Glass bricks, Green Line, 2 ER trips, and one full week of work!

 

VECA Green Line

Today marks one week of being in Memphis doing work.  It has been a real exciting one.  We decided, per request of TL Beste, to do 10 push-ups on the hour, every hour while we are working.  Once 10 gets to be enough, we will move up to 15 and so on.  Also, if you swear while wearing our "A" you need to do 20 push-ups on the spot.  Friday was our first day of real work.  On this day we reported to the Green Line which works with VECA.  Our site supervisor is Dr. Kirby, Kirbster, who was a professor at a local university in Memphis.  He is a spitting image of Dr. Fertman, my orthodontist.  Our team is planning their annual Art Walk and we will be pretty much running the day for VECA.  We are pretty much a big deal.  3 teammates and I mapped out a large green space we are going to utilize for the event where we are going to put booths, vendors, and a huge table where another team member and I get to put our CAPping skills to use.  CAP stands for Cops Ambassador Person aka we like to do public speaking roles.  Also a big deal.  After dodging the rain, we successfully mapped out the green space.  In the afternoon we got to go into a community garden in Memphis.  This garden is in a rough neighborhood and it is used so that the people of the neighborhood can plant their own fruits and veggies.  Sam, Jamie and I got to plant a tree!  It may sound dumb, but it was hard work man.  I was sweating like a pig and had a GREAT hair day that day.  I felt so accomplished after digging a large hole and planting a tree that is going to bloom with flowers.  Kirbster loved it.  One of my team members, Dave, used a chainsaw and cut down a huge tree.  It was an overall awesome day.  125 push-ups later.



Jamie, Sam, and I with our tree.





Saturday we got to work with a new supervisor on renovating apartments that are going to be for rent for low-income families.  They are small, but if a family needs a home for cheap, they will take it.  I prepped a room to be painted, took me back to my painting days as a janitor.  Some of my other teammates painted the outside of the house while others did some landscaping.  In the afternoon, Dave and I went to an apartment to stain the porch.  I wish of all the times I saw Dad-Z staining that I jumped in to help.  It is harder and more tiring than it looks.  Wearing the coveralls is a pain, but at least my awesome khaki and gray didn't get stained.  Hard work and sweat always leads to a good night.  That night some of us went for Mexican food and drinks Mexicans drink.  Then we moseyed on down the street to an Irish bar.  Just exploring all heritages.  About 150 push-ups later.



Sunday and Monday are our weekends because we work Tuesday-Saturday.  Sunday was a relaxing day.  I spent it with Jamie walking to CVS, getting Starbucks, and relaxing.  Sunday night Sam and I made dinner until she sliced her finger on the can of peas.  ER trip #1 on the round/year.  She is fine, just a nasty cut.  Monday some of us got up early and went to the Midtown Food Bank for an ISP.  This was an eye opening experience.  We learned how many people are actually hungry in the 31 counties this food bank serves.  We got to organize a ton of bread to pass out and boxed up rice to ship to families.  When we were there, we found out that there is another non-profit inside the food bank called Kids Cafe.  This Cafe is open on Tuesday-Thursday and it is where kids can go to eat dinner with other children.  The woman explained it as the one meal where the children who come get to sit and eat.  Jamie and I took it upon ourselves to contact this woman about wanting to volunteer with the kids.  She told us that I can teach a nutrition class and Jamie can serve as someone they can talk to.  We are starting this next week! 0 push-ups day off.



Little circle saw action.



Monday night brought ER trip #2, this time for me.  I had something real painful in my eye and come to find out I have conjunctivitis!  Fun times.  Tuesday was a sick day for this corps member, unfortunately.  It was my first time since February 27 I was alone for a long period of time and BOY did I hate that.  I was so happy when my team came home.  Wednesday we worked at the First Congo doing projects for our sponsors who got us the hostel and housing.  We split up and the part of my team I was working with knocked out windows that were flooded and we got to replace them.  We didn't replace them with ordinary windows.  No, we got to lay down glass bricks using mortar, aka butter.  We called the cement butter because we had to spread it over the brick and lay them out.  Our supervisor, Mark, had a lot of fun with us.  We laid bricks pretty much all day and it was awesome.  The morning was used to prep the windows by taking the old windows out using tools.  I got to operate the circle power saw.  I felt like the absolute woman.  It was awesome.  The best part of the day was when we decided to have a nice butter fight.  We were throwing cement at each other and having a really good time as a team.  It was a really good day. A lot of push-ups.



We don't have fun.



Zero fun.



Today was a little different.  It rained, then was sunny, then rained, and then was sunny.  Weird Memphis weather.  We were supposed to continue laying bricks, but then all Hell rained down on us.  We got to do things inside.  We put some shelves together for the food bank that comes to donate food to the church for a day called Helping Feed the Homeless.  We then organized a real messy room.  It was doing busy work that is totally necessary for our First Congo to operate at it's finest.  Today it was counted that including PT, we did close to 200 push-ups for the day.



Very productive.



Overall, minus the junk in my eye, this week was awesome.  Memphis and all of the work we are doing is going really well.  River 10 is getting things done for America for sure.  Still loving being down south, y'all!