What a busy time we are having in Memphis, y'all. Here are a few highlights from the last time I posted a detailed description of the adventures of River 10...
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Ducks hitting the red carpet
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On the Wednesday 18th, we all went to volunteer at Memphis Center for Independent Living. We did odds and ends jobs for the morning, but the exciting part was in the afternoon. Our team was given free passes to the Stax Soul Music Museum. We literally danced the entire way through the whole building. It was a fun adventure for us all. I now have a fond appreciation for Soul Music. After the Stax Museum we went to the Peabody Hotel. This hotel is world famous for you won't even guess what. This place is world famous for their Mallard Ducks. They have a fountain in the middle of the lobby with 5 Mallards. There are 4 females and 1 male. These ducks come out at 11am and go back to their penthouse suite on the top floor at 5pm. The most amazing part about this and it is why we went to go see them is there is a duck march. At 5pm the Duck Master comes to the lobby and rolls out a red carpet. The ducks hear the music and get out of the fountain and WALK THE RED CARPET to the elevator to go to their suite. No word of a lie on this one. I was in heaven. Kind of reminded me of Makeway for Ducklings which NOONE on my team has heard of. Really showing my Boston on this one. It was so awesome.
Thursday we put in more windows at First Congo, no big deal. Just laid another 165 bricks and stuff. We rock. Friday the 19, we were on the GreenLine with VECA prepping for the ArtWalk that was Saturday. The entire day of the ArtWalk was a huge success. We all got to see different non-profits, artists, and a ton of kids. We were thanked by a large amount of people for the work we are doing in Memphis. It made us all feel really awesome and feel like we are doing a good amount of service in Memphis. There was a kids corner at the ArtWalk where my Team Leader and Sam were in charge of face painting. I decided that it would be in my best interest to let Beste paint whatever she wanted to my face. Once she was finished and the looks and laughter subsided, I got to see that she painted me a full pirate face. I embraced it in full effect and wore it to the bar that night. Didn't even wash it in the shower. You know what they say, you only live once. And yes everyone at the bar, I do know my face is painted like a pirate.
Monday was our first day off for the entire week. I took it in for all it's worth. I laid on my bed for about 6 hours straight uploading pictures to Facebook, if you are connected to this social media, check 'em out. If you are not, well sorry, I suggest finding someone who is connected to the interweb in this way, or ask me to share some pics with you (dad).
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| Me and the new members of River 10 |
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| River 10 females doing WORK. |
Wednesday was really the day I was looking toward getting to on this here blog. So Wednesday we started out at MCIL again, but really, we were doing NOTHING. We were sitting being zero productive. So Beste grabbed the bull by the horns and got us moved, great TL she is. We got moved to the VECA community to a condemned home. This home had a dilapidated garage in the back. River 10 was assigned to demolish this large piece of beauty. We attacked it at full force. The 5 females on our team decided we would use the sledge hammer, the regular hammer, and our strong arms to really attack the whole garage while the boys did the picking up of the wood we were removing. Girl Power. Once we got the big pieces out of the way, we noticed that there were a lot more children around the neighborhood. After a good 45 minutes of walking by us and just saying hi, one of them made it to the backyard where we were working. Bo Bo was his name. He decided he would be an honorary AmeriCorps member for the afternoon. Why not! He then rounded up about eleven of his closest friends (all aged 5 and 6) to help us. I was in my GLORY. These kids had our hard hats on, gloves on, our safety goggles, and were using the wheel barrow. It was honestly one of the best moments of the entire program. I really felt like I was at my happiest because I saw children again. It made me realize how much I miss my middle school students (especially those 8th graders) and my Bridgie at home. One of them, Tevian, wore my hat, helped me rake, and became my little buddy for the afternoon until he had football practice. These kids really turned our mood around for the day. The 5 and 6 year old faces looking at us gave me a sense of hope that the work I am doing in this program is for all of the right reasons. We were in their neighborhood helping one of their neighbors homes that was vacant for so long that it was creating an unsafe place for these little boys to play. The reason I joined AmeriCorps is really because of children like Tevian, Bo Bo, and Little Mike. I want to make a difference in lives, and on this day I really felt like I did.
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| Me and my buddy Tevian |
Thursday was our best day for team morale. We were at our peak on this day. We started the day with the rising sun for PT then found out at 7am when we were done running 2.4 miles and doing a large core workout that was awesome (because I made it up) that we didn't have to be at work until 10. We took the next 3 hours to literally sit in the kitchen and bond. We made breakfast for each other and just had a fun morning. Unfortunately, the next two days at our location were kind of low in work so we felt useless. But, it didn't change how we are now feeling about being a team. We really are on the upswing as a team and we are all really happy to be with each other.
Adding to the happiness is free food. We got an anonymous note on Scooter our van on Friday morning that read something along the lines of Please come to skunx. Dinner on us :). Skunx is come to find out one of the most amazing pizza joints ever. We went to scope out the scene to see if the note and to see if the dinner on us part of the note was true. IT WAS. We got 5 free pizzas. They. Were. Delicious. HOWEVER, we used this pizza outing as a celebratory meal beacuse we found out our next spike location! River 10 is heading to Lorton, Virginia and Hattiesburg, Mississippi!! Lorton, which is 18 miles outside of DC is going to be an exciting project. We will be blazing a trail, literally, in this town. There is a patch of wooded area that we are going to cut out to become and environmental trail. Pretty cool. In Hattiesburg, we are going to be doing construction on a disaster area. Disaster relief it is! We will be finishing a home that houses volunteers that was started by another team this round. This town is a 2 hour train ride to New Orleans where about 5 teams from our Corps will be located or close to. A lot of my good friends from other teams will be there so it will be fun to see those people while we are on our trips. It has been hard not seeing some friends, but only 2 more weeks until Vicksburg again. We don't know too much yet, just where we are heading, but WE ARE PUMPED!!
Tomorrow we are going to construct a greenhouse at a community garden on our day off. We are buuuuuuuuuuuusy!
That's all for now. Until next time readers. Stay classy y'all.
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| The 2 tiny reasons why I am here, Bo Bo and Tevian. |
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