"Oh lay, Oh lay, Oh lay, Oh lay...feelin hot, hot, hot!" The lyrics to this song really describes the type of week it has been starting on Sunday the 18th of May. The sun rays are surely shining down in the Gulf and southeast areas! What I mean is that New Orleans and our Habitat area has gotten to the point of average temperatures of 85 degree and humidity of at least 90! And when I visited Tallahasse, FL the temperature seemed to jump 10 more degrees! But all in all, it was super fun and relaxing.
Now onto the exciting work days we had this past week! With one rain day, we still managed to get the best out of everyday. I decided to be in the roofing group so I am hoping to become a master/professional roofer by the end of the project. To this day, we only have 2 weeks and 4 days until our mid-year transition back to Perry Point. It is insane how yet again this project seems to zip right by. By the time we know it, it will be time for mid-year and more trainings and then moving onto summer break for some, while the 30 crew leaders for S.O.S have to stick around Perry Point for to be transfered back to New Orleans for 4 weeks. I was one of the 30 selected to be a crew leader. The team assembled is wonderful and I know for a fact we will all get along just fine.
Below is the breakdown from this past week and what my team and I did...
MONDAY
- with the day off (since Habitat workers work from Tues-Saturday), we as a team went to the Audobon St. Park and relaxed
- layed down to attempt to tan and went to a coffee shop nearby
- walked around the downtown area
TUESDAY
- went back to work with the Habitat crew and staff, there are about 5 AmeriCorps teams at the Upper 9th Ward building houses
- got the orientation and tool safety training, and then in the afternoon we all split up into groups...half went to work on roofing and the other half helped with the siding and painting
- I chose roofing and had a blast...a little scared at first climbing on a roof, but I overcame those fears quickly
- I got to assist with working on the decking (this is when you put up 8 by 4 sheets of OSB board that are held together with nails and h-clips to secure safety and prevent heavy winds) with one of the 25 houses the groups are going to be putting together
- after work went to pick up teammate Bill from the airport and celebrated his 25th birthday as a team, he was very surprised
- came back from the day with an impromptu concert that night by seeing a Greenday side project band for 20 dollars called "The Foxboro Hot Tubs", very awesome concert!
WEDNESDAY
- woke up and arrived to work before 7 AM (got to sleep in 2 more hours than last week :)) and got put into 5 different permanent groups
- I stuck with roofing along with teammates Zac and Nicole...I love being on the roof and getting the tan, it is very rewarding, but yet steamy
- the other team members divided themselves out in the other 4 categories: exterior siding, interior work, interior painting, and logistics
- I am glad to be soaking up the wonderful Nahlins weather day in and day out!
- today I worked with the decking and sub fatia (the trim around the perimeter of the roof), now that is a blast, conquered my other fear today of balancing on a wobbly ladder AND reaching out and hammering nails close to the edge...hooray for me!
THURSDAY
- Habitat work yet again for a couple hours in the morning until it got rained out
- I left at 9:30 with a group of NCCC people to a focus group to talk about problems and concerns with SPIKE projects, as well as positives
- I ended up speaking up a lot about it and really enjoyed the gathering, we now officially can roll up our sleeves while we work :) NO more tan lines and farmer's tans!
- got back and relaxed the rest of the day, then with a couple friends went out and saw Indiana Jones (very bad movie, I don't recommend you seeing it)
FRIDAY
- a nice and hard 9 hour work day with roofing work and shingling and decking and tarpapering, it was a good time
- Scott, our site supervisor, put me in charge while he was gone...felt nice leading the 20 of us roofing
- preparing ourselves and learning as much as we could for the several volunteers coming in next week, roughly 300
- got packed up and cleaned up for leaving with Meghan to Tallahassee for the weekend!
- the trip took about 6 hours with a gas fill up and traffic jam...not too bad, arrived in FL at 12:30AM and met up with her friend from FSU
Saturday and Sunday consisted of relaxing in Tallahassee, going to St. George beach, and visiting a Nature Reserve boat ride and learned about the wetlands of FL...very entertaining indeed. I got super burnt from the beach and hurt all over. Tons of Aloe Vera needs to be put on constantly to prevent the aches and pains. Got back to Camp Hope today and just updating you people on what has been happening. This next week of work consists of several volunteers filtering in and out of Habitat building AND even the AmeriCorps people being put in charge of teaching the volunteers what to do. It should be a great week and full of happy people willing to help. I know I get more and more hyper everytime I get the chance to hop on the roof and work. There are 5 of us that are labeled Team Viper and we do this little mantra before and after work that is tons of fun, a close bond has been formed with me and some of the site workers. The Habitat staff is super nice as well, it is awesome to work with people that make the work fun! More to come and more houses to build. The goal that they want us to do is finish all the houses down in the Upper 9th Ward (which is about 25) before we leave for next round. It can be done...it WILL be done...I will guarantee it WILL get done :)!
