Biloxi

So a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks. I've started a new training plan and traveled down to Biloxi, MS to participate (with all the other Habitat AmeriCorps) in the Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter Work Project.

The week in Biloxi was a lot of fun, albeit frustrating at times. All of the Charlotte AmeriCorps were put on different houses, with a few exceptions. So we all worked with a bunch of strangers who, for the most part, knew less about the construction process than we did. The House Leader on my house in particular seemed to have little knowledge as to the efficient use of people throughout the process of building the house. There were many times in which people were just standing around doing nothing because she did not know how to 'flow' from one stage to another. It seemed as though one thing had to be completed before moving on to something else. But we ended up getting as much (if not more) done than the majority of the other houses in the new construction groups (Biloxi had 10 new houses being built, Gulfport had 20 houses in rehab work, and Pascagoula had 20 homes also starting from scratch).

Our days consistently began before it was light out; I got up every morning except for Tuesday at 5:45am to get on the shuttle to breakfast/work at 6am (on Tuesday they changed the schedule so that we had to be ready to get on the bus by 5am or so, yucky). Breakfast was always a nice segway into the day because those of us from Charlotte that were building in Biloxi could sit and talk before the work day started (there were 4 of us). Work started around 7-7:30 and we worked until lunch which usually ended up being around 12 at the same place we ate breakfast (a sort of staging area for everyone working in Biloxi). When our house leader finally felt as though she had worked all of us hard enough in a day we'd hop back on the shuttles to head back to the hotels for dinner. Usually everyone ended up eating around the same time so the Charlotte crowd got to hang out during this mealtime, which was nice.

We'd usually get back to our hotel rooms between 730-8pm so that left little time for anything (at least for me because I go to bed wicked early) before bedtime. I ran twice on the hotel treadmills while I was down there but it was lame and unsatisfying. Oh well, the week was definitely a lot of fun. It was nice that it was so well organized and supported, but I suppose that comes with the Carters. Everyone involved in Habitat absolutely loves them. It's kind of insane.

Got back last Saturday (May 17th) and had a short week at work due to Memorial day weekend.

This week was probably one of my hardest weeks of training, culminated by a 16 mile trail run (Kings Mtn State Park again) on Sunday to get in 55 miles. Fun stuff. I'll be feeling that these next 2 weeks.