Fourth Day in The Lone Star!

Ok so long story short, I JUST wrote this beautiful, articulate, and just plain amazing first post and deleted it on accident because technology hates me. Especially Mac computers. Therefore I’m going to need to make this post short because my (wonderful) team is just about finishing our second official dinner together. We’re super cute, I know. For those who don’t know I’m currently working through Americorps in McAllen, TX (near SanJuan) and living in a sweet little home a few towns away in Harlingen. We’re pretty much 15minutes away from the border here, every night there’s a new drug cartel rolling through town shooting at things. Okay just kidding, that’s probably not funny but hey it’s really a possibility in this area. Did you know that the counties down here in Southern Texas are the POOREST in the United States? Never would’ve thought huh? At least I didn’t. So what is Americorps? I work with NCCC, a branch of Americorps (the best one might I add), and our main focus is on disaster relief. However there aren’t always enough disasters to be “relieved” so we also focus on energy/environmental conservation, rural and urban development, and any type of helpful infrastructure improvement. My team of ten, including our fearless leader Katy, was fortunate enough to land a disaster recovery project first round spike. Side note: throughout these posts I’m going to be using a fair amount of Ameri-lingo, so bear with me as I try to define everything for you. Rewind two sentences to the word SPIKE. NCCC members go on four long term spikes a year completing projects in the aforementioned categories. My team and I belong to the Southwest region of Americorps meaning we’re responsible for all of the Southwest states (duh) such as Colorado, New Mexico, Arkansas, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and good ol’ Kansas. Us down here in Texas are currently repairing/rebuilding homes affected by hurricanes Alex and Dolly as well as case management, which is just a fancy way of making filing sound exciting. Our activities thus far have consisted of running to food banks, dry-walling a house, and designing a brochure for our project sponsor (Faith Communities for Disaster Relief). After work today we also had the privilege of visiting the McAllen Border Control, apparently the largest border control center in America. Not only was it interesting, but I got to see a room full of bad ass guns. That’s a pretty successful day in my opinion. Before I go, heres a quick run through of my accomplishments in the past month:

-Was CPR certified! (that’s right, I can save your life now)

-Attended Zombiecrawl, YouTube it. That shits crazy.

-Joined a gym for $10 a month, and ran two miles yesterday. Who have I become?!

-Hiked up a gargantuan mountain in Boulder which is by the way one of the hippest places I’ve ever been, excluding the fact I really haven’t been to that many places

-Discovered Bananagrams (look it up, its a great game)

-Experienced Occupy Denver

-Visited the Columbine Memorial

-Built a trail at Red Rocks, grandiose protruding pillars of geological matter to which even the sky can hold no boundary (description courtesy of Adam Severance)

-Took a three day car trip to Texas and truly realized the meaning of the middle of nowhere

-Saw the slums of southern Texas that I hadn’t previously known about, it’s almost like a different country down here

Alright y’all that’s it for today! Hopefully I’ll be able to write again soon depending on who lets me borrow their computer as well as the shaky internet connection we may or may not be stealing from our neighbors. Shout out to my friends all over the country whether you’re in a call center, winterizing orchards, or pursuing your education!