On the Road to Sacramento; Reflections

In time the snow will rise, in time the snow will rise- Sufjan Stevens

Driving back from Salt Lake City was like passing between two worlds. In the morning before we left on our first day of road tripping, we met up with Silver 3, another Fuel Reduction team like us, who had been stationed in Wyoming working with Habitat for humanity. We all drove, caravan style, from Salt Lake City to Reno, about 11 hours on the road. It was so strange being back with all my old friends, who during the month of CTI (training) I had become so close with, especially Cody, my old suitemate on campus, and seeing them again seemed so strange but also so comforting.

We had been living in a world where the only people that existed, were the ten members on our team, who I had grown to love and appreciate so well. The only activities that existed were the ones that we could access from our cabin; hikes, snowball fights, and of course our 9-10 hours that we spent working at the Utah Food bank daily. It was like our first project had been a perfect little experiment tucked neatly inside a snow globe, complete with an absurd amount of snowfall and filled with little people that continuously did the exactly same thing every day and smiled the entire time, no matter how good or bad their day was going.

As the landscape around us passed from daunting rock-faced mountains to the hours of painfully deserted salt flats and then into the cozy foot-hills, I sat in the other team’s van and quickly found out that not all team’s experiences were as neatly folded as ours had been. While winding through the miles of snow covered mountains, touched only by the pine trees and railroad tracks, I heard stories of negative fourteen degree days, wearing coats a mittens to bed, using outhouses nearly flooded with frozen refuse and team members at each others throat constantly.

It was easy to think at a first that my team would never get to the point of fighting but I guess when you are sleeping on canvas cots in an unfinished basement versus sleeping snugged up in a fire-heated cabin in the mountains, then things are different. I am still as enthusiastic about Amercorps as I have always been, but I have no Idea what we will be waiting for us on the other end of January.

For now I am just so excited to go home for the Holidays, to see my family, and dogs and my friends. The more time I spend away from home; backpacking and road tripping this summer to all my travel in Americorps, the more I appreciate and love my roots. Massachusetts has got some solid people.

The Turkey.

If you don’t want to sink, you’d better figure out how to swim – jeanette walls

Seeing that we are living on $4.50 a day for our eating allowance, we have become a bit like gremlins. Its really not that bad because when you combine 10 peoples living allowances than you get $45 dollars a day for shopping but then you factor in again that I live with 7 boys between the ages of 17-24 and you begin to understand why four gallons of milk is always gone within 2 days.

Now, when food comes into the food bank and it is improperly labeled (aka no label or in plastic baggies or what have you), or it is damaged beyond help (cracked, opened, broken) it gets weighed and thrown away. This is where the gremlin part comes in, we scavenge that food like no other. Daily we take home boxes of opened cookies, unlabeled cans, and cracked jars of salsa. Which is why when we found out about the turkeys we were so ecstatic.

The Turkeys were pre-cooked, expired, and re-frozen. There were thirty of them, give or take and they needed to be eaten immediately. We waited for a few days and asked multiple times about the turkeys and Finally were given the green light, that yes, we could take one home because they were not going to be able to distribute all of the Turkeys in time and already some of them were questionable.

The pre-cooked part was essential; we don't have a kitchen in our cabin, only a microwave and refrigerator. We let the turkey thaw in our house for a full 24 hours and when the meat was ready. Christina and I methodically and carefully as possible carved our prize ( well as carefully as we could with pocket knives). It was amazing. It was the first time we had had meat in the cabin that wasn't Walmart deli meats or canned meats. I think I ate at least 20 turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches. The plates of dark and light meat were gone in days.

Well now we back to no Turkey but what can you do. Back to spam and rice.

On the 22 day until Christmas My true love gave to me....

I can gather all the news I need on the weather report- Simon & Garfunkle

Wooooohhheeee well it has been a little while since I have last written but I have been In a whirl wind. Thanks giving was really nice I took a chunk out of my day to call both my dad’s side of the family and my mom’s side of the family and I basically talked to everyone in the fam which was really nice. Everyone sounded great so thanks for that guys.

The warehouse has been really hard lately we have been bringing in about 25000 pounds of food a day more or less which is sweet but boy is it tiring. We found out that per week we have been collecting and sorting a little more than half of the food that they intake. Yay Americorps!!!.

We had a pretty sweet Independent service project the other day, we helped out at and animal shelter!!!! Which, if any of ya’ll know me, would realize that that is right up my alley. I basically spent 4 hours cuddling with cats. It was great. They had this one big room just PACKED with cats, it was CAT CITY 2009! And as soon as you walked in they all surrounded you. So cute. So cute.

For all ya’ll that haven’t heard yet, I’m coming home the 22^nd! I’m really excited to see everyone. I’m going to do an Americorps recruiting event at the High school that day too, which will be pretty cool. I hope I get some H-Dub kids to join up.

Today Instead of working in the warehouse and driving around doing pick-ups, I worked in the 2-1-1 Call center. Which is a referral and information center for people to call if they want to get a hold of volunteer opportunities, need information on addiction help support groups, are looking for financial help for he holidays are anything non-profit really. It was interesting but actually really sad. We got a lot of calls from people who had multiple children and were looking for a place that they could get free winter jackets for them because all of their kids had no jackets. Or we would get calls from 14-year-old girls who needed a place to contact for teen pregnancy classes. It was really deep but I felt like I was doing a lot of good and the people I worked with were really cool.

Once again running out of time to write but you guys are probably getting bored of this novel anyways. On a closing note I did a 24 hour fast a few days ago to better understand hunger and poverty in the working world because I am seeing with it so much especially with the food bank and all. It was really difficult to work a 9 hour day with nothing in my stomach and it really made the work I’m doing have some meaning.

OK well I love you guys, happy Holidays.