Day One

Today, we got to visit our site from October, Colton Middle School. Ladies from October, the blue doors have indeed withstood the sands of time. :) They look great, the whole place looked great! If I could figure out how to put pictures up on this thing, I'd show you right now!! Damn it. Artists are in house, conducting classes, exhibits are up, the auditorium looked awesome!...it was nice to see the finished project.

Then we headed over into the lower 9th ward, and spent part of the day working at the community center. They're hosting a fashion show at the end of the week, and needed a bunch of stuff moved out of some areas in the back. We did quite a bit of landscaping, and cleaned out a few work rooms. If that wasn't exhausting enough, then a few of us went deeper into the ward after lunch to help Ms. Elizabeth, just one of the nicest ladies you could ever hope to meet. Apparently, the city government has decided to fine people $500 if they aren't able to care for their lots (cut grass, weed, etc)...well, I didn't ask how old she was, but let's just say she could use a little help in this regard. I think you get two warnings before they serve a lien on your property, and it's gone. It all seemed pretty arbitrary when I tried to get an explanation. Anyway, we were able to get her entire lawn cut, front and back, and Scott the weedmaster was able to whack those into submission. Becca, bless her heart, was a real trooper in the heat today, doing things that she fully admits are outside her realm of expertise ("is that weed? What about that?...")

After a few hours of pushing around what has to be oldest and most ornery power mower on the planet we were finally able to call it day. I just finished washing off about thirty pounds of grass. And now I'm ready for some West African food and Bennachin's! Woo-hoo!!

Oh, and promised some people I'd do injury updates...nothing serious yet, although I did manage to burn my fingers today. Cuz I'm a dork. Other than that, we're all okay.

But the group of middle schoolers staying here starting today just walked in...this is going to be a good week. :)