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Project Ubuntu

This week we've had a visitor, Daniel. He's been traveling around the country to every state plus D.C. doing a week of volunteer service in each community, his project is named "Project Ubuntu." He has a website with more information about his travels/mission www.projectubuntu.info
It's really inspiring to talk to someone like that who has decided to dedicate their life to service without any tangible reward. You could say I am doing the same thing now but it's just really nice to see someone else who isn't affiliated to any specific group just going out and trying to make the world a better place. One man at a time things will get better. He plans on writing a book at the end of his journey and I definitely plan on buying it. While he's out in different communities working though he's asking different questions to people about: what it takes to make America great as well as what a community is made of?  Another concept he talks about is the "us" v. "them" idea.
While I was working I was listening in on one of his interviews which was really interesting to listen to...so I just wanted to blog about some of my ideas to a few of his questions...

• What makes America great? Although I'm super patriotic and love my country I don't know if I can say America necessarily has anything that's really POWERFUL and far more advanced than other countries...I think his question about communities is a lot easier to talk about but also applies on the larger scale. A community according to the biological definition would be different species living in the same area. I can appreciate this definition but if you're thinking about the communities in America there is a definite us v. them concept amongst people. The question he asks is how can we transcend the barrier between the Us's and Them's.
• Us v. Them! Obviously people separate into groups but the idea that one is less than than the other is ridiculous. It's important to challenge the "us" group to help and work with the "them" group. His whole trip is about seeing how people across the country transcend that barrier as well as encouraging more and more people to work outside of their "group."  
• Mobilize kindness. Mibilizing kindness is one of Daniel's mantras - it's about getting people out and sharing their love with other people. Love can and will break down all barriers. 

I feel like this blog is a little distracted because a lot has been going on around me but I tried haha I highly recommend reading his site and keeping up with his travels it's so inspirational.

Okay but onto the note about the work I'm doing lately -
 We finished the house we were in for the past two weeks today, but only after leaving our new house early. We had to evacuate the house we were demo-ing because we found vermiculite! It was crazy, and scary. We were just taking down stuff in the porch and nobody had on a mask so it was a little concerning but I think it's okay...it was still solid and wasn't really in the air..unless you count us beating the hell out of some boards and possibly pulverizing it into a dust. I'm sure it'll be fine though, just it was our second moment of panic lately.

Sunday we were evacuated out of our housing to move to Hope Village. There was a leak in my room at the foot of my bed..which didn't get worse but also didn't improve any so the housing coordinator ordered us out. I woke up from a nap to be gone within a hour, my bags had to be packed and in the van within the hour basically...it was very hectic.  Our housing at Hope Village is pretty solid, although it did have a leak..it's been fixed (I think). We were gonna move here anyway in a couple weeks but it was just a little sooner than expected and we're living with the other team that's here - which is really nice...I love my team to death but it's nice to see other faces.

I still love the work here, although tedious at times it's still A+. I still like Minot, cute city with fantastic people. And I am especially thankful that Daniel showed up - he's boosting our team's moral a lot just with his stories about philosophy and his travels.

I am really appreciating this project, I hope it continues to go well!


PS thanks to everyone sending me mail and what not :) love you guys so much! feel free to e-mail me or anything whenever i don't always have wifi but I do pretty regularly..so yeah

Just an update

I got the question the other day about "do people in minot flood often? did they expect the flood?" or something to that extent and I honestly didn't know the answer - I assumed they didn't expect it just from the little knowledge I had of approx. 300 homes had flood insurance out of the 4000+ that got damaged. Today I got a chance to talk with a FEMA worker and another local volunteer both who have lived here for their whole lives and they both said it was a complete shock..it's what's known as a 100 year flood. They have flooded in the past but never to the devastating affect it had back in 2011. Also someone else asked if the work we're doing here was for the 2011 flood or for recent flooding, there has been no significant recent flooding all the work I'm doing is from 2011...it takes a long time to recover from a flood.

The work we're doing is challenging to say the least, there are good days and some questionable days but over all I'm really enjoying the work here...even if the work isn't necessarily pleasant we're still helping those who cannot help themselves and there's no question about that being the right thing to do. Today for example we had some rather dirty work that had to be done and I ended up coughing and sneezing all day and being physically miserable but what kept me going was how helpless some of these people are...they're perfectly fine people but just the circumstances keep piling up against them to the point where nobody could tackle it alone. The woman today had to be moved from one FEMA trailer to another - the deadline for her to get out was today at 5pm but she JUST got out of the hospital for having two knee surgeries...so obviously she needed assistance.
The deliveries are my favorite part of the work - the warehouse does deliveries to those who qualify for assistance and the gratitude you receieve while unloading their matierals is amazing. I understand why people pursue work in disaster relief, although stressful and unpredictable it's so fulfilling.

I'm getting use to the fact I don't have cell phone service, it's very annoying but it's okay. So far the internet is sufficing well enough. It's given me a lot of time to think about things and plan stuff - I'm WAY ahead of the ball on my portfolio..I'm almost done with it and I've gotten 41.5 hours of ISP hours out of the 100 I need. But just as far as my future goes here's a bulleted list (I make LOTS of lists...)

• return home in November
• Spring 2014 semester @ JTCC
• I have some classes picked out
• Summer 2014 semester
• also planned courses
• Fall 2014 semester
• you guessed it...more planning
• STL in Vinton, Iowa
• I am applying for this position in Vinton, USTL to be more specific. I'll basically be the assistant to the Unit leader.
• return home in November, return to school, transfer for VCU, major in BIO or ENV, find a career, travel the world.

That's the next two years planned out right there. When I come home this November I plan on also applying to state/national Americorps programs as well as traditional jobs back at home so I can work while giong to school...I couldn't imagine not working now..since I work basically 7 days in a row! haha 16 days without a break after next weekend :p

But during this summer break I also plan to go to Des Moine, IA...some of my teammates want to go up there for a little day trip so I've been looking up stuff about it :) maybe we'll find a train and go somewhere also..who knows.

I definitely apprecaite traveling more..I used to be scared to really go new places or try new things but I've discovered that the world (well America, but I'm going to assume the world also) is a beautiful place. It's absurd to tie yourself down to one place, if given the chance you should travel all over...take advantage of everything around you. I definitely plan to do more traveling in the future and try many new things. I hope I can encourage others to do the same, I was missing out on so much while I let my fears hold me back...I don't want others to feel that way too.


okay I guess that's enough you know everything that's been going on in my head now. E-mail me with any questions :)

Minot photos

I held a snake!

We conquered the pile of trash





You can see the water line on the shed where the water came up in 2011 because of the flood


FEMA trailers that people affected by the flood can live in while repairing their homes, however, rent is charged so they're faced with a new rent bill on top of their mortages on damaged homes and all other expenses towards the recovery

Minot

So far so good!
We got in on Friday and got a short orientation to Hope Village and the housing situations. We're staying in a house owned by a Lutheran church (we're working with Lutheran Disaster Response) for the first month then switching with the team which is currently staying in Hope Village. Hope Village is an area for volunteers to stay in donated trailers. The house is right down town so we can walk EVERYWHERE so that aspect is amazing, but HV has catered meals so both have good aspects.
As for the work...my team is based in the warehouse (recoverywarehouse.org) which is a building supplied by the city to house building materials for flood victims. Victims go through a process known as RAFT to apply for aid in the form of building materials. We go out on deliveries which include dry wall as well as other small building materials such as dry wall mud, house wrap, paint, etc...so far there haven't been many deliveries but we've done 3 and they were amazing. We delivered drywall to two houses and some dishes to a church...the people here are super greatful for the aid they get. It's a very good feeling.

Minot in itself is very interesting. I like the city so far. It's not like Richmond, there's not necessarily a "good" part of time nor is there a "bad" part of town..it's pretty equal. Seems like the flood kind of knocked everyone onto the same playing field...you can see how the community has come together to help each other build up their lives. One example are the hope stars on every corner...painted wooden stars are on nearly every corner with inspirational things on them to help boost moral.
The house started out having wifi but that quickly faded..now I just walk to local places (like right now I'm at a FroYo place, but normally I run to the laundromat) for wifi...my phone has absolutely no service out here..it's interesting. I am learning to cope, I have an app where I can text on via wifi but i obviously don't have wifi all the time so it's a little stressful but nothing I can't handle.
We got a membership at the YMCA in town so that's where we go to work out, I'm hoping people will want to go more than 3 days a week...i feel like I've gotten out of shape so I'd like to start working out more.

I've become a lot more adventurous with my food! Tonight I had a veggie casserole..which was baked onions, celery, carrots, corn, and broccoli :) I also had chili the other day!

Our sponsor is former NCCC so it's fun to talk to him, he was actually a corps member with another team mate of mine..small ameriworld! It's interesting how we worked with LDR when he was in NCCC and now he's staff there - such a good example of a benefit of NCCC, the networking aspect, you just meet people ALL over and you never know where you could end up!

That's about it, no cell phone service, eating better food/being more adventurous, I like Minot so far...yup :)

Stayed in south dakota for the night off to north dakota today! Dont know if ill have phone service or not...should be interesting