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!