“When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.” That is basically the quote that wraps up this week of work. Once again another tiring and grueling work week with lifting, carrying, unloading, and planting several bags of oyster shells. More than half-way through our first SPIKE project and I am aching in all of my upper body! I was expecting the nice weather, positive attitudes, and being blessed with given this project…and believe me I do feel those all, BUT there are still the nagging bite marks, constant scratching, and soreness from a nice, long 9 hour work day. Our group has scheduled ISP hours on the weekends from now until we leave the island in efforts to get all 80 hours done quickly. One of our goals as a team was to be the first Raven team to accomplish all 80 hours amongst the 9 of us before any other Raven team…the incentive= a pizza party compliments of our unit leader.
I feel that this blog has gotten off to a negative start, so ENOUGH with such negativity and hostility…onto the good and happy events that happened this week! Although it was a tough and strenuous week on Jekyll, there are still the wonderful positives. Do what your parents have told you when you were younger, “don’t sweat the small stuff.” I left off last update last Sunday, so picking up where I left off…
SUNDAY, March 30th
- attended St. Xavier’s Church over in Brunswick at 8:30 AM with the regular crew of Stan and Shannon (and YES…I can wake up early to go to a mass that early) Father Leo is great and he reminds me fellow St. Thomas priest, Father Dave and also my student-friendly priest down at Bradley University, Father Stanley. Father Leo has great sermons that reach out to all demographics in attendance. He is one of the fewest priests that actually reach out to the congregation instead of standing at the ambo delivering his homily
- later in the afternoon our team gathered up and worked at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center for 5 hours cutting paper and performing crafts for the up and coming Earth Day celebration
- our Raven team is helping out with both Earth Day celebrations both in Savannah, GA and down here at Jekyll (half going to one and the other half going to the other)
- After working for roughly 5 hours, we had a service learning event by actually walking around to the sea turtle tanks and also getting the chance to see the x-rays of some of the turtles. Since the turtles are suffering from one disease or injury in some way, we got to analyze and see where on the body it was. Very interesting!
MONDAY, March 31st
- beginning in the morning until around 2 PM, we hopped into the mud and began planting the already placed oyster bags and palettes into the 25 destinations our sponsors mapped out; we got to use the canoes and kayaks. Let me tell you…I surely need to attend Canoeing 101, because I am really bad!
- The mud was a blast and surely difficult to walk around in, the technique is to roll and “shimmy” yourself free if you feel like sinking. We actually received mud training for when the times get uncomfortable.
- I was surely parched being out in the mud for 6 hours because it literally drains a lot of your physical energy out of you, but from results of it, I feel I am getting stronger with both upper and lower body
- It was nice working the legs in the mud because for the past couple weeks it has been mostly using arms, biceps, forearms, etc. Good counter balance of a workout.
- When we finished in the mud, we rinsed off and drove over to MAREX over in Brunswick, GA where shrimp boat captain, Lindsay, was waiting for us to help him cut shrimp nets.
- We finished with 20 or so big, honker nets under an hour and a half and headed towards another ISP opportunity; nearby was a group of middle school students and supervisors working on a glass bottled mosaic; they were making a wall using the glass beer bottles that had been polluted on the beach shores and were going to shine a light through for the affect
- We helped by mortaring the bottles together and received an 1.5 hours of ISP
- Came back from the long, busy day and rode the bikes for 30 mins
- Finished the day with a team meeting to discuss how the report of the team was doing
TUESDAY April 1st= April fools day
- we were supposed to go back into the mud today, but were later told that we accomplished so much of the creek yesterday, that we were going to drive down to Savannah, GA and cut down more bamboo
- before we began cutting bamboo, we stopped at the nearby strawberry picking patch and spent an hour or so collecting the freshest and delicious strawberries we could find; I ended up gathering nearly a pounds worth of them
- when we finished the work day, I had my 1 on 1 meeting with TL Andrea to talk about how things are holding up, that is when she gave me the application for Summer of Service
- SOS is a 3.5-4 week summer commitment for any Corps members that wants to become a crew leader and improve their leadership skills. You are in charge of a team of 14-17 year olds to perform service-like projects in the New Orleans, LA area; I really want to become one and really hope my past positions will help me with the selection process…wish me luck!
- When the work day was over, I came back and rode the bike to navigate the island more for over an hour…but unfortunately came back in the pouring down rain
- Our team at night gathered up and went dollar bowling, tons of fun…I bowled a 150 and then a 162!
- Oh, also that happened today was I won 10 bucks scratching a scratch-off lottery ticket! WOO!!
WEDNESDAY April 2nd
- I was appointed the first Team Leader of the day, randomly selected by Andrea; she wanted all of us to become team leader for a day at some point to see what it is like to be one. I know some of the team is thinking about applying to be a team leader next year. WOW…tons of paperwork involved with being one, it was insane to see how much weekly papers need to be completed
- In the early morning we headed over to MAREX (I feel we practically live there now since we go over there to help a lot!) and cut more shrimp nets, power wash a couple boats, and other small tasks that they gave us
- I was in charge of power washing, which was a great experience and yet a painful one too…cut my fingers up a bit, so THAT is why they say don’t touch it J
- When the tide was low enough, we climbed back into the creek and finished up the creek with the oyster bags. Mud should be our middle name
- PT bike ride came later for 30 mins, and let me tell you…it is sometimes a struggle completing all 2.5 hours of PT after a solid, hard and draining work day
- Had a meeting with Andrea at the tail end of the day to talk about how I did as TL
- Teammate Stan and Lauren cook up an excellent meal consisting of spicy eggs, shrimp, lots of veggies, and topped it off with a delicious chocolate cake
THURSDAY April 3rd
- For the first 4 hours of the day we drove to MAREX and cut nets together and they also had us bag up bilge socks for sailors. We ended up bagging roughly 500 bags
- After that we headed over to Tidelands and helped them with some small jobs; my job was to clean all the rocks in the sea turtle (fresh and salt water) tanks using a scrub brush and bleach, then I was in charge of re-filling the alligator tanks and cleaning the fish tanks’ filter
- On our way home from the work day, our group spotted a large, inflateable slide in a parking lot…we thought how cool would that be to stop by and check it out…fortunately that we did Lauren and I got out of the van and began talking to the lady in charge of the event
- The event was for high school students that wanted to improve their leadership skills, so we asked if it would be ok to do a CAPping event and set up a table to talk to the students about our AmeriCorps program…the lady agreed
- We cleaned up, put together a power point with pictures, and arrived back to the place at 7 PM; the 3 of us (Stan, Lauren, and I) all got the chance to interact with a good majority of the kids
- Came back from the day and did 30 minutes of calesenthics in the room and went to bed…what a busy day, but yet a good one!
FRIDAY April 4th
- for 9 hours of the day we constantly did the same thing…which was unloading oyster bags into the boat during high tide, then coming back and planting the bags into the mud. We took about 7 boatloads over, great weather for planting and I have gotten a little bit of burnt and tan doing this
- instead of using canoes and kayaks today, we ended up swimming up the creek and got great PT out of it…Alan Power (the head honcho of the project was there observing and checking our work) led us up stream and we had to move some of the bags in differently locations of his likings, no big deal
- Although swimming back with the STRONG current was brutal!
- At the end of the work day we had a team meeting amongst ourselves as well as with our sponsors to see how the progress with the Beach Creek is going…so far so good!
SATURDAY April 5th
- felt really nautious and light headed when I work up to my alarm for Habitat this morning, decided I was not feeling good so I backed out of going for the ISP; I was so excited early in the week because we were shingling the roof today!
- Ended up attending church with Stan tonight which by then I was feeling a little bit better, I think it was because of the lack of sleep I was getting throughout the week and just needed some time off
So…there you have it. A detailed outline of the week and what all we did. Things accomplished: Summer of Service application done, 1 CAPping formal event, and a job well done on the Beach Creek. There will be many more posts to come and more information to inform you all. Have a wonderful week this week! Always remember to smile J
