I'm back (if you didn't get the title)!! We came back early (again) and I'm starting to realize that nothing is certain with Americorps. I know it wasn't their fault for this, but I'm still going to blame them because I work for them. I'm not going to name the charity that we worked with...cough cough Catholic...but they definitely weren't ready for us. I understand they were dealing with a disaster, but I feel like they shouldn't request help if they don't know what the help will be doing or where the help will be staying. Not mad at them, but they need to be educated on how to handle people. Needless to say, playing Simon Says with them was not a good idea. They had us chasing our tails for a week.
But, despite the sponsors inability to lead us, being in Mississippi was about what I expected. We worked hard days sometimes, and not so hard days other times. Some of the places we went to help out were in extreme need and some were not. But overall we helped some people and it made the trip worth it.
The first place we went was a trailer home that was destroyed in the tornado. An aunt and two kids survived by hiding in the bathtub. When looking at the wreckage I don’t understand how they survived. The tub was thrown 20 to 30 feet from where the house used to be. There was large amounts of debris everywhere and for the three survivors to not have been struck with any of it was amazing and a blessing. I’m glad it was our first job down there because it put things in perspective. After that a lot of the things we did were just picking up debris and tarping the occasional house.
The heat down there is no joke. I didn’t get burned or anything, but my body would get dehydrated from standing still. Does that compute? Now I know why grapes shrivel up when they get too much sun. Radiation is no joke! At first I didn’t realize how dehydrated I was until I noticed I was drinking more than 50 ounces of water a day. I mean I was downing three or four bottles of water during the day and two or three at night. Yet, I still felt lightheaded one day but nothing too serious happened. I think the world ending is just going to be everywhere becoming like the south. Crazy thing is, we weren't even there during the hottest part of the year. I'm like ten shades darker now and know what bacon feels like when it's in a skillet for too long.
I thought the government was unorganized, but going down there showed me that most organizations are disorganized. The charity we were working with switched our housing a couple of times and everything we did seemed last minute. There were definitely a few days when we didn’t even know what we were going to be doing. I can’t bash the leader of the charity too much because I’ve never done what she’s done, but somehow I think that she needed to quit and go into gathering bat guano or picking raspberries for a living instead of leaving people.
Overall the project was a plus and we helped who we could. I was on T.V. at least once, but I didn't have any speaking parts. I'm putting a lot of pictures on Facebook so check those out if you haven't already. Disaster is never good, but going down to help out; and, watching other people's desire to help was definitely a positive.
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