Santa Fe - Habitat (4)

Hi everyone (probably mom and dad)!

This is Erin and Maryanne bringing you the update for Day 4.

The first alarm went off this morning around 7:30 am (yikes). You know you're on alternative spring break when waking up this early is considered sleeping in. The four hours of sleep were much needed for our first day on site with Habitat. Sunscreen was applied and water bottles were filled as we pulled up to La Paz Lane.  Rob, Peter, Alex, Jeffery and a few other Habitat Workers greeted us warmly.

After a brief tour around the site, which is a Habitat neighborhood that prides itself in providing highly efficient low energy homes, we were excited to get to work on Habitat Santa Fe's 100th house. We broke up into two groups, 6 of us with Peter and 6 with Jeffery, who were both AmeriCorps volunteers.

The beginning of the day was spent shoveling, raking, and leveling dirt and sand so that we could begin framing the house in the afternoon. Emmitt was given the pick-ax and looked like a kid in a candy store. Seriously, we have never seen anyone so excited to use something that wasn’t even a power tool. Our scarcely packed lunches were quickly devoured during the lunch break, where we talked with other volunteers, including some interesting characters from all over the country. One in particular, an older woman from Houston, noted that her reason for volunteering was simply because "it was where the spirits lead her."  Well then...

After lunch, we geared up with hard hats, hammers and nails to start building the framework of the house. Peter was excited to get us started with the framing since they had spent the 3 previous weeks preparing the lot for this task. For those who don't know what framing means, AKA our whole group, it's the skeleton of the house and involves nailing together different sized pieces of wood. Fun fact: did you know a 2x4 is actually 1.5x3.5? Cool, right?

Together, we lifted four huge wood platforms to start putting together the first two walls. The unexpected surprise of a black widow spider (Not the Iggy Azalea song) left us a little jumpy. However, Peter was unfazed.  Then, we each grabbed our hammer and nails and began swinging (and often missing). Before we knew it, the first two walls were completed.  It was cool to see the other Habitat house next door because it was nearly finished and in the dry-wall stage.  This gave us an idea of the finished product that we were working towards.

Soon it was 4:30 and because we were not used to the high altitude (7000ft above sea level), we were drained and 50 shades of pink. 

After completing our first day on the site, we decided to celebrate with some Baskin Robin’s ice cream.  We looked a middle-school soccer team in our matching orange MAB shirts and dirt up and down our legs.

We made it back home and walked into our sleeping quarters only to find 100 chairs set up, our stuff all moved and a woman preparing for a choir audition. Forced to evacuate, we split up into a nap group, a grocery-shopping group and a dinner prep group.  Erin, Ellie and Alex cooked an awesome MABreakfast for dinner, which included scrambled eggs, pancakes, French toast and fresh fruit.

Our night ended with some card games as a group, much needed showers and an early bedtime.

We can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store! (Hopefully less spiders and more completed walls).

MABye,
Erin and Maryanne



No comments:

Post a Comment