Dear Gentle Readers

Some updates on my time here in Baton Rouge...

-I can use a variety of tools with ever-increasing proficiency, know a good bit more about construction, and have gotten very good at moving heavy stuff from point A to Point B. The patient and funny Habitat construction staff has taught us how to use nail guns, staple guns, the air compressors, a chop saw, the good old-fashioned hammer, and chalk lines, among other things. I can read a tape measure better than a former NFL pro-football player. I am learning how to lay out plans on a concrete slab, find the crown in a 2x4, frame walls, pre-build all kinds of pieces for a house, demolish a slab mold, toe nail in a board, attach OSB to the roof of a house, and many of ther useful little skills.

-I shower considerably less often than I used to. We have one shower here at University Presbyterian Church to accomodate 13 stinky, hard-working, frequently dirty and gross people. On average, we clean up once every 3 days. My theory is that if we're all stinky, we won't be able to pinpoint any offending funk, and therefore glide under the non-showering radar.

-I have been in close proximity to several other illustrious figures. I have to admit that I was certainly the most excited about meeting the honorable Governor Arnold "My Muscles have their own Zip Code" Schwartzennegger, but these other people were nice, too. CNN was taping a special episode while I was at Camp Hope, so I got to see Anderson Cooper. (Camp Hope is a former middle school that has been converted into a living space for Katrina relief volunteers by Habitat for Humanity. It's located in a particularly desolate spot in the St. Bernard Parish, outside of New Orleans. From the little that I saw, it appears that the rebuilding process continues to be a slow one.) Other famous people included NBA players Dwayne Wade and Allen Iverson. I really couldn't tell you a whole lot about them, vexcept that Dwayne Wade had a posse with them that wore matching, customized tee-shirts.

-I have come to an even greater appreciation of the word, "y'all." It's so very useful when talking to a group of people. I haven't come to embrace "fixin'" yet, as in, "When I finish eating lunch, I'm fixin' to walk over to the lake," but there's still time.

"There's no place like college..."

...unless you take a quick look at this picture of our front yard and imagine that you're back on the beautiful St. Mary's River, swimming with the jellyfish.

Raising the walls

When we started work this morning at 6:15, there was only a concrete slab where Talia's house would soon stand. But by the time the work day was over, 35 or so volunteers had framed, raised and added plywood to the walls of the house! Quite an accomplishment for us... especially since a large majority of us have never done construction before. We Americorps, as the grey-shirted herd are referred to by most everyone in Louisiana, learned a lot. We took the pre-build doors and windows and added studs and learned how to drill into the cement slab and nail things together and measure and cut and the importance of measuring twice and cutting once and the additional importance of cutting one's nails short. It's a grueling workschedule for us, currently speaking, since we aren't used to the early mornings yet. 8:30 in the evening rolls around and I am ready to fall into bed, but feeling unwilling to do so because of all of the fun, college-y activities that are going on just a few blocks away. Most of the time, I've just given into the sleepiness and appreciated my good judgement in the morning. I'll just have to go to grad school for that college fix that I've been craving/

Baton Rouge!

We're here, we're in one piece, we're all quite sleepy.

More about our upcoming adventures soon!