourself, because no room goes unoccupied, and we’re not allowed to leave the house unless we have at least one buddy. Because I crave and cannot function without a little alone time each day, I’ve discovered that my best option is waking up earlier than need be. Our work days don’t begin until 9am and no one else wakes up before 8am, so if I’m up by 7am, I have an entire hour to myself to drink my coffee and read my book in peace. I guess the functionality of difficult living situations depends on adaptability. My temporary home. This is one of those weeks with no days off due to ISPs (Independent Service Projects)...

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 th...

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 requ...

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 p...

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 nai...

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 g...

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...