Week 19

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 weren’t even that many things to stand on that would greatly increase your height, so a lot of this was done while standing atop a plastic crate on tip toes to reach. The guy on my crew that was sinking the screws never really caught onto the delicate balance that must be maintained in this process, and much of the day went like this:

Me: “Hey, this is super heavy. Just put a few in.”

Screw guy: “I know. Sorry. Where should it go? Oh wait, this is the perfect spot. Does anyone have a screw?”

Me: “There’s some in my pocket. Hurry up!!”

Screw guy: “Sorry. Sorry. Hold on.”

Get’s a screw out of my pocket and carefully positions it.

Me (In a pained voice): “There’s no stud there, man.”

Screw guy: “What? What’d you say?”

Me (Impatiently): “There’s no board underneath.  Find a spot with a board underneath.”

Screw guy: “Oh crap, sorry. Oh man, I forgot.”

Me: “It’s cool, but seriously, hurry up. We’re dying here.”

Other girl holding board begins to whimper.

Screw guy: “Okay, right. Sorry. Okay, here we go. Just a second.”

Positions screw, inserts drill, pulls the pressure trigger down all the way. Screw goes flying.

Screw guy: “Oh man. Oh, I’m so sorry. Oh my gosh…”

Me (yelling): “Grab another screw!”

Screw guy: “Right, yeah. Does anyone have a screw?”

Me (slightly hysterical): “My pocket!!”

Screw guy: “Right. Oh yeah. Oh crap. Sorry. Sorry.”

My will to live begins to fade, as my arms begin to tremble under the weight of the cement and it feels as if I’ve been holding it forever. Like Frodo Baggins in Mordor, I can't recall the taste of food... nor the sound of water... nor the touch of grass.

Screw guy: “Okay, this time I got it.”

Pulls trigger all the way, screw goes flying.

Screw guy: “Oh man. Oh geez. I’m so sorry. Crap! Why does it keep doing that??”

Me (almost completely defeated): “Just pull the trigger lightly. Hurry up. Take a couple screws this time.”

Nothing exists accept the pain. The girl next to me is almost crying.

Screw guy: “Okay, almost there. Hold on.”

He takes my advice about the trigger and finally sinks a screw, albeit sinking it through the 

paper that holds the cement board intact, thus rendering the feat almost useless.

And that was ceilings. Screw guy never really caught on, making each piece agony. Also, it didn't help that when the other girl gave measurements for cutting pieces, she couldn't read a tape measure, and kept saying things like, "it's 56 and 3/4 inches and 3 marks." When you look around the house, there are still various walls with penciled measurements formatted exactly like this, and everyones says, "that must have been Kari's group." You have to pick your battles sometimes. My little group did get quite a bit of sheetrock up though, and finally graduated to walls, which were cake in comparison.

Have you ever heard of a RotoZip? I hadn’t before this week when one of them turned harmless sheetrock into supremely evil dust, which filled my eyes, my throat, and my lungs. I took off work on Friday because I couldn’t get out of bed, and I didn’t eat anything but pretzels for a couple of days because the dust made me feel so nauseous and drainage-y.

The house I’m working on, as well as another house that other members of my team are working on, are being funded by two Saint’s football players, Roman Harper and Darren Sharper, and yesterday we had to work on what would normally be our day off, because the players were coming by the houses. I got to meet Darren, who was there for just a couple of minutes, but there was a whole big to-do at the other house, and players and news people were there for hours. It was really good publicity for PNOLA, which is cool, because they are a small, not very well known organization, but they’re doing a lot of good in the community. Check them out if you get a chance: pnola.org.

Besides sheetrocking, I also learned how to mud and put up corner bead. It was a pretty cool week, and I’m excited to put my new skills into practice.

For entertainment this week, Ruth, Cain, Taylor, and I went to Rock ‘n’ Bowl with the volunteer group we worked with, who are really cool. The place itself was fun too, because it’s a live music dance place with bowling on one end. I danced. I bowled. I had a great time.

Lastly, my team found out where we’re going on our next project. It’s going to be a split round, which is exactly what it sounds like. Half of our time will be spend in Charlottesville, VA at a nature conservancy. The other half will be in Hattiesburg, MS, where we will be restoring a historical building. Pretty exciting stuff! But first, Christmas! 5 more days in NOLA, then back to Vicksburg for debriefing, and home in 10 days!!

Ho, ho, ho!

 k