Welcome to Sea Island Habitat for Humanity. You are about to enter a world that is like no other, where you will find heartache laughter, injuries, and other crazy occurrences. Please note that in case of an emergency the exits are no where to be found you must complete this mission once you enter. Thank you and have a nice trip.
Every morning Monday through Friday, and sometimes a Saturday or two, 11 Americorps members would climb out of their 15 passenger Club Wagon and leave behind them all that was familiar and comfortable and step in to the realm of umm....yeeeah's, micro managing, tedious, but just as important odd jobs, a big bearded supervisor (that quits two weeks into the project,) where the only physical work any of us see him do is a sequence that goes something like this; Light a cigarette, smoke it, lean against pre-build, answer his cell phone about a half dozen times every 5 minutes, flick cigarette out, light another one, drink a soda, keep leaning on pre-build, watch 11 Americorps members complete a task he had assigned and then when done tell them, "No, that's not what I wanted." or "actually, lets do it this way.." and then repeat the above steps.
There was also dirt, more for some individuals than others, and then there was dirt, and after that there was dirt and did I mention that we got to work with dirt? Didn't think so. We got to work with dirt.
And last but certainly not the least there was the Church Ladies. The Non-sharing Church Ladies, that would not share with us their unused lettuce and tomatoes for the unmet needs of the vegetarians on our team.
Now don't get the wrong idea here. There were just as many "happy" times as there were "sad" times. The 11 of use were privileged to share the knowing of a great free spirited, newly engaged, laid back, old school biker that captured the hearts of enryone on the team. There were also the home owners great people that were patient, thankful and friendly, and for that we thank them greatly.
Other things and situations that brought smiles to our sunburnt faces were the dozen or so puppies that live across from the barn and no matter how bad of a day some one was having just seeing those puppies run over to you was a joy that no one, not even "The Bear" himself could hide. While we are on the dog subject who could forget The Big Black Dog, and his sidekick The Little Dog Formerly Known as White. Man were they a good time or what.
The last thing I would like to cover before you venture off further into the unknown is our ability to laugh at ourselves and others injuries. Now I'm not saying that a hurricane clip to the shin, or a banged knee is humorous, or when someone gets a piece of wood in their eye, and then at the end of the same week fall backwards off like 7 feet of scaffolding is funny. It's just the fact that the one individual gets to wear an eye patch for a day or so is called the "One Eyed Wonder" and has well enough pirate jokes made to her to almost make up for the eight years or so that she has gotten Clinton jokes because she share's the same name as the first lady. It's the fact she is then called "Scaffolding" later on the week, and looked like a cartoon character bouncing between the bars during her decent to the ground while the whole entire group of volunteers witnesses this and then can stand up and laugh with the rest of her group about what just happened.
So this is it, you can not turn back. We had some rough times and they may have outdone the good, but when you think about it everyone chooses to remember the good and smile, no matter what. Ummmmmmm Yeeeaahhhhhhhhhhhh........!