Iowa City - Public Health

We left Iowa City this morning and have arrived home in Columbia, Mo.
It's great to be back, but we already miss our friends from the
University of Iowa. Here's a short recap of who we served and what we
were up to the past two days:

On Thursday morning we helped Habitat for Humanity remodel a home for
a family. We sanded the walls and ceiling, mudded the corners, and
helped fix a chain fence in the backyard. The work was really
difficult, especially sanding the ceiling, which covered us in white
dust and was hard on our arms and backs, but it was also so rewarding.
It's great to know we played even a small role in providing a family
with home ownership. The Habitat employees were also very
inspirational. One 41-year-old man is a private contractor who signed
up for a six-month shift with AmeriCorps and will be hired by Habitat
after; he had built his own home and now wants to give back to others.
We also got to meet a couple who are putting in 250 hours each of
sweat equity toward their own Habitat home; they were from the Congo!

At the Hope Lodge on Thursday evening, we cooked wayyyy too much pasta
and had a ton of fun eating with residents, who were mainly over 50.
We really enjoyed seeing the lodge and meeting the people, who had a
lot of flexibility and independence, such as cooking their own meals
and coming and going as they please. Many of them live just over an
hour away and some as far as 300 miles or more, so the lodge is a
great home away from home as they undergo treatments. The director was
also fascinating. A survivor herself, she ran the lodge and
participates in Above and Beyond Cancer, a group that's racing across
the U.S. from the west to east coast in a relay of marathon runners to
lobby for health care access. She'd also climbed Everest with other
survivors. And she has an MPH, which a few of our group is getting in
grad school now.

In our reflection we talked about how it can be easy to be too
sympathetic toward people when they have cancer, so not wanting them
to do dishes or other chores, for example. But actually they're very
strong and want to continue living normally and even caring for
others, so we should treat them as we would anyone else but provide as
much support as possible, which the Hope Lodge does very well.

On Friday we ate at Bluebird Dinner, which had the most fantastic
cinnamon crunch French toast and omeletes, then drove the 4.5 hours
home to CoMo so people could turn around and depart elsewhere for
Easter.

It was an amazing trip, and we're excited to hang out with all of our
new friends! :)





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