Drugs, Bugs, and Transition

Location: Trinity Texas, Camp Cullen (YMCA camp)

This week I am in Trinity Texas, for Transition week. All 13 teams are together (for the first time since January) to wrap up our last project, meet with the staff from Sacramento and to relax. So far i have been able to relax much more than last transition week. It has been wonderful seeing Heather, Allie, and all my other friends that are on other teams. Before i get into talking about this week though I should back up and tell you about last week. I have been waiting to update so I can say everything at once!

Last week I told you I had moved to Slidell LA. We stayed at Operation Blessing, which is a ministry organization funded by the Christian Broadcast Network, and Pat Robertson. To save time, I will save you from the description of everything they do and all of the programs they have running in the area. If you really wanna know, just ask.
It was intersting for my team to be living in a volunteer camp since we have had sweet housing, all to ourselves for the last two projects. We got to enjoy shower trailers, prepared breakfast and dinners, community bathrooms, and sleeping in rooms with atleast 30 others! My least favorite part of the place was that they turned the lights on every day at 6AM! I had a top bunk too, soooo yeah that wasn't a lot of fun. My work for the week was pretty crazy. Monday I stayed back with the cooking and cleaning crew, since someone from each team has to stay every day. It was a pretty relaxing day. Tuesday I started working at the Community Center that is being rebuilt by most of the volunteers that work through Operation Blessing right now, but mid morning one of the team leaders asked for someone who would be willing to work in the free clinic's pharmacy for hte day, they were behind. I have a little experience in a pharmacy (**cough**. . 5 years. . .) so i volunteered. I spent the day counting thousands upon thousands of pills into vials of 30 tablets/capsules. It was exciting. . . reminded me of the good ol' days at CVS.
Wednesday I worked at the community center, putting insulation up in the ceiling most of the day. This community center is in Saint Bernard, which was completely flooded and is still almost like a desert town today. Most people haven’t come back, therefore there is no one to work to bring in economy. This community center will be a place for the kids to go after school, like they use to, so they stay out of trouble, since there is nothing else to do.
Thursday a few of us from my team participated in the Bug Buster's program that Operation Blessings does. As most people know, there are still many many many homes in New Orleans area that are uninhabitable, but have you ever thought about what the swimming pools look like with those houses? Well, thank goodness some people thought of that post Katrina. The pools of water are excellent breeding grounds for mosquito larva and if nothing is done the mosquito population could be out of control soon, if not already since it’s been so long since the storm. They found a type of fish that is local to the region, and it feeds on the larva. These fish also breed quickly, so the mosquito control people took aerial photos to find the pools and they have placed fish in the pools. My group went around and checked the addresses to make sure the fish are still in there. It was a pretty easy, stress free day.
Friday we made our way to Trinity Texas, which brings me back full circle to today.

Last week we also found out what our next project will be. Get ready for this, it's exciting. My team is living at Camp Hope, in Violet LA. It is just south of New Orleans. You should look it up. Anyways, Camp Hope is a huge volunteer camp, and Americorps teams pretty much run the camp. So, my team, along with another team is doing the cooking for all of the volunteers that come in and out of the camp. The first two weeks we are at Camp Hope there will be 16 Americorps Teams there, some working there (and we will be taking their place) and others doing different projects in the community. That will be pretty crazy! I am excited to be living at Camp Hope, i've heard a lot about it (not because it's luxorious by any stretch of the imagination). However. . . I will only be living there for 3 weeks. I had applied a few weeks ago for a summer camp project that would take me away from my team for 5 weeks. I found out Monday that I got one of the team leader positions. This means that I will be spending the month of July in. . .. Charleston SC!! This camp is for 14-17 year olds, and it is kinda like a mini americorps camp. The team leaders are corps members like me, and there will be 2 leaders per group of 10 youth. There are 3 Summer of Service Camp locations in July. Charleston, Denver, and New Orleans. Some of my friends are doing the camp at the New Orleans location. I was really excited to get this, because I miss working with youth. I will know more about this later (of course they dont' tell us much ahead of time).

I guess that about sums up my life for right now. I have 2 more days of transition, and then Saturday we depart for our next locations. Stay tuned to find out where I will be. Personally, I have been waiting for this one for quite a while.
Have a wonderful week, and I will talk to ya'll very soon!!!

On the road again. . .

Howdy, from Slidell Louisiana. Today we drove the 3 hour drive east, to Operation Blessings, which will be our home for the next week. We wrapped up the week in Lafayette by doing some finishing work on a few homes that have been in progress for a bit. We put some panneling up in a home, mopped some silver sealant onto a tin roof (talk about hot!!), painted, and layed some more subflooring. I'm sure there was more too, i just don't remember! Last night one of our site supervisors invited us to her beautiful home and cooked dinner for us. We also were able to use the hot tub and pool, which was a wonderful way to relax after a long week of work.

I should find out more about Operation Blessings and what we will be doing this week, on Monday, when we have our orientation. We will only be here a week, so i won't be getting too comfortable. One of the other teams from Sacramento is living here (along with a Denver team) and other volunteers, so it is really nice to be around other people during down time. Working and living with the same 8 people every day can start to get really old!! (for all of us!) I'll fill you in more this next week about Operation Blessings and Slidell. Get ready though, i'll be living somewhere different pretty much every 7-10 days for the next almost month. If you miss a week, you'll be way behind on my nomadic life. I am really excited about the 3rd week location. So stay tuned for that!

Festival International de Louisiane

One thing I have learned while living down here is that Louisiana has a festival for everything. There are crawfish festivals, frog festivals, shrimp festivals, music festivals, etc. Last weekend Lafayette had their annual Festival International, which is a huge music festival. Myself, along with 5 others on my team volunteered all weekend in the artist hospitality tent. Incase i havn't explained before, we have to do atleast 80 additional ISP (independent service project) hours during our 10 months. We have to find these projects and coordinate what we are doing with the organizations, but they usually are not too difficult to find or plan. At the festival we served food to the musicians and other VIP people who helped put the festival together. I think we did over 500 meals on each of the 3 days. We got a whopping 31 hours towards our ISP's as well, which was nice.
The festival is a huge deal down here, people drive from all over to come see the musicians and artist vendors. There were musicians from Argentina, Finland, Mali, Mexico, Benin, France, Quebec, the Balkans, Jamaica, Ireland, Guinia, and of course a few locals from Louisiana. Unfortunatly we were not able to see many of the performances because we were working in the tent. We were told we were going to be able to escape more than we actually did, so that part was a bummer. From what we could hear and the little bit we did see it was a unique, really cool festival. I would definitly come back and visit it sometime, to enjoy the music. Plus, it's the same weekend as Jazz Fest in New Orleans! (Incase anyone wants to come back down sometime with me in the next few years, haha). We did have fun joking around and talking to a lot of the artists that would come eat with us every day. We also got to meet some people who live here who were also volunteering.

We have been doing odd and end projects that the organization we are working with has been working on for a while now. We were at one house this past week where the couple is living in a house that is still definitly not completed. Their home was flooded by Hurricane Rita, and they lived in a FEMA trailer for over a year. They bought this house that also had some damage last November, and have been working on it when they can. The other day we tore down the front wall because the studs had a lot of termite damage and the bottom parts were weak because of the flood waters. It was cool to rebuild the wall and see it all come together. We've been painting the inside and outside of homes, laying subflooring, and doing all kinds of other things. We will wrap up this week and then move to Slidell Louisiana for one week. Of course I have no clue what we will be doing (this is Americorps, what else should i expect?) haha. Another team is living at the volunteer camp there, so it will be nice to be around other people.

I hope the links work to the pictures that I put up in the previous posting. Have a wonderful weekend/week!

PICTURES!!!

Here are some pictures, finally! Enjoy!!
I am having some trouble getting them to come up as links, so let me know if they don't copy and paste right.

New Orleans
http://uncg.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071547&l=72d43&id=25000446

Spike 2- Lafayette LA!
http://uncg.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2070245&l=a09b0&id=25000446