Vacation!

Hey all, I'm writing right now from snoy, cold New Hampshire because, that's right, I'm home for the holidays! To tide you guys over through the new year I'll give a quick update about what the next few weeks will have in store for me and then leave you with some pictures for your viewing pleasure :)

I'm home until the 4th of January at which point I'll head back down south and continue work in Hancock County until January 22nd at which point my unit (the Green unit) and the Silver unit will all meet up in Mississippi for Transition Week. During this week we'll do all sorts of fun things like project debriefs (on the projects we've been completing the past months) as well as project briefings (for the projects we're about to begin). My team hasn't been informed of our next project yet, however, we will hopefully find out before the end of our first week back in Pearlington! We do know, however, that we will be staying in the gulf for our second round and then sometime in March be returning to Sacramento and the Pacific Region.

And now for some pictures!






This picture was taken from outside a restaurant in New Orleans on Thanksgiving morning, the band walked down the street and stopped right out side of the cafe.







From far left to right, Sarah, Abe, Katie and myself at our Americorps NCCC Class 15 Pacific Region induction ceremony.













A San Diego sunset.











Downtown Bay St. Louis is covered with signs like this exclaiming the promise that vacant lots and buildings hold.










This is our dear Gov-y, the Government issue 15-passenger van that belongs to Green 5 :). We take her everywhere!












And, finally, an oldie but a goodie. A snapshot from times past, Green 5 grabbing dinner at a restaurant somewhere in Texas on our road trip from Sacrameto, CA to Hancock County, MS.









take care and happy holidays,
--Walker

Crazy green 5 and the construction olympics!

Welcome to December, everyone! I realized at the end of my post last week that I haven't officially introduced my team yet and what better way to do it than with this fantastic picture I stole from teammate Nancy? We're all dressed to the nines on the morning of our induction in what is referred to lovingly as the "Ameritux". And, without further ado, we have (from Left to Right starting in the back); Nicole from Kingston, NY, Katie from the suburbs of Chicago, Abe from the great city of Minneapolis, Nancy from St. Louis, Sam from Wisconsin, in green is Ben, our fearless leader from Ohio, currently residing in Austin, Sarah a graduate from Coe Brown Academy in New Hampshire, Maria from Connecticut, myself and finally Bailey from Indiana. Such a good looking crew :)
In all seriousness though, my team is really incredible. We all have our moments, of course, and to be realistic, we don't all love every single other person every moment of every day, but we do get along really well and watch out for each other at all times. Our living situation involves all seven girls in one cabin which allows us to become pretty close and spend a lot of time together which is awesome. Nicole spent her day today cutting all of our hair and helping Nancy dye hers. Most nights we spend together watching a movie, reading or even knitting, a hobby I've gotten 6 out of 7 girls hooked on completely. I spent Thanksgiving weekend in New Orleans with other Americorps friends and felt so lonely without my team around me, 24/7!

My team, as I mentioned, is working with the Bay-Waveland affiliate of Habitat for Humanity in Mississippi. We spent the first week on the job doing a blitz build. "Blitz" is Habitat terminology for a build which has a huge concentration of workers on one house for one week working long hours. We got to see two houses go from a floor system and foundation to completely done with the exception of contractor work (putting in tiled floors, carpeting, landscaping etc) in only 5 days. We worked long hours and got to picture the results of our hard work constantly, as the two home owners were around the site for most of the week. We really got to know both Deanna and Lalie and got to hear their surviving the storm stories, got to know their families and really came to care about them and their new homes. The beginning of the week found us working on Lincoln Street at Deanna's house with a fantastic group of volunteers from Michigan and we were thrilled to be able to end the week back on Lincoln St. for the dedication of Deanna's home. It was incredible to get to see the house we had worked so hard on handed over to such a kind, loving and compassionate family. She thanked us profusely, saying how incredible it was for so many young people to leave their homes to help build hers. Heartwarming doesn't even begin to describe how her thanks affected us.
Up above is a picture of myself and Bailey working on building the roof for a shed at a different house this past week. Since the blitz week we've been doing all sorts of odd jobs touching up the 6 or 7 houses that Habitat has going at the moment. We've been painting trim and railings, caulking windows, staining cabinets, hanging insulation and so many other things.


Aside from all this hard work, however, we've been able to get some play time in as well by participating in the second ever NCCC Construction Olympics hosted by Dan Reynolds, one of our construction supervisors. The Olympics consist of several events, the first of which involved guessing the lengths of an assortment of pieces of wood. The second event, pictured below on the left was entitled "Perfect Circle" and involved us each cutting, free hand, a 6" diameter circle with a jigsaw. I am proud to say that I placed third in both events :). Dan Reynolds is pictured on the left drawing us a crazy diagram of an x-ray of a wall. Wise words from Dan, "In the construction Olympics there will be only one winner. This means there will be 9 losers, so at least you'll have company."

Hope you all now have a better understanding of what kinds of work my team is doing down in Hancock County! And as a side note, if anyone is looking for a good Christmas gift or wants to see more about the community we're serving in, the local TV station WLOX put out a DVD entitled 'Katrina- South Mississippi's Story' that is really, really powerful. It shows news footage of the area before the storm, during the storm and after the storm. There are also lots of interviews with Hancock County survivors and some personal footage donated by locals. We watched it as a team and what I enjoyed most about it, and, really, what I think I'm taking away from this experience in Mississippi in general, was the profound sense of hope that it finished with. This area is resilient, every time I see a bumper sticker that reads, "Love the Coast-- Here to stay!" it makes me realize that what we're doing here is worthwhile. We're not building homes, these people have a home, they call it the Bay. We're building houses so that they never have to leave their home.

with hope,
--Walker