Day 27: I am thoroughly exhausted. I haven’t had much time to gather my thoughts. River 6 and 6 other teams from our campus just returned to campus after a rainy weekend in New Orleans, commemorating the 5-year anniversary of Katrina. The weekend was not as successful as we hoped it would be because it has been raining since Friday night. The 100 corps members that traveled to New Orleans were split into several groups at many different sites in the Gentilly area. Working with Rebuilding Together was a great experience; they are extremely organized and have made a huge difference in the New Orleans community. The difficult part of the weekend was the rain. Much of the work that we were assigned was outdoors, painting or working with power tools. It was frustrating to feel a bit useless and unaccomplished. Yesterday afternoon we worked as a team to plant 22 trees at various houses in the area. It was very wet and not the most fun activity, but we felt as if we had made a difference at the end of the day, unlike the day before.
This weekend I really struggled with some of my own preconceptions and stereotypes associated with members of my team. Because AmeriCorps NCCC is a national program for men and women 18-24, there are automatically divides among the wide range of ages. This is going to be an issue for me because there are many times where I feel as if I am a mother figure or “too serious” because of my age in comparison to many people on my team. I remember what I was like when I was 18 and understand much of what they are going through, but I still find myself getting frustrated and not being receptive of their perspective. It’s going to be a challenge for me in the next few months.
I also got to have some fun in New Orleans with friends. We stayed close to the garden district, so we took the trolley to the French Quarter and walked around. Friday night we went to Café Du Monde, which was delicious as always! Also, had some really great traditional New Orleans/southern food and of course, a few Abitas! It was really nice to be back in a city that I love so much, but strange to not be there with my family or with Emerson students. It made me miss home, and start to think about not going back to Emerson this fall and how strange that is. I knew that I would miss Emerson and Boston, but not as much as I do right now. This whole AmeriCorps program has felt like one big vacation/summer camp, but it is finally hitting me that I am here for a while. Scary.
This week will be primarily spent getting ready for our first spike. We have a clearance meeting tomorrow in order to be able to leave campus and Induction on Tuesday. We should be leaving on Wednesday for our project. So exciting! I can’t wait to be on an actual worksite and settled into a new home as opposed to mini spikes for a couple days at a time.
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