Lafayette H4H and Round III Reveal

Working with Habitat for Humanity was excellent! Every day I got to work with my hands, which is what I've really been looking forward to doing. Most of my work days involve moving large pieces of lumber, painting, cleaning and hammering lots and lots of nails.

On our second-to-last night we had dinner with our sponsors and the other volunteers. They made some incredible food for us and we had good conversation around the campfire. I believe that this was when our team completely realized how great of a project we had.

My favorite thing about Habitat for Humanity is that they have the future homeowners work side-by-side with the volunteers and staff. This means we get to see the people who will own the homes that we're working on. As I'm hammering or putting up trusses, I think about how a family's entire life will be contained within the house that I'm building and that's a really great thing to be a part of. Here are a bunch of pictures of Silver One working:

Above: Ryan, Katie and Rebecca up in the trusses.

Above: Katie enjoying painting.

Above: Erin painting. I really like this picture.

Above: Ryan working in a cabinet; apparently, this kid is like a ferret. The bandana is for dust.

Above: Sarah painting.

Above: Rebecca and Lindsey with Dayna waving in the background.

Above: Erin holding Katie's ladder.

Above: Katie up on the trusses with our site supervisor, Bob.

Above: Katie and the rest of the team hammering.

The staff and volunteers at our site are very kind and interesting people as well. Most of them are older (in their 50's or 60's) and they are all a part of a network of people who simply enjoy travelling around building together. It's a really incredible lifestyle, and I'm glad that I got to experience it first-hand.

Above: Silver One with Doris, Bob, Ron, Sue, Bill and Al.

In other news, my living situation has been interesting, to say the least. Let's see... First of all, our roof leaks. The cold of the night makes water condensate on the metal beams of the roof and causes them to drip on us while we sleep... So that's awesome. Also, there are a bunch of community basketball practices and games that get played. For example, on Tuesday we came home from a long day of work to a basketball game - loud fans, refs and all. Actually, it turned out that they were holding four basketball games that night. So we dealt with very loud noise in our home from the second we got back to past when we typically go to sleep. I personally didn't mind much; I only wish that they warned us that something like that would happen. They felt really bad about it though, and since then there have only been minor incidents.

Still, the Lafayette area was really cool. We were basically in the heart of cajun country, which was interesting. Here's a video of some of us at a really great hostel/saloon in Lafayette. They're playing and dancing to zydeco music. I had particular difficulty trying to understand the creole lyrics that they used from time to time...



Oh, so a story about our living situation... I was shooting some hoops the other day when we heard an urgent knocking on our doors. I opened up and there was Green 3! Apparently they were told to move in with us? No one on our team (even the team leader) was aware of this... That's AmeriCorps for you, I guess. Well I'm glad they're here anyway - it's more fun with more people around. So lots of unexpected things happened to us back at the community center, but we just had to deal with them, I guess!

And in more important news, I got my next project assignment! The first thing to note is that this is a four-week project. We were expecting an eight-week project (which most other teams got) but we were an exception. Personally, I like this a lot. With the news, I now have a six-round year, which is amazing! This means I get to see and live in six places as opposed to the four places that I was expecting.

The year is probably going to be split in half, with Gold and Blue units at the region projects for the first half and Green and Silver (I'm Silver) units on the gulf for the first half. Then we'll all switch. This switch was going to happen at the end of my eight-week project, but now I'll have two four-week projects in there instead. My team leader knows what our second four-week project will be, but she's not allowed to tell us yet. So now that I've bored you, I guess it's time to tell you where I'll be headed:

I'm going to Waynesboro, Mississippi! We'll be on the southern part of the state but not along the coast, and we'll be quite close to Alabama. My team will be living and working with The Pat Harrison Waterway District, which is basically the managing agency for a variety of Mississippi state parks. Our work will be environmental, but it looks like we may be doing some construction-related work as well.

I'm really quite pumped for this one. Again, I get to be outside, which is a huge plus. Also, I've seen some pictures of the place and it looks pretty amazing! We'll have plenty of space outdoors to go hiking, play games and have campfires (of course, this if weather permits those things...). Also, I've seen some pictures of the cabins they have there and they look REALLY nice. It hasn't been verified that those are the ones we'll be staying but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Right now I'm sitting in Camp Hope, the nation's largest volunteer housing complex. It's a converted elementary school in St. Bernard, LA, which is near New Orleans. Obviously, it's not elegant by any means, but it's fun to be here. I've gotten to see tons of my friends from CTI that I've missed so much! Both the Silver and Green units are here, so that's half of the entire corps!

In a way, I wish that I had a project where I would get to stay at Camp Hope. It becomes such a lively and bustling place during the upcoming season because of all of the collegiate volunteer groups that come down for alternative spring breaks. I feel like it would be an amazing experience to be around here. Also, I'm obviously not looking forward to saying goodbye to my friends all over again.

Still, leaving won't be so bad. If our place in Mississippi has warm showers, it's already got something over Camp Hope! So yes, I am very excited to leave as well. I leave tomorrow morning. I've never been in Mississippi, so it should be interesting!

That's all I've got for you, I think... Again, thanks for reading! I miss everyone from home and UW and I hope you're all doing very well! Lastly, here is the video that I presented at my debriefing. You'll see lots of the photos that I already posted above, but there are some other things too.




-Scott

All Over The Place

One might say "Scott, you have really been slacking with your blog." Well in response, I would say "Yeah, you're completely correct." I want to thank those of you who have, nevertheless, checked back to see if I've updated. Feel free to badger me about updating more frequently because I really, really want to.

A lot has happened since I last posted. Camp OJ seems like a very long time ago. The last week there was pretty typical. We finished up our work with Catholic Charities, which was nice. We also did an excellent ISP at the Firefighter Museum in Beaumont. I got to play with kids and make fun of Ryan (no one knew one of us would have to dress up as Santa).

Above: Ryan as Santa. This is where little kids would crawl on him and get their pictures taken.

Above: Ryan as Santa, Dayna as Mrs. Claus and Katie J. as an AmeriElf.

Above: Me rescuing the AmeriElf from immense danger.

Above: Kristina (from Gold Six) in a fake/retired fire truck.

Above: Santa needs to work on his pedestrian skills.

Then we took our long roadtrip up to Sacramento for transition. The final day of driving was about twelve hours long but it was worth it. It was unconventionally cold in the west on our way up so the mountains of northern Arizona were covered in snow and had fog rolling down their sides.

Above: Northern Arizona. Too bad I didn't have my camera for the best parts.

Once in Sacramento, my team and I debriefed with staff. We gave a presentation summing up our entire experience in southeast Texas, from our work to our living conditions. I also made this short video for the debriefing (you may recognize some photos that have already been uploaded to this blog):



After a few days in Sacramento I flew home to Chicago for winter break! It was really good. Most importantly, I got to see tons of friends and family. I also got to play a lot of hockey and eat a lot of good food. New Year's Eve was excellent as well. I saw some college friends early in the night, I saw AmeriCorps friends while the ball dropped and in the early morning and then I went back to see my high school friends and ended up watching Are You Afraid Of The Dark? at 5 AM. The two-week break actually seemed pretty long, but in retrospect it was very short. I returned to Sacramento, did a briefing for my next project and hopped back on the road with my team.

So here I am at my destination - Abbeville, Louisiana. Our road trip took us through Needles, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City and Beaumont. Again, northern Arizona and New Mexico were really pretty and I took a few pictures...

Above: New Mexico with snow.

Above: More New Mexico.

Above: All of my possessions for the next three-ish months. This includes all of my uniform components, my laptop and my sleeping bag. I have learned to pack very lightly.

At the moment, I'm sitting in my new home in Abbeville, Louisiana. We'll only be here for two weeks, as this is a short project. Our sponsor seems really nice. We'll be first training for our work this Monday. We'll be working with Habitat For Humanity doing finishing work (siding, painting, etc.) on houses for displaced victims of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina (yes, people are still displaced from Katrina - many of them). I'll put up a quick video of our living arrangements:



As you can see, we've got it made here. There's a whole room full of balls, roller skates, hockey sticks (score!) and anything else we may desire. What else do we need? Abbeville is a pretty cute little town with a decent amount of shops and restaurants and such. The weather is very warm and humid. It's definitely a much better living situation than Camp Orange was. Also, it's only a half-hour drive from Lafayette, Louisiana, which has even more options for food and entertainment. Overall, our team's spirit is very high. We're really excited to be working outside and living in a fun and convenient place!

So I think that's all for now... I should be updating again soon, once I get a feel for my new job. Also, we should be finding out our next project very soon! This next one is most likely going to be eight weeks long so it's much more substantial news. Stay tuned for this information! Again, I really want to thank everyone who has kept up with me despite my lack of updates. I'll try to be better! Well I should get to sleep. Tomorrow morning we're going to take advantage of our nice neighborhood and go for a run. I'll leave you with a wipeout video:



-Scott