“Home” Sweet Home

Notice the parentheses in the title? Those are pretty much because I have no clue where I define my home as anymore. Monday was Water Seven’s last day in Texas, with the project ending on an adequate note. The team did their best to convey our frustrations with the project to our sponsor and while she didn’t quite hear us, we at least know we put our best foot forward. In no way does this mean I did not have an amazing first spike, I truly did. Directly working with those affected by a disaster is something indescribable. On our way home the team stopped in San Antonio for an afternoon. Not only did we channel our inner child through a kickass mirror maze, but also visited the site of the Alamo. Though I had heard of the Alamo, I never truly knew the story behind the military fort. As some of you readers may know I am a huge history buff, and therefore thouroughly enjoyed learning American History from a Texan point of view. This combined with the famous San Antonio riverwalk, something genuienly beautiful and unique, our short time in San Antonio was a perfect way to end my time in Texas. Upon returning to Denver I was pleasantly surprised at how relived I felt. I missed the Rockies, the crisp air, my friends back on campus, and the feeling I receive from the area as a whole. I don’t know how to accurately describe it… living in Denver has a certain feel to it, one which provides you with a sense of endless opportunities and adventure. Or maybe that is just me. So, you see my dilemna. Texas and Denver both feel as if they are my homes. Combine that with travelling back to my “real” home (I arrived back in Chicago at three today!), and you acquire one disoriented girl. I think I simply need to resolve myself with the fact that the older I become, the more places I will visit and therefore miss. My home is no longer a concrete place, but a varitey of areas that have each taken a piece of my heart. One piece will always lie in Batavia, somewhere I never thought I would miss. Guess there is nothing like visiting the place you grew up in.

No home to return to in Denver? Awesome.

Don’t you feel like just when life starts to go well, it throws another curve ball for you? Today’s curve ball is in the form of a flood to my campus dorm. Fortunately my specific floor wasn’t affected, but the rest of the building is in such a condition that all 300 of our belongings may be transported out of the building and we could conceivably be without a place to stay. Now I’m sure I’m being a bit dramatic, we will most likely find somewhere to go, but of what terrible luck that this happened merely a week before we were all scheduled to return to Denver. Fingers crossed everything is not as bad as it seems! Switching gears, the poverty I experienced today does not even compare to 50 dormitory floods. Last week I focused on construction for affected homes and this week I’m traveling to asses the homes FCDR will eventually be doing work for. I guess I learned things a little backward. It was a frigid day here in Texas terms, about 40 degrees ( I have no idea how I’m going to handle Chicagoland weather in ten days time), that I and four others on my team spent traveling through the colonias of the area gathering random bits of information for almost completed files. For those who do not know what “colonias” are, the best way to describe them would be as makeshift immigrant communities. While that may be a more official definition, it hardly characterizes the destitution of these neighborhoods. The homes vary from moderate (by colonia standards) to ramshackle structures put together of tin roofing and various other products. Each day I feel as if I have returned to Ghana, life down here is pretty darn close to third world. That is something I never expected to come across in the United States. Seeing and despairing at this made our task today pretty fuckin’ awesome, to put it in simple prose. Not only were we gathering information, but my four companions and I distributed over $2,700 worth of Wal-Mart gift cards to families. For homes in the area that have no steady income these were truly priceless gifts. I can not begin to describe the feeling I had when I finally saw the recognition and then gratitude in their faces (that tended to take a while due to my abysmal Spanish) as the home owners received the money. To bring someone to tears of happiness as we did today is not a light experience. Today was assuredly one of the most meaningful days of my experience in Americorps thus far.

A crazy couple of days…

It seems the longer I’ve been in Texas the crazier everything has become. Everyday is a new adventure in finding out what we are going to do. Our project sponsor is pretty much the most scatterbrained person that has ever lived. Today she just flat out didn’t show up for work . Luckily Roland, the construction supervisor, improvised and had the ten of us (who are often split up during the work day) start repairing a hurricane affected home. I spent the majority of my day putting up insulation and drywall as well as taking periodical breaks to dance and use the chalk line (a pretty sweet tool) to draw avatar designs on each other. While I may have fiberglass embedded in my skin and ALL of my clothing, it was a pretty great day despite our rough start (that we’re kind of used to anyway). I realized last night that I only have two weeks left in Texas, pretty crazy. So my evaluation of our project so far? Truthfully I’m a little frustrated. The area we’re in is amazing, we’ve done some very rare things (did I mention I was able to meet National Geographic editors filming Border Wars?), and of course I can’t complain about the 80 degree weather everyday… but I just wish we had been able to do more. Coming into this I hadn’t realized how impoverished this part of the United States is, but whilst travelling through a majority of the neighborhoods down here I’ve truly felt as if I’m in a third world country. That’s how bad the povery and living conditions are.  Seeing that and not being able to help as much as I had hoped, for numerous reasons (number one being that volunteering in situations like this are just plain messy), is disheartening. Despite these feelings though there are still two weeks left to do amazing things! Hope everyone is well out there and cant wait to see my friends back in Denver as well as everyone else at Christmas!