LOVE BUGS also known as march fly, honeymoon fly, telephone bug, kissybug and double-headed bug

So if no one has heard of LOVE BUGS before, here is a brief synopsis:

I'm not sure if they were genetically created to fight off mosquitoes or if they just appeared in the Gulf coast years ago, because now I'm reading that it's a myth they came from a lab...I'm still researching though. So, anyways, these little black bugs don't bite, don't sting or anything, but there are SO MANY OF THEM and I swear yesterday at work I swapped one away or off of me every minute. It was driving me crazy! The funny thing is that they mate the entire time while flying around and they never stop! Apparently they only feed off of decaying plant material while larva and live two days while adults, mate all 48 hrs long, lay their babies and die. I even ate one today by accident. I was quenching a thirst and opened up my water bottle not realizing that there were bugs in my drink, took a swig, and then coughed them out...in addition I noticed another pair of "honey-mooners" sun-bathing in my water bottle! As I sit here Jelly is making fun of me and calling me Dr. Lovebug because I am obsessing about not having the right databases to do my research! I miss Wooster's databases. I'm going on a tangent now.

Today I led about 20ish Canadian volunteers decking. It was more exhausting for me mentally just having to make sure they all knew what they were doing and doing it right. In addition, today was my third day on the project, (second full day) and I basically led off my knowledge of the hour of decking I did last Friday...crazy! But I am up for the challenge. For those of you who aren't familiar with construction, decking are the floor boards that you lay down on top of the joists (wood nailed together) in the beginning foundation process of a home. After decking, you begin chalk lining where the walls will ago according to the floor plan. Yesterday, I did most of that type of work by nailing two long 2 by 4 floor boards together, which resemble the bottom and top of the walls we will eventually build during the Blitz. Now that I have this right, I can explain the Blitz a little better. The Blitz with Habitat NOLA is two weeks from this week and we will be putting up 7 houses in a week. INTENSE WORK. So hopefully I'll get to meet a former president, Jimmy Carter, and some other celebrities!

This weekend is the second weekend of Jazz fest and I can't wait to see you girls: Marah, Nell, Marge, Reg and Nelly's Bro and Dad.

P.S. For anyone who reads this blog notice if you click the "comment" at the bottom of every post, you can write a comment to me and post it...

Goldstar Diner and Balderdash

All I have to say is Balderdash....it's the name of a game that a bunch of us played tonight and we all laughed our asses off! EVERYONE GET IT! I also went to the diner right next to Camp Hope tonight for some sweet potato fries that I've been craving ever since we got here! So much has happened and I'm sorry it is so hard to keep up with it all. By the end of the day, I'm usually so tired that I don't even have the energy to blog, but here is worth a brief attempt of bloggin..today work was a bit slow, but I guess because we are just preparing the seven houses for the Blitz build that takes place in less than two weeks. Today I nailed boards together and marked the joints and layed out where the walls will be built during the Blitz.

Random but Frank (family friend of my parents) sent me this link in an email and I think you all should check this out....


http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=7

It's almost midnight and I have to wake up in six hours for work, off to bed I go..I"ll write more later

Miss and love you all!

The beginning of Round 2/Habitat for Humanity in New Orlean's Parish.....

Blast from the Past....Water 4 on our first day together...2 months ago!
Hey all!

I'm back from transition in Jackson, MS. It was cool to see my friends from other teams, but besides that we just prepared for our debriefing and briefing of our projects, ate gross buffet hotel food, and lounged around in our big beds.

Since I've been back to Camp Hope, I have had orientation with our head construction supervisors, Dwane. He is a character, let me tell you. He gave us an 8 hr speech in the span of 2 hours. Basically the next few weeks are going to be crazy because we are preparing for the Jimmy Carter build.

Yesterday we had a half day of work and then we went to Jazz fest! We walked around for the first two hours, then did some ISP by selling t-shirts. The Dad from "That 70s Show" bought a t-shirt from our booth..I didn't sell it too him, but one of the Jazz Fest Staff did...It down-poured like crazy! We had to close our t-shirt booth down early because the rain was so bad. I was able to see a bit of Billy Joel and most of OAR, but I was soaked! It was kind of cool though, because every time the song got more intense, the rain got more intense! So here I am jamming out to OAR, standing in a puddle up to my ankles, and completely drenched from the rain! It was lots of fun until we were freezing and trying to find a shuttle to bus us back to our team van. Luckily, one of the Perry Point TLs came by to pick us up, otherwise we would have been stranded.

Last night I ran into a Wooster Alum '07 who is on a Sacramento team, James. It was funny because I recognized him at Jazz fest and then didn't realize he was staying at Camp Hope for the weekend until I got back and called out, hey didn't you go to Wooster?! I met him one time at the end of last year randomly and can't believe I ran into him! It's a small world....
This morning saying good bye to Perry Point (Jeremy, Chris, Julia and I)

You have to learn how to learn to learn -Randy

Water 4 with our sponsors Tammy, Keith, Randy and Johnny

Hi all!

So where to begin..well today was officially our last day with Hope Has a Face. For the past week we have been working in the 9th ward on a "community center" trying to turn it into a future home for other NCCC teams working with Hope Has a Face. Unfortunately, it has been a little frustrating for us all because there have been 44 of us, and not enough tools or jobs to do. I have found these past two weeks to be the most mentally tiring because I hate standing around or having to think about what to do next. The past week we have been taking down an old fence, landscaping, digging holes, and replacing the new fence. We also worked on some framing earlier this week, which I happened to really like, so I hope I get to work from the ground up with our next project. Our of our sponsors, I am going to miss Randy the most. I haven't really talked about him that much, but he sure is a character. Randy has been all over the place...military...Isreal....he was even a bum for 25 years...and probably having lots of fun in the 60s, if you know what I mean. He writes short stories, he's some sort of official for the government..? Best friends with a guy who started Chicken Soup for the Soul, the list can go on....he has given us good talks, life lessons, memorable quotes...such as "You have to learn, how to learn, to learn." A lot of this might be hard to understand from my perspective, but he has just been an all around interesting guy to know. Who knows if it's all truly real, but it has been entertaining at least.

So, since this last week was kind of draining for me, Kat and Ryan picked me up and took me in for the weekend. I got to go to their friends' daughter's first birthday party. (Stacey, Chris and Kennedy (baby)) I had so much fun playing with kids all day! The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing. I re-charged my batteries, only had to work a half-day today with Perry Point, and then went out to lunch with my team downtown. I had seafood gumbo. I think I liked turtle soup better and Mannys' Mom's jambalaya more. Again, I realized a lot of my blog might be about food...Mom and Dad...but what can I say....THE FOOD IS AMAZING

love to all!

Jess' reflection (a poem) from Spike Project #1...very clever..

"I left my heart in Ocean Springs"

Introducing Water four-
For America, we do more.
We have 5 Js, 3 As, K, P, and a B,
And spent our first round in Mississippi.
Refurbishing homes for those that needed it the most,
we worked hard at our job, we did not brag or boast.

Day in and day out, Water four worked hard together,
Even in the stormy Mississippi Gulf coast weather.*
Our flea furry friend, Duke, welcomed us each day
while we sang and worked, he would always stay and lay.
We would not have gotten far without the help of Ed, Johnny, and Randy.
“TL for the Day”- it’s not always you, Andy! :)

Mudding, sanding, and flooring-
As long as we were together, it never got boring.
Our official motto became “We love caulk-ing,”
Almost as much as we like talking!
Painting, nailing, sawing -
We did it all.
In our hot, sweaty uniforms,
W4 always stood tall.

Sickness and bed bugs could not bring us down,
Even with pink eye we were the hottest in town!
Ocean Springs treated us well and we wish Camp Victor the best.
In our first round, Water 4 passed every test!

Our team outside the French Market in New Orleans
Musician's Village

City of New Orleans from a far
The new leeves
What's written on the leeves


What will soon be a home for NCCC members

Last week of Round 1..already?

I am now in St. Bernard (it's not Violet, actually) and today we met with our sponsors and drove around the 9th ward, Musician's Village, and the area where Angelina Joli and Brad Pitt built houses. We also saw the community center we will be working on and converting into a NCCC home for Hope Has a Face.

Facts I learned in videos we watched last night during Camp Hope's orientation:

-47 squared miles of St. Bernard had betwen 2 and 28 ft of water because of the levees breaking
-From June '06 to January '07 - over 2000 houses were gutted
-Camp Hope was originally called Camp Permire and it was FEMA contracted
-In August of 2007 Camp Hope moved to the middle school, where it is now and was renovated by past NCCC members
-the school had over 6 ft. of water in it

Yesterday after we packed and said our goodbyes to Camp Victor, we drove all the way to St. Bernard, unpacked, worked on our portfolio and debriefing project, and then went into the city and walked around...ate some beignets at Cafe Du Monde again! The same people that were playing in front of the Cafe I was there over spring break were there again. I talked to one of them and they said they come to that location basically everyday.... It was also Julia's 20th birthday, so we went to a Mexican type restaurant for dinner and I had portobello mushroom quesadillas. Amazing!

BeauSoleil at the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center in Gulf Port

I can't get enough of these Southern Blues....

BEFORE


AFTER
WOW, a lot has happened in the past few days...let's see if I can re-cap it all. To start out, Friday my team finished the 100th home of our Hope Has a Face Project! Oliver, the son of the 80 year old lady who lives there treated four members of our team sub lunches Friday..the other half of our team was working on another house with Sun 7 since there was not as much to be done on our house toward the end and their construction manager treated them to burger lunches. I had some time to talk to Oliver a bit during the day about the history of his house and family and the number of times they've had to re-build it. Katrina being the most damage to the house so far. I can't tell you the number of times people come up to us on a regular basis and thank us for what we are doing down here. And the fact that we finished a house in 2 weeks! Our sponsors and site supervisors have said to us a bunch of times how our work is better than professionals they've worked with and paid in the past! For example, we didn't have to popcorn the ceiling because it was done so well! So Friday all four Americorps teams were asked to show up at our house at the end of the day. All of our sponsors and Oliver showed up to give us a talk about how we did such an amazing job and that we would be moving to Camp Hope (New Orleans) Monday to start the next project NOVA 100! Yaay! So, for the next 10 days before my second round transition begins in Jackson, MS, we will be turning a community center in the lower 9th Ward into housing for future NCCC members working with Hope Has a Face. Part of the reason we are also moving to New Orleans now is because there just isn't enough work left in Pascagoula for all four teams. I am super excited because we will be able to scope out the area 2 weeks before we return for our second spike.
The day we finished the 100th home with Ben. Roll Reversal! I was TL for a day while Ben had to fix the cargo van.
The Cupid Shuffle...of course
Friday night we had a girls night and went out for Italian

A lot of us are a little sad because we will be leaving our Ameri-dog that we have become so close to the past couple months...Duke. I have not told you about Duke yet, have I? Duke is an "outdoor" dog that belongs to the owners of the first house that I worked on with Sun 7. He is a friendly, flee and tick infested dog, but we are his best friends. There are days when he is waiting at the doorstep for our arrival. He even sits by our van and chases us everyday when we leave. It is quite cute, really..now although I never pet the dog because...he can be kind of nasty..Andrea was nice enough to give Duke a bath last week. Quite amusing really...but he was so cooperative about it!

Our friend Mr. Turtle..Andy found him in the back yard earlier this week! He's hiding!

Yesterday I went to a nearby children's museum to do ISP with some NCCC kids. The museum was really fun and it was a nice change up to get to play with kids for a change. Some NCCC members, you could tell though, had never worked with kids before, so it was funny to watch them interact with them. At the same time, a blue-grass festival was taking place outside the museum. After the museum closed, we helped set up for the show that happened later that night. A Grammy winning Cajun band BeauSoleil . See her for more information: http://www.rosebudus.com/beausoleil/

They were awesome! I really have gotten to see a lot of live music since being in the South and I am loving it! Julia found out that this was her dad's favorite band and got a free signed CD as well as a t-shirt from the guy that talked the ladies working with the museum into us staying to see the concert for free!

Tomorrow is Julia's 20th birthday and I'm not sure what we'll be doing, but it is mostly a traveling day to Camp Hope and we only have to work a half day on Tuesday. So, maybe we'll get to go into the city....and as soon as Kat is finished with tax season, I will probably be visiting and staying with them a lot over the next couple months.

My full slab of ribs I ate last weekend at the Shed

Ben snoring in my FACE in the van...us being silly as usual...

SECOND ROUND/SPIKE PROJECT ASSIGNED!

We will be staying at Camp Hope in Violet, LA working with Habitat for Humanity! It's only about a half an hour from New Orleans. The volunteer housing we are staying at holds 900 people. Welcome back college..kind of....and I believe another Water team will be working with us as well! Exciting! We might be going to New Orleans to start a new project sometime this week, but like always..you never know what you are doing in a day of Americorps until the day of! I'm excited, not all of my team are because they are worried about waiting in lines for food, showers..etc...but for me it's no big deal! I'm sure there's worse! I'm excited to build houses from the ground up and to stay in LA! :)

LIGHTNING STORM we watched this past weekend..Julia is recording and her dad is speaking in the background

Rhythm and Blues with Lil Buck Sinegal.....to scabies infection and bleach headaches

(I wrote this blog awhile ago, but haven't been able to post it because the Internet has been down)

More facts learned from a Biloxi document our team watched yesterday for service learning:

The storm was the 3rd strongest and reached 30 ft.
1302 deaths were counted by the end of Oct. in ‘05
Between 70 and 130 billion dollars estimated damage
Effective disaster area was the size of Great Britain
75% of marine industry is non-existent

Possible next projects we had to choose from in the Gulf are as listed in order:

All projects involve some type of construction and some we may lead college students or volunteers

1. Hands On New Orleans in New Orleans
2. Jefferson Country HFH in Beaumont, TX
3. Camp Coast Care in Long Beach, MS
4. Habitat for Humanity of Greater New Orleans in Violet, LA
5. Habitat for Humanity of Greater New Orleans in Violet, LA
6. Project Rehab in Biloxi, MS

The New Orleans and Texas ones were of our top choice because we will most likely be able to lead volunteers. The New Orleans project is described as doing different projects other than construction. With the Texas project, we would be arriving at the start of the Jefferson county’s Collegiate Challenge.

Other than project and service learning news, us and Sun 7 have been working our butts off at our latest house. We have been mudding, sanding, and painting this week. Ed and Johnny also installed the cabinets. I feel like we have been a bit rushed in this last house…I mean it is definitely the biggest house we have done so far, and with 22 of us, we have been able to do a lot within a short period of time. We had a lot of rain in the beginning of the week, which became problematic because we were waiting for the mudding to dry on the wall before we could sand it. I think it is because Ed is leaving soon. He had originally planned on being here for a couple weeks, but instead he has been here for 2 months and is on his way back to Atlanta tomorrow. So, we are about to head out and buy him a tool belt to decorate and give him as a thank you.

Us, Sun 7 and Ed on his last day
Our gift to EdI insulated this whole wall!

Last Saturday we went back to the Shed and it was a blast! I ate a full slab of ribs, well almost..I had about 3 left. A really good blues band played and we had a big dance party. Paul “Lil Buck” Sinegal.
Paul "Lil Buck" Sinegal
Best ribs EVER
Me, Jess and Juila (aka Jelly, Bubah, Sweaks, Ducky..too many nick names this girl has! ha)
Me, Julia and Jerry

Tuesday we went for a real Craw fish Boil for the first time with all of us teams that are working for 100 homes. Keither, Johnny, and Ed were there and paid for everything! We tore the heads off the shrimp and craw fish and and ate the meat in their tails! SOO YUMMY! Ben and I shared a whole bowl of Craw fish, but he pretty much ate the entire second round!


Second round of craw fish!

April first was Julia's one year sobriety! CONGRATS BABE!! We had a surprise cheesecake waiting for her after the craw fish boil to celebrate!

Julia has scabies and Ari has some type of bed bugs, and they both sleep right next to me, Julia is on the top bunk, and Ari is to my right…so I also got checked out at the doctor’s, but I do NOT have scabies..however I got the prescription cream just in case. So today we had to drag all 300 mattresses out of the rooms, bleach them, clean the entire camp, and put everything back. It was not a fun day, although we did get ISP hours for it. But most of the Ameri kids were out doing other ISP, so only six of us plus the rest of the permanent staff were available to clean. I ended up getting a migraine as well as a headache from the bleach fumes! Camp Victor needed cleaning though.

Last night we had a girls night out and went to see The Other Boleyn Sister..it kept me entertained for two hours. It was definitely needed after yesterdays drawn-out day of cleaning and doing laundry.