Three-Day Work Week

Even though I was up this morning at 5:30 for PT, I had the luxury of heading back to bed after breakfast. And, after a plate of potatoes, sausage patties and pancakes, that is exactly what I did for an extra four hours of sleep. It was definitely needed, because even though I had only put in three days of work so far this week, they were all of the long variety that we were warned about in our informational packet that came with our NCCC acceptance letter.

I’ve been on construction crew this week, and my fellow ‘konstrucktioneers’ and I were pretty much left alone to work on a laundry list of tasks inside one of the project houses.  I suppose the crew last week made such an impression, that our sponsors trusted us to follow suit and keep the ball rolling.  This makes me laugh, because this really left us trying to figure out what we were doing on the job; a bit of a thrown in the deep end situation.  Most of what we were charged with doing wasn’t too difficult, spackling the joints between drywall and Sheetrock, but the owners changed their mind on how high they wanted the ceiling after the drywall had been installed for a drop ceiling.  This just made for an annoying patchwork job for us that is still ongoing and has taken about three days longer than it should have.  We were also told to begin installing Sheetrock into another room, which again was an on the job type of learning experience, because of the 6 of us working, only three of us had ever had experience doing that: myself, Sarah, and Alli, who helped put in two sheets of it total last week.   Lastly we were asked to fill in some gaps in the wall where there was no framing to install the Sheetrock.  This fell on my shoulders and entailed me and my teammate Mike to piecemeal a frame together and find places to nail it in.  Oh, but the entire existing frame is skewed and slanted from age and the hurricanes, so installing wood that is square makes for even more skewed and slanted framework that makes the simple task of cutting and screwing a ceiling into place very frustrating.

Then there was the chimney that I had to work around and wound up staring at for almost an hour an a half before really figuring out how to cut, nail, and install a workable frame.

It did help that I could use the nail gun.  It gave the job a very needed adrenaline kick.

I finished the framing yesterday and expected to see if it all worked out today, but was an unexpected change of plans nixed that.  Because of a large volunteer group coming in this weekend, a few ISPs that had been pre-scheduled, and two teammates taking extended weekends in New Orleans, our work schedule was changed last minute.  Half the team was given an early weekend and asked to work on the normal days off.  So, instead of working Friday and Saturday, then having Sunday and Monday off, I am just the reverse.  So far, the highlight of my day has been sleeping in, but the excitement doesn’t end there because later today we will be making a…wait for it…Wal-Mart run.  Let the good times roll!

Ah, Friday in Biloxi.

Only one week?!?

It is Monday, our second day of the weekend here in Biloxi, and it is the first chance in the last seven days I’ve had time to update. It is hard to believe I have only put in a week of work here at this project site, so much has already happened. To fully appreciate it all, I should have updated nightly. That was impossible to do, so this will just have to be a long entry. I have to stick with the highlights, however, since time constraints permit me to write only so much (the downfall of being at the mercy of those who brought their computers with them).

I was assigned to the site crew for the first week, along with my teammates Sarah and Alli. Typically, when there are volunteers staying on site, this crew would be in charge of seeing to their needs: help to organize and introduce them to the site when they arrive, oversee the distribution of tools each morning, make supply runs when needed, attend to maintenance requests, in short, grease the wheels of operation at the base camp. But, as there were no volunteers staying with us this past week, we were charged with cleaning up and organizing the mess that previous volunteer groups and teams had left us. We organized and sorted all the lumber on site, repaired a broken shower door, supplied the bunkhouses with propane heaters (yes, some nights are cold enough to require heaters), and caught and disposed of two rats – one short of my weekly goal. But, most importantly, being on the site crew was significant for one reason above all others. We were given keys to the compound. It may sound like a minute and petty detail, but wearing those keys around my neck made me feel important. People had to go through me to get any tool they needed (take that construction crew). Since next week begins a new rotation, however, I’ll have to give up the keys. Hopefully they’ll be back where they properly belong soon enough, that is, around my neck….

While there wasn’t anyone but Red One staying on the compound this week, we did have a volunteer group from New York working with us. They were all adults so they opted to stay in a hotel for the week. Half of them were professional contractors by trade, so they knew exactly what had to be done in each house. More importantly they were able to teach the construction crew the proper way to tile a room, install a shower, hang drywall and Sheetrock, Spackle and tape the seams of walls and ceiling, add texture to a wall and ceiling, build a deck, prime and paint walls, install wood flooring, caulk and seal windows, and to work around poorly installed wiring when the owners change their minds as to how low the ceiling should be. Our construction crew did all of that, and I’m sure more. I wasn’t there to see them in action for most of the week, but I did hear stories and saw pictures. They were all quick studies.

The volunteers appreciated our hard work, and we appreciated their patience and sense of humor. Everyone enjoyed breakfast, which the kitchen crew had to get up early for each morning, but was never late in serving. We all got to know each other really well. On Wednesday, the construction crew was a little short on hands, so the site crew was called in to save the day. We spent that day prepping a ceiling for Sheetrock and then installing it. None of us really expected these sheets to weigh so much, but when you’re holding them over your head awkwardly, it doesn’t take long for your shoulders to start burning. Needless to say the first sheet we hung was what I’m going to a practice run, because in all honest it did quite fit like it should have (thanks to a warped frame courtesy of Katrina) and none of us really knew how to screw it in properly at first. Pastor Anthony, a former contractor turned man-of-the-cloth, helped us figure out what we needed to do differently for the next one and from sheet #2 on, we were hanging those things like we’d done it many times before. Besides, once you shoulders go numb, you don’t really care how long you’re stuck holding up sheet rock. You can’t feel it anyway.

The construction crew worked their butts off and within three and a half days they had taken a shell of a house and turned it into a pretty damn nice interior. While the house is not yet done (it still needs the kitchen cabinetry and plumbing installed), it looks livable again. The homeowners, John and Carolyn, were grateful for all the work. They have lived since the hurricanes all over the country, and currently are stuck in the FEMA trailers they were issued two years ago. After the storms, their house was left twisted and warped, so much so that the city’s assessor told them they had no choice but to cut their losses and move on. They wanted to tear down their destroyed home and rebuild, but as their neighborhood was in a historic district, the city had ordinances that wouldn’t allow them to tear their house down. Stuck in a bureaucratic mess, they were fortunate to be added to the ULM list of houses. But because of all the extra work that was needed during the renovation to keep the house from being torn down, this project is grossly over-budget. Mark, the director here at ULM, told me about this during one of our Home Depot runs early in the week. But, he said, they took on the project and it doesn’t matter how over-budget it is or what obstacles they face. They will get the house rebuilt. He sees their mission as not only rebuilding homes, but in restoring people’s faith in their community, their neighbors, and in humanity in general. Talking with Carolyn, she said she’s amazed with the work and feels blessed to have people working purely out of love to get her house rebuilt.

John was so grateful that he decided to cook all of us lunch on Friday. He loves to go fishing and crabbing in the area, so he caught probably a couple hundred dollars of market price Blue Crab and fish and cooked up some homemade gumbo. Seafood gumbo with halves of crab, chicken and sausage gumbo, and fried fish. I was in heaven. I went back not only for seconds, but for thirds and fourths! I don’t know how much I ate, all I know is that I didn’t eat anything else the rest of the day. It was one of those meals I had been dreaming about since learning I would be coming to the Gulf. It was a nice way to end the first week and to say goodbye to the New Yorkers who had helped us so much.

But the day wasn’t quite over. The volunteers were from a church group, and so as a nice gesture to John and Carolyn, they went out on their last morning and bought a Christmas tree, decorated it with pictures of the their and our crew working over the week. We all snuck over there after lunch and surprised them in their home as they came back. It was now a place that the holidays could be celebrated in for the first time in years. It felt like we were all doing something truly worthwhile for the first time since joining up in October.

It got the stale taste of CTI out of my mouth. But we still had one more day of work ahead of us…

With our first team of volunteers back on their way to New York, we had a new set come in for the day. There are four AmeriCorps teams in the Biloxi area, and one of them was looking for an opportunity to gain some independent service hours. We were glad to help them out. They came by in the morning and Mark had us site crew-ers organize a food donation day.  The site here has tons (literally) of donated canned food and household items that every now and again they will set out on the side of the road and give out to people in the area who are in need.  Our friends from Gold 4 grabbed some gloves, filled a large flatbed trailer with free goodies, and manned the items for the better part of the day as people came by and “shopped.”  Sarah, Alli and I became middle-management and took the lead pointing out to everyone what needed to be lifted and where.  It’s nice having others to do the grunt work at the end of a long week, although the three of us did not slack off by any means for the day.  There was plenty of work to go around for 15 people.

By the time evening came, we were ready for some down time.  The weekend has been a welcomed change to the pace we had set for ourselves.  No doubt, once Tuesday rolls around, we’ll pick things right where we left off, but we know how to work hard and play hard.  This entry is long enough, and I still haven’t mentioned all the stuff that’s happened since Saturday afternoon:  the man with a gold grill who hit on my teammate while she was driving a 15 passenger government van, the search for cheap Hungry Howie’s pizza in the fog, Cranium nights, the camp fire that took me an hour to start, searching for John and Carolyn’s church in Moss Point, arriving at a church, having too much fun listening to the sermon (“Christ has it goin’ on like a chicken bone with no gristle on…”), realizing afterwards that this was not John and Carolyn’s church, Waffle House runs, inappropriate fun-shaped pancakes, and cold calls to bust some CAPs.

We’ve been busy.  Mark and Traci, our sponsors here at ULM, are taking us out to dinner this evening for some Mexican food.  It will punctuate the weekend nicely.

Take care all.  I’ll try for my next entry to be less than 1700 words long.

23 + 1 day

Last night was surreal, once I stopped to think about it.  For the first time in my life, I celebrated my birthday outside of Michigan.  Not only that, it was warm.  Not only that, it rained (I’ve had snow on my birthday, but not rain so far as I can remember).  Not only that, we had a campfire at the end of the night.  Not only that, but I celebrated with people I barely knew a month ago.  And now I am 23.  I still don’t really know how that age is supposed to feel.  It’s now well past my 21st birthday, which is an age that just looks debauched, and is equidistant between that age and 25, an age that just looks like if you haven’t started your life’s work yet, you’d better get going.  Twenty-three feels somewhere in between.  I feel somewhere in between.  I’ve given up a lot of my own independence by joining AmeriCorps, probably the greatest personal sacrifice I made to do this program.  I hope it doesn’t turn out to be a step back for me. 

My teammates all think I am sophisticated, complex, and mysterious.  I think that is funny.  Anyone who really knows me understands that while I do enjoy some things that really aren’t typical for people my age, I am really not that complicated a person.  I’ve never been one to really enjoy large birthday celebrations.  So, when it became known when my birthday was, I was a little worried that my team would make a big deal about it.  To prevent this, I told a few of them that all I really wanted to do to celebrate my birthday was to go to a restaurant where I could get a good glass of wine and enjoy it.  While I don’t know if I originally said this because it was what I wanted to do, or if I just wanted to pre-empt any attempts of forced fun, the idea quickly became exactly and singularly what I wanted for my birthday: an activity that I could enjoy by myself, somewhere with relaxed atmosphere, and that would not be a drawn-out time commitment. 

Little did I think that it would strike everyone else as a great idea too.

After traveling for 5 days in a van together, my team arrived in Biloxi, Mississippi on Friday evening and had the weekend to settle in to our new home.  Being able only to wear two outfits for a week made everyone a little anxious to dress nicely and go out for a few hours in the evening.  My birthday idea made for the perfect excuse to do just that. 

In Biloxi, there are a number of casinos, chains of the big names in gambling like MGM Grand and Harrah’s; this city is like the Atlantic City of the South.  Two years past Hurricane Katrina, while there are still countless foundations left scarred and bare as the houses they once supported were long ago washed away, these casinos have been rebuilt and are fully operational.  They are about the only part of the city that appears as it was on August 27, 2005.  Needless to say, if you are searching for a restaurant that has a choice selection of wines, these casinos are where you look.  When I found the right place, I made the reservation for 11, and we all prepared ourselves for what was to be a memorable night.

Some on the team had never been to a casino before, none of us were affluent enough to really afford anything short of an appetizer on the menu, yet there we were.  The hostess and manager welcomed us, sat us at a long table in the corner of the room, surrounded by modern prints of many intimate scenes of restaurant patrons on one side and a tower of wine bottles on the other.  The low light from the few lamps was offset by the three candles that burned on our table.  As the reason we were there, my teammates made me sit at the head of the table.  I was their patriarch for the evening, a position that was unfamiliar and uncomfortable to be in.  I enjoyed everything about the moment, but still I felt out of place.  This was a restaurant for celebrities, for high rollers, for people of position, not 20-year old government volunteers.  Another part of me laughed, simply tickled at the sight of us around this table; no one really with the social grace to fit in.  That brought everyone closer in my mind.  We were outcasts here, playing pretend in an adult world that none of us have really entered yet.  Something about that was as exciting as it was uncomfortable.

Then came my birthday gift to myself.  I ordered a simple glass of Pinot Noir and instantly everything changed in my mind.  It was exactly what I had wanted: something to enjoy and to savor.  It was something to reflect about the past year over.  Each sip was a memory of other glasses of wine, with other people, in places around the world.  The taste took me back to special moments I had forgotten about.  It meant more to me than simply having a good glass of wine.  This one glass was spatial, temporal, and surreal.  It was my chance to think about countless experiences all at one, and to remember why I am doing what I’m doing.

It was exactly what I wanted. 

And everyone else seemed happy enough to share in this special night.  Even if it did mean that we all spent 4 days pay on what amounted to appetizers.  For me, it was worth it.  It was a way to recognize the end of my 23rd year of life.  It is an age that I don’t yet know what to do with, and it is only fitting that it was marked by a celebration that is not quite classifiable. 

It fits with this year.  Nothing is usual.