Just a typical week in the capital city

I’m almost positive that if asked, every one of my team mates would agree that the best thing about living and working in Baton Rouge is the variety of things we get to do. Sure, we love going to the Mardi Gras parades, running around the lakes and seeing live music but we also love the work variety that HFH GBR (Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge) provides for us. Our week this past week looked like this:

Monday- Off! We work a Tuesday-Saturday work week here in the capital! We spent Monday grocery shopping and getting ready for our first full week with HFH GBR.

Tuesday- Our supervisor Ryan asked the girls on my team to help get the Women’s Build house moving along, Women’s build volunteers come on Wednesdays and Saturdays but they had us to some jobs that would help the house get ready for the next stages of building. Three of us were assigned to hang dead wood, which are pieces of wood that are nailed on top of the top plates on all of the walls running parallel to the roof trusses. This wood hangs off by just an inch or so to allow the drywall hangers to have something to screw the ceiling drywall into.

Wednesday- Women’s build! Although it was a frigid morning (say.. mid 30’s.. brrr…) there were about a dozen local women that came out to help install siding on the home they’ve been responsible for since it’s beginning. My female team mates and myself jumped right in to help siding, a skill we practiced many a times in Bay St. Louis.

Thursday- We spent Thursday in Rosewood, which I think I mentioned before—it is the Habitat neighborhood in which we’re helping HFH GBR prepare to blitz 5 more homes in March. In Bay St. Louis all the houses we built were on stilts due to their proximity to the Gulf here, however, the Habitat homes are all built on concrete slabs. We worked all day staking out where the ground needs to be cleared and leveled before the concrete can be poured. It was quite mathematical and we learned a lot about building lines and how far (due to city regulations) the houses have to be from the curb, power lines, water lines etc.

Friday- Whew. What a day. Many Habitat affiliates have a store in which they sell used and donated building materials at a low cost to the public as a way to help the community but also to fund some projects. The Restore became our work site this past Friday and will, theoretically, continue to be our work site every Friday until the end of March. I spent the day, along with 3 team mates, sorting windows by width and type. My goodness. We moved, measured, sorted and priced approximately 500 windows. It was an incredibly exhausting and tiring day but, it was incredibly rewarding at the end of the day to be able to look at how much better the area we were working in looked. I'm excited to get to do more organizing for the Restore staff, they have SO much stuff in the store and I think ten of us working can accomplish a whole lot for them.

Saturday- Normally, Saturdays are Women's Build days however, this past Saturday two of our team members were asked to accompany Erin, a HFH GBR staff member who works with family services, on home visits. We got to visit three prospective home owners who applied for a Habitat home and passed their financial review (homeowners have to make enough to be able to afford the mortgage paymets on a house but also can't make TOO much to not be eligible for a Habitat home). Once a family passes the financial review Habitat staff visits them at their home to discuss with them the ins and outs of being a Habitat homeowner from sweat equity to mortgage payments. They also do assessments of the family's current living situation to see if a housing need is really there. Maria and I were able to visit three families and to fill out assessments and get to know their stories. It was really great to see such a different side of this organization that we've invested so much time working with. I definately see this side of the orgaization as being something that interests me more than the construction side and I'm really glad that I got the opportunity to see it first hand!

I hope that this gives you all a much better picture of what we're doing here in Baton Rouge and that, in general, our NCCC team is used for quite a variety of tasks here at HFH GBR! We enjoyed some 75 degree weather, complete with Louisiana humidity today, hope you're all doing well,
--Walker

ps.. I have pictures from all sorts of fun things like moving windows and Mardi Gras parades which I'll hopefully post sometime in the next week or so. But in the meantime, I can't believe that I've never given our this link. Our team has a Shutterfly account on which we can post pictures, all the ones on the website are from my team mates as I have been posting most my good pictures here and.. I'm far too lazy to upload them to the website:). But feel free to browse, they're all from Sacramento or Mississippi at this point.

Top 25 things!

Two updates in one week.. what has happened to me?! I thought of something cool to update about, that's what! Every month the Sacramento campus puts out a newsletter called the Common Ground with updates from each team so that we can all keep up to speed on what everyone else is doing even though we're spread from Miami (I know.. jealous..) to Idaho. My team last round made a list of the top 25 pieces of advice that we would give to the team coming to take over our project in Hancock County, MS. I think it gives a nice snapshot of what Green 5 life was like in Mississippi and will also, hopefully, be a supporting piece of evidence to prove that, although I might rave about the fantastic things I get to do in Baton Rouge (like see concerts on Wednesday nights and grocery shop at Whole Foods..) I DID love Mississippi. Note that some pieces of evidence are accompanied by pictures to help emphasize their meaning :)
Top 25 Pieces of Advice for The Next AmeriCorps NCCC team in Pearlington Mississippi:
Get in the shower quickly, or the mosquito swarm will notice you
When it rains, the front yard turns into a lake
Take advantage of Beth's and Larry's kindness. They will become your saviors in no time.
Be prepared to have 2-6 dogs follow you along any run.
Las Palmas restaurant = a diamond in the rough
Complaining about the water won't change it, shower with your mouth closed*
The dock has lovely photo opportunities
Vans get stuck in mud and fresh sod
Rent free movies at the library
Watch for the sand fleas, they burrow in leg hair
Hard hats make good leak catchers
Befriend the directs.. they have cars
Bleach kills mold, FYI
Learn to love scaffolding, splinters, and no-see-ums
Week night staples include: Beth and Larry's house, Clydes on Wednesday nights, and the mocking-bird Cafe on Thursday nights
PT on the beach is absolutely worthwhile
Slidell, LA has more to offer than you might imagine
New Orleans is 40 minutes away, take advantage of that fact
Sunflower seeds are the perfect on-site snack at any time of the day
Tan lines will happen, accept them, love them
Appreciate the relatively young, strangely attractive, and amazing habitat for humanity staff
"What Would Dan Reynold's Do?" may soon become your life motto.**
Gas station pizza... give it a chance
Stephen Scott only causes harm to himself, but remain cautious
In the Americorps Olympic Games, their is only 1 winner.. and 9 losers
Green Five says goodbye to Pearlington Mississippi we will miss you!


*The water in Pearlington was totally safe and completely clean, however, it smelled of something we had all hoped to leave behind in High School science classes.. sulfur. Apparently if you drank it it would help keep the gnats away.. none of us tested that theory..
**Dan Reynolds was one of our construction supervisors in Bay St. Louis and we became his biggest fans. So much so that we made these t-shirts with his likelihood
Also pictured here from Left to Right are Tom (peeking in just barely), Ryan and Ben. In the middle next to the man himself is Stephen. They were the most fantastic staff we could have asked for, and I think we will all continue to miss them for the remainder of our year. Missing here is Chris, one of our staff members who was sick on our last day :(. If you're a fan of the Dan Reynolds t-shirts (which feature the motto "what would Dan Reynolds do?" on the back) you can purchase one online at www.cafepress.com/wwdrd. Check out the website, it's pretty hilarious!


On another note, the concert I attended last night was pretty fantastic! One of the bands that opened for Red Jumpsuit was Tickle Me Pink from Colorado and I would recommend them to anyone looking for some new music. Not only did we enjoy their music but their performance was entertaining to say the least.


On a work related note; we've been preparing sites for a string of blitz builds coming up in March. Today we staked out the perimeter of where the concrete slab will be poured. The area we're building in is called Rosewood and is land that was donated to Habitat because it was no longer able to be farmed for sugar cane. The entire subdivision is made up of Habitat homes and we'll be building on 5 empty lots. Today while eating lunch one of my team mates looked over the sites and remarked about how strange it is that in just a few months these empty patches of grass will be the site of a family's home. It was one of those moments that made me realize what we're doing here and made me really appreciate the work that my team has done and will continue to do. Although construction is tiring and we're all going to be ready for a change of pace come our next project in April, it is most certainly one of the more rewarding and visible types of work we could be doing.

Peace, love and no more sulfur water,
Walker

City life at last!

Gaux Tigers! That’s right, greetings from Louisiana State University’s campus! Before arriving in Baton Rouge we had all been told that we were living near LSU but it wasn’t until we got here that we realized that literally, our back yard is LSU frat houses and the LSU library, along with other university buildings, is just a three minute walk! We’re all already enjoying the ease and excitement of city life, we arrived Thursday around lunch time and in just 4 and a half days here’s the exciting list of “Things I’ve done in Baton Rouge I never could have done in Pearlington”!

-explored LSU’s library, all 5 floors of it.

-eaten sushi and gone out for ice cream, all within 3 miles of each other

-WALKED to a pizza place and coffee shop (that sells vegan cookies)

-gone to Chelsea’s, a fantastic bar/restaurant/music venue that books fantastic Indie bands like The Weakerthans

-bought tickets to see Red Jumpsuit Apparatus at The Varsity, which is three blocks from our housing (the show is Wednesday!)

-attended a free lecture on Astronomy at the Baton Rouge Astronomical Society’s observatory

-viewed Orion’s Nebulus, a “stellar nursery” through Baton Rouge’s largest telescope

-been to Louisiana’s largest shopping mall

-run on paths around “the lakes” aka, two beautiful lakes right across the street from our housing

-worked on a Women’s Build house (when completed it will have been constructed solely by female volunteers and staff)

-gotten free coffee from Common Grounds, the coffee shop across the street run by a local church that doesn’t charge anything for coffee!

As you can see, I’ve had quite an eventful time in Baton Rouge so far, and we’re already feeling as though we’re going to run out of time before we can do everything we want! Don’t let the title of my list confuse you though! I loved my time in Mississippi and miss our staff at Habitat BW so much. It is just nice being able to feel as though we have some semblance of real lives, sleeping in real beds and walking to coffee shops rather than sleeping in shacks and walking to the port-a-potties. We arrived at our housing on Thursday after eating lunch at Reginelli’s and getting coffee at The Highland. We met with Mary Michael, the woman in charge of showing us the ins and outs of our housing as well as Patti Snyder, the pastor at the church we’re staying at. We live in dormitory rooms behind the sanctuary at the University Presbyterian Church. During the week the building (which includes our two rooms and two Sunday school rooms as well as a tiny kithen and living area as well as bathrooms and the Sanctuary) is basically ours. We have certain days when we have to stay clear of the large living area and on Sundays we have to be cleared out of the Sunday school rooms but we’re all very excited about being here. The girls have a beautiful yellow room with windows that look out to the lake and all of us have quilts on our beds that were made by a church in North Dakota and donated to this church. During hurricane season UPC is a shelter for women and babies, something we’re reminded of by the large amount of diapers in the pantry and the sign above the kitchen sink proclaiming, “Please only bathe babies in bathroom sinks”.

Our first day with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton rouge was Friday and we were to begin with an orientation presentation at the Habitat officer to get us acclimated to the new affiliate. Everything got off to a great start, we all prepared breakfast in a kitchen the size of one of our bunks, no one was missing any vital uniform pieces, our team leader deftly navigated the strange street names (we live on Dalrymple…) and then all ten of us got to the office and piled into the elevator which was to take us up to the 4^th floor. Note to future teams staying in Baton Rouge: the elevator at the Hancock Bank building where the habitat office is located was “brought over by Christopher Columbus” and does not handle ten NCCC members very well. Once we got the elevator to move from its limbo position between the 3^rd and 4^th floors and take us back to the ground level we split into two groups and successfully made it to our destination. Once in the office we were greeted by Katie, the vegetarian, environmentalist who is the volunteer coordinator at Habitat GBR. She gave us t-shirts and a presentation on our new affiliate.

It is interesting the differences between Habitat Bay-Waveland and Habitat GBR as the affiliate in Mississippi is still classified as a disaster relief affiliate where as the one here in Baton Rouge is combating poverty which isn’t necessarily linked to any of the most recent storms. For example, all Habitat homeowners are required to put in sweat equity hours in which they work in the office or on the construction site for a set number of hours in order to pay for some of their house. In Bay St. Louis a single homeowner was required to do 100 hours and here in Baton Rouge a single homeowner is required to do almost 300! The staff organization is a bit different here too and therefore, the tasks that we’re asked to help out with will be a bit different. It’s been fun picking up differences and learning to do tasks in a new way. People’s stories here are also so different, our construction manager, Frank, told us that during Katrina his home lost power for a grand total of one hour, however, during Gustav last September he lost power for a littler more than a week. In Bay St. Louis one of our supervisors grew up in the Bay and during Katrina he lost everything and his story wasn’t at all unique.

I’m excited for the new experiences we’re going to have here in Louisiana. It’s already looking like our whole time here will be the complete opposite from our time in Mississippi and I’m quite glad for that. I’m also getting, somewhat prematurely, excited for our projects in region, I can’t wait to be back in the Pacific region! We’re here until the end of March, however, so I’ve got a ways to go but I’m sure that it will fly!

With lots of love and free coffee,

--Walker