The Big Easy

Ok so here is my compliment sandwich. I am loving New Orleans more and more. The people here are great, the food is amazing, and there is live music every where we go.
Our first night in the city is hard to explain. Im still not too sure how I feel about this city. In some ways it was great... I was glad not to be driving anymore (after 2 ten hour days of it), we meet some great locals, our housing is amazing, and we discovered the wonders of J. Gumbos. Through all of that though, it is easy to see the impact that Katrina left on this city even 5 years after the fact. There are still so many abandoned and dilapitated houses.

Having a project in the Big Easy is not as easy as you would think. For our second round Badger 6 is working with Habitat for Humanity at their warehouse and restore. I was thrilled to learn about our project because its freakin New Orleans! But the nature of our job is proving to be difficult for me. Up until this point we have spent our workdays outside in the sunshine and fresh air. Working in a warehouse down south is quite different from that. I sweat though my clothes about a half an hour into the work day. We do a lot of heavy lifting and Im learning that with this kind of a work a woman has to prove that she can do the job just as well (if not better) than a man. Im getting there though. Even though it is a bit harder to see the effect our project has on the city, we do know that we make a difference. Yesterday we went to a local market to get some lunch and a man bought our food saying "New Orleans thanks you." AmeriCorps has had a HUGE influence on the rebuild of the city and people know it. They know our uniforms, our government vans, and the work we have put into the city. Knowing that makes our jobs easier.
My team is doing a lot better now that its getting close to the end of the round. Our honeymoon stage came to an end about a week into the project. I have learned a few things from it though. The most important thing I learned was how to deal with tension in a small group of people I see 18 hours a day. Getting alone time in this program is hard so its important to know how to handle your emotions when tensions are high.
The weekends have been spent exploring the city and that has been great. I love the colors of the houses, the individuality of the people, and the cool of all the music everywhere.One weekend I got to go on a swamp tour and that was pretty amazing. It was on a slow, covered boat so it was very relaxing. And we got to see SO many alligators! Most of them were on the smaller side; about 4 or 5 feet long. The last gator we saw though was 12 feet long! His name was Big Joe and our tour guide had made friends with him over the years. He got Big Joe to come up to the side of the boat and he leaned over and pulled the gator's tail onto the boat and I got to touch it. That was pretty awesome. In the picture below, Big Joe is in the front and a friend of his is swimming in the back.


On a recent Sunday we volunteered at the Bayou Boogaloo Festival and had a great day in the sunshine. There was awesome music and I tried my first taste of gator! It was pretty good :)
They also had a rubber ducky race. A lot of people entered. It was a little absurd.
So now I am back in Perry Point. I have written this a little at a time and am just now getting to post it. Sorry if the tenses dont match up or if you have a hard time following this. It was hard to get internet long enough to write what I was thinking. Summer break is in 4 days! I will be headed home, then to DE, and lastly to DC. I cant wait!

Round 1 Done

Much to our dismay, we have finished up our round in Camden, New Jersey. Our last days were filled with fun, Dominican food, silly songs, lots of photo shoots, and good byes. Here are some fun pictures Id like to share with you.


At the Bridge of Peace Youth Group


The whole garden staff with our team




The most amazing market ever :)



Painting the Giant's Chair!



We love group photos.



Harvesting spinach as big as Katherine's face



Camden was a blast!
Lets see what New Orleans holds for us :)

I'm a gardener

Today I had an audience for my PT session. Apparently people dont exercise for fun in Camden and my girls and I put on quite a show. :) Camden has definitely proven to be an interesting and wonderful place for me. We have discovered all sorts of jems in this city. The most recent being MiniMarket #1 located just across the street. I can get a can of soda and a fudgesicle for a mere 85 cents. And the owner, Jose, loves us! I can also get HomeGirl Chips and Rap Snacks there! I suppose that in order to appreciate this bit of info you have to see them. For now just take my word for it. We have also tested our tastebuds with treats from other corner markets such as Litwin's which is right near one of our community gardens. They have the best Spanish meat pies and potato balls I have ever tried. Mmmmm mmm.

Our work at the Camden Children's Garden continues to be amazing every day. We usually split up into two groups each day. One group stays at the Children's Garden and the other group goes out into the city to work on one of the community gardens. There are about 60 community gardens throughout Camden so we get to see a lot of the area in which we live. So far, I havent seen a garden that I dont like. That is true to the garden itself and to the gardeners. The gardeners love our help and they usually show it with superfluous praises, cold drinks, sweet snacks, or lunches! Its also so wonderful to see such a wide variety of camden residents who enjoy gardening. This week we got to help residents of a low income housing building start their new garden. A few folks were all about it but others were a bit more apprehensive. We stayed to help them transplant a bunch of veggies and to give them a few pointers but in the end they have the greatest effect on thier plots. I sure hope their interst sticks through the whole growing season so that they can eat so many wonderful veggies!
Working at the Children's Garden also has its perks. The garden staff is still amazing and its great to be able to joke around and have a good time with your bosses. We are just helping the garden recover after the winter here as well. Lots of weeding, planting flowers and veggies, painting, rearranging, watering, and even a bit off office work. Working at both of the locations, my team has greatly broadened our range of outdoor skills!! We are getting really good at weeding, picking up trash, planting, harvesting, and mulching. It may not sound like exciting work but it really is and Im having so much fun with my team. Any job that I can do in the sunshine with friends is a good one for me. We even find fun things to do during our downtime. We ARE working in a children's garden after all :) We can play in the dinosaur garden, sit in the Queen's chair in the Alice in Wonderland garden, explore the butterfly house, take a ride on the train, or spin around on the carousel...the choices are plentiful!

Camp Conowingo, we hold you in our hearts!

Camden NJ....what a sight!

We are starting our new project this week at the Camden Children's Garden. We left MD on Friday much to our dismay. Camp Conowingo was a wonderful place to have our first project because it was easy work and fun afternoons. We spent most of our working hours picking up sticks, raking leaves, maintaining trails, and trying to stretch out our work so that we can have a full work day. The work was easy so that gave us plenty of time to goof off and enjoy each other's company. Our sponsors were also awesome. Dennis and Jeff work at the camp year round and it is just to two of them on the 600 acre camp. My team saved the two of them about a month of work beautifing the camp.
Working there also allowed us to do some great team bonding! Because we were well secluded there were two options for my team. We could have either learned to hate each other with so much time to get on everyone's nerves...or we could have enjoyed the company that each one of us had to give. Luckily we learned to love each other! We played lots of games, had a few bonfires, asked lots of get to know you questions, and went exploring together. We even got to tell ghost stories in a haunted manor at midnight! We had no internet access and no cell phone reception so it was great to get out of the daily grind. I learned that I LOVE to go trail running, that any body of water can calm my brain, and that using a latrine is 10 times better when it has pictures of ponies and princesses painted inside :)

But alas, now we are in Camden, NJ. Its pretty much a 180 turn around. But, despite the negative stigma and the high crime rates of this place, I am really enjoying myself. We do have wireless and cell phone reception at our housing so thats always nice. And I am very excited for our project. We got to do a walk around at the project site on Sat and the garden looks like it will be a blast! Its so colorful, there are rides and mazes, and we can see penguins! 5 weeks in Camden may not be so bad :)

Burn, baby, burn

Second day in a row I can get to a computer! Woo hoo :)

Today.Best. Day. Ever.

I got to go on my first prescribed burn! I finished my firefighting training last week and that was amazing in itself but it was 10 times better to put all of that learning to use. We spent a whole week in Kinston NC at a forestry center which happened to be in the middle of nowhere. Our days were pretty much set in stone everyday but it was nice to have the structure.

5:30am-PT

7:00- Breakfast

8:00- Class

Noon- Lunch

1:00pm-Class

5:30-Dinner

Then the rest of the night was playtime! We had frisbees, a football, a soccer ball, a ping pong table, and a pool table. A bunch of us would also do some yoga every night at 8:00pm. It was so relaxing. The classes themselves were pretty awesome as well. We learned all sorts of things about creating fires with drip torches, fuzees, and fuels. We learned how to put out fires with fire lines, pumps, fuel types, engines, tools, and cunning tactics! We also learned about safety. Take home message numero uno is that we all come home. There are no super secret equations that figure out what percentage of us will perish in a certain fire... the plan is that we all come home. So, mom and dad (and sister cause I know you worry too) dont worry ;)

I also got to meet so many new people throughout the training. The firefighters are split between three units so I got to know others from the raven and wolf unit and made new friends! :)

Soooo....back to the best day ever. I was assigned to a prescribed burn today with 2 other AmeriCorps firefighters. It was planned to burn about 42 acres and there were 14 firefighters there all together. Well, the weather was pretty crappy so we didnt quite accomplish what we set out to do but it was still awesome. The relative humidity was pretty high and it was pretty cloudy so the sun couldnt dry anything out. We burned about 15 acres and it was a nice "practice fire" The flames didnt get higher than 4 feet and the wind cooperated so it was a great learning experience. I know for my next fire I will be way more confident and comfortable. AND I got to drive a marsh master!!! If you dont know what it is then look it up. Its totally BA. Now I am ready for my nap :)

Fire Team

The fire team!

A quick one

Soooo I only get a chance to get online about once every two weeks. This one will be short.
I am doing AMAZINGLY well! :)
I am now a Type 2 federal Wildland Firefighter! I finished my training in NC last week and now I am back with my team in MD. I missed them so much!
My time is gone but Ill fill you in later!