I apologize for the continued delay, but I have been bed ridden with a sprained ankle. You would think that a sprain wouldn't be that restricting, but 6 days later I still can't walk, and my whole foot is blue, from my lower calf to my toes, and an intense shade of black/purple on the edges. How, you might ask, did I acquire such a terrible sprain? Well, the story goes there was a baby in a box, or maybe a tree, but there was a fire that I had to protect it against, and I leapt to save it, injuring my ankle in the chaos. Thats what we do in AmeriCorps, we save babies. What really happened was we were breaking down boxes a'la karate jumps, and one box did not break for me, but I went down hard. Thank goodness for that Ameri'surance.
The boxes we were breaking down resulted from unpacking Gentilly High School into their brand new building. There was a beautiful new library that we unpacked and organized in two days, and we also set up computers and classrooms and made the school ready for students the next day. A lot of time in RSD has been dedicated to moving high schools and elementary schools out of their modular campuses and into actual buildings. Four and a half years later (as in after the hurricane) over half of the public schools are still modular, trailer park schools.
I am currently in Vicksburg MS for transition, meaning we are done working with Troy and Marnie. Frustrated as we got with the project, Troy was an amazingly passionate person who was wonderful (and difficult) to work with. Marnie, also passionate and wonderful, was a ton of fun and we got to hang out with her outside of work, and will miss her lots (and maybe bump into her in da nort woods some day.
For our last few days we put together some book shelves for a book nook, we went to Coghill elementary for a program we called "Saints to Soldiers." A stationary store donated thousands of cards to us, so we went and had students write letters to the soldiers. It was incredible how insightful they could be. One boy, about ten years old, wrote to one of the soldiers thanking them for helping the people of Haiti, and talked about the help he received after the hurricane, and to tell the people of Haiti that "we are with them." Some of the younger kids, while not quite so insightful, had wonderful things to say, such as "I blow my candles out on March 8th, I like pizza, and I have a D+ in math." I think I would love to get that letter if I were isolated in Afghanistan. Tuesday, when I took some pain medication before work, I spent the morning napping on the office floor (a very productive day at RSD). For our last day we went to read to the kiddies, and while I was reading "Panda Shorts" a small child calls out "Who cares?!" Always good to know I am making a difference. After lunch with the kids we finally got to see them play on the playground we built on our first day of work. It was nice to see the project go full circle.
It was sad to say goodbye, but it is nice to be off my foot in Vicksburg, and I can't wait to get to Baton Rouge and build some houses!
