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Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Happy Groundhogs Day

It's official, we are in the middle of winter!! Even the groundhog slept through his own holiday! Wish we would have gotten the news that Spring was on it's way but it is probably not the case.


As everyone was gearing up for the ICE STORM of the century to hit St. Louis, my entire team was taken off their normal assignments to prepare for the storm. Only 2 teams were sent out, one to Jefferson City to assist the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) and another to the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in St. Louis County. The rest of us prepared internally to get sent out on whatever project was needed of us. We have the chainsaws, pole saws, generators, and lights all tested and ready to go as well as all of our bags packed and at the office, ready to leave on a minutes notice.

One thing is for sure, we were prepared for the worst and thankfully that did not happen. My friends from the north are laughing at the amount fear that the snow has put everyone in. We only got about 4-5 inches of snow in Soulard. Other parts of Missouri got up to 3 ft of snow! Truman State called a Snowday, which was the only one that i have ever heard of. The entire interstate 70 was closed yesterday because of poor visibility and stranded motorists. I actually played a role in finding warming shelters and parking for some of the stranded motorists. My bosses were on a State Emergency call and needed that information. While they were still on the call, i got on the phone and started calling the EOC in Warren County. Another member and I had been working on contacting all of the EOC's in the area in case we need to get into contact with them later on. I ended up talking to a lot of really important people yesterday and ended up helping out a lot of people as well. All of which is very cool.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Warming Shelter

Last week was extremely humbling and honestly a little frightening for me. Being in town to work on coordination for the New Year's Eve tornado disaster cleanup, a group of us were put in charge of manning most of the shifts at our Emergency Warming shelter. St. Louis had a snow storm that brought freezing temperatures and called for us to open our doors as an overflow homeless shelter.

We were not exactly equip with enough personnel to man the shelter because most of ERT was out on projects in Southern Mo and IL and the Education team couldn't work overnight shifts because they needed to be in their schools during the day. This put the few of us in town on extremely weird sleep schedules and on emergency mode.

Without judgement or harsh rules we opened our doors to an amazing experience. The brief experiences that I have had working at a homeless shelter were extremely different than what I have experienced at ours. Getting to know some of the men and women that have been guests at our shelter will forever alter the way that I view homelessness.

I wrote a paper on the Shalom House, a long term women's shelter, during high school where I interviewed several of the women living in the shelter creating a profile of their stories. There were mental illnesses, lost jobs, and abusive relationships. I was sheltered from the fact that there were probably addictions floating in the midst of the women as well but by the time they reached that program the immediate highs or withdrawals had subsided.

Some of the guests at our Emergency shelter were in a visible altered state of consciousness, which being around was an extremely new experience for me. Especially taking on the role of shelter staff and not just being the volunteer that is just there to serve dinner. While paranoia and irritability set in with one of our guests, I felt extremely nervous in this new responsibility, which is not a normal feeling for me. Luckily the others on call with me helped to calm him down by offering him a cigarette, and got him to go to bed in fear of being kicked out of the shelter.

While this circumstance was extremely negative for me, it was only about 5% of the cases. There was a young couple on their way to school to become dental assistants, construction workers, travelers that were on their way to a better opportunity in a different city. A woman with MS and her boyfriend that was extremely caring and attentive to her condition. Some people were adamantly abstinent to drugs and alcohol and there were those who just loved living off the land. There is absolutely no one reason that people end up without a traditional home but there is always a story.

Meeting an 18 year old kid suffering with a drug addiction made the book Beautiful Boy come to life for me. The book was a father's account of his son's addiction with cocaine and how he and his family were affected. The guy in my story came in the first night extremely coherent even played Candyland and Chutes and Ladders with me. He told me about his 4 children that he already had with different women and that his 19th birthday was in a couple days. I heard reports of him coming back to the shelter completely messed up and almost passing out at dinner with spaghetti on his face. He wasn't back at the shelter until the day after his birthday. I couldn't help worry about him while he was gone and wonder if there is a family out there that is worrying about him just like my book.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Martin Luther King Day



I spent January 17th, Martin Luther King Day, standing in the rotunda of St. Louis's Old Courthouse. Not only is it extremely beautiful, it holds a lot of history making it very fitting to hold the Martin Luther King Day celebration. The courthouse was used for one of the Dred Scot Cases that ultimately never won his freedom from slavery, but definitely brought attention to the country that a change needed to be made. Sadly our country was still too stubborn and biased to grant Scot his freedom, but less than a year before passing away, his owner's son's granted his freedom.


Being from St. Louis, it's sad to think that we could have had a much different role in the history of equality for African Americans. That definitely had an effect on me growing up. I remember reenacting the court case during a field trip in Elementary or Middle school. It was a choose your own ending kind of play so that we could change history if we deemed to do so. It was probably
also so little kids wouldn't have to abstain from granting someone his freedom and teach us about equality.


As we listened to gospel singers, speeches on the state of our present fight for equality, and prayers from community pastors, I felt extremely honored to be wearing my AmeriCorps "A". This was a day of service, instead of a day off of school or work. While I was going to be marching in the Martin Luther King Day Parade, half of my team was out in the neighborhoods of St. Louis passing out energy efficient light bulbs as part of our annual service project. I would also be going back to the office to continue my position this month as Volunteer Reception Center Coordinator for the New Year's Eve Tornado.


Marching in the Parade was also a first for me this year. I'm still in awe of all of the things that I hadn't done in St. Louis and Missouri until this year with Americorps. The parade route led us through North City, which is known for low-income housing, poverty, and gang violence but today it was filled with a group of people that were not only remembering MLK's dream but exclaiming that work was still to be done. One of the very few news reports I've actually listened to this year described the shooting of a young man just a few blocks away from the streets we were marching on. The day was definitely a sobering reminder of our past but also gave me a lot of hope for our future.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

AMERICORPS!

On top of Red Mountain, near Butte, MT

What is Americorps? My second attempt at putting off that esteemed "real job" that we are supposed to have started looking for after graduation.. but really, Americorps is a national service program... much like the peacecorps but we serve domestically. I am, as of September 15th, a member of Americorps St. Louis Emergency Response Team. In a nut shell.. I am going to be responding to both national and local disasters, including a lot of wild land fires in MO and the surrounding states, as well as conservation projects that we are commissioned for. http://www.americorps-stl.org

The things I have experienced and learned in just the past two months of the program have opened my eyes immensely are and already know that this year is going to have a huge impact on my life.

Montana is definitely big sky country

After my week full of interviews, 3 job offers and numerous visits to the hospital to visit my sister and her new daughter I was taken back when I got offered a position that was starting the following day and a week later I would be sent to Montana for a month for training. I had to get my life in order in less than a week to spend a month of camping in a state I had never been to with 25 strangers doing things that I never could have imagined, like becoming chainsaw certified... Having the unknown never scare me from doing anything, I jumped at the chance to join ERT. I had been smiling like an idiot since the initial interview so it seemed like another opportunity that I couldn't pass up.

ERT Crew

Montana was crazy beautiful and can't wait until we get back there next summer. Actual stories and more pictures to come.

Minneopa Lake, near Dillon, MT


Saturday, August 28, 2010

Traveling the nations here at home

Festival of Nations is going on in Tower Grove Park this weekend, which not only had
just filled my stomach with AMAZING Bosnian Chicken and veggies, Mexican Empanadas, and a Thai Iced Tea but it also gave me a lot of food for thought. I need to experience St. Louis like I experience every other city I have traveled to by exploring and appreciating everything it has to offer.
Walking though the never ending Tower Grove Park from what I thought would have been a great parking spot on Arsenal near Morganford actually ended up being a twenty minute hike to the actual festival. On the way there however, I did get to experience the wonders that are Tower Grove kickball Tournaments. I actually heard one of the outfielders keep apologizing to his team members about how drunk he was. They all looked like they were having an amazing time though. Who doesn't love kickball??

Festival of Nations was filled a diverse pallet of people from every nationality. That is truly what the United States is supposed to be, isn't it?? A melting pot right? This amazing woman
from Greece who was if I'm not mistaken the dance teacher for the Greek Orthodox Dancers proclaimed "That country gave me life, but this country has given me the best life." It is amazing to hear that this country is the end all for
happiness for a lot of people. I am definitely guilty of taking our country for granted sometimes. I just don't want to miss out on what
the rest of the world has to offer. I completely appreciate however, the fact that we can have all of these cultures peacefully together in one place and showcasing their culture is not only a basic freedom but encouraged!

There were booths of food from every nationality you could ever think of and then some more. My tastebuds were on high alert and my stomach was grumbling from all of the amazing food. A friend and I had to try what seemed to be the most popular drink at the festival, coconut milk, probably because it was served in an actual coconut and had a little umbrella sticking out of it. Bosnian Chicken.. Awesome. Definitely going to check out the restaurant on Keokuk
St. sometime. I missed out on my papa rellenas from the Peruvian tent though :( because they had sold out by the time we got around to eating dinner. That's only part of the reason that I am probably going back tomorrow.

The other reason is more ethnic dancing. Allie and I participated in everything from the Greek OPA's to Belly Dancing from the
side of the stage. The women belly dancing might have been big mamma's but they were incredible belly dancers! The isolations and control those dancers in belly dancing just amazes me, which is probably how Allie got me to sign up for class a couple weeks ago. We were trying to practice our moves on the
sidelines... Maybe one day I have the confidence and skills to get up there and perform.
Till then I'll just
stick to being paparazzi on the sidelines.


Monday, July 12, 2010

Still no REAL job

It's been almost 7 months since I hopped on a plane to come back to suburbia after the craziest experience of my life. I am still in awe of everything that I did in the 3 months that I lived in Peru. I feel like I have been a complete bum since I have been back although I have been working sometimes 4 jobs at once. I am physically exhausted but mentally thriving.

After getting rejected from some jobs and throwing the towel in on the whole real job thing once again, I ended up getting 3 jobs at once. I was pawned out to family, friends, and friend's of friends to take up the much needed post of babysitter or nanny. Nanny just sounds more professional...like an actual job, which everyone seemed to be asking me about. A woman from my church blatantly asked, "Have you gotten a REAL job yet?" I exclaimed, "No, I'm not looking," and walked away. The look on her face was priceless. I had just been overwhelmed by everyone with the question of "what are you doing now?" "where are you working?" and "are you going to grad school next year?" that I just couldn't handle the situation anymore. Comedy seemed like the best way to go at that point.

While yes, I have moved back home and am graciously living off of my parents, I needed to get out of my post Peru funk and actually start working a non REAL jobs. I have always been pretty good with kids, but I was never really an avid babysitting. I had probably logged a total of 15 times during my entire high school career. It wasn't really at the top of my list for jobs right now, but it turned out pretty wonderful. Apparently I'm pretty darn good at it. Who knew?? I definitely feel like I have a real job. I'm doing real work with real people and that is good enough for me.

Today, my grandmother exclaimed that I looked so comfortable playing with my nephew and that I would definitely be ready for some of my own pretty soon (cue scary horror film music).
While I have also been told that they could see me traveling the rest of my life and never get married... While the traveling the rest of my life does sound amazing, I just want to go through life without having all of these expectations. I had expectations going down to Peru, which did not pan out. I had a set plan and expectations for myself for when I graduated, which obviously did not pan out either. The best memories and trips I have ever made were the ones that I didn't plan the first time around anyway. Peru was definitely not part of the plans, and despite a lot of downfalls I will cherish that experience for the rest of my life. I'm hoping what ever comes next will follow suit.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Clarification

I feel like I just need to clarify some things about Peru: It was an amazing experience. I think I keep focusing on the not so pleasant things when I talk about it to people here. I didn't want people to think it was all sparkles and rainbows down there because I definitely was NOT. It was hard for me; it was frustrating not knowing the language, assimilating to a extremely conservative environment, and joining an organization that unloaded all of their drama on me right when I showed up at their doorstep. None the less, even with all of those difficulties, I had an amazing time. I can't seem to express that when I talk to people. I just keep focusing on the no good, very bad things about my time down there, which is really weird because I'm usually the optimistic one. My glass is usually half full, but Peru seems to come out half empty whenever I talk about it. :-(

The good things:
  • Experiencing a new culture
  • Beginning to learn a new language
  • Having time to relax and read
  • Living on the beach
  • 70 degree weather all the time!!
  • Being in a city that didn't require needing a car
  • Open markets
  • FRESH FRUIT
  • Fresh fish
  • My students
  • Being a photographer at a Peruvian wedding
  • Getting pulled into the Lion cage and not getting eaten
  • Learning about the Peacecorps
  • My Peruvian family
  • Thanksgiving with Mark and my Peruvian family
  • Machu Picchu
  • Traveling
  • Walks around Cusco and Lima
  • Canoncillo
  • Mi hombre de frutas
  • Huanchaco
  • Sandcastle pumpkins
  • Sitting in our hammock
  • The huge hugs and smiles from our orphans
  • Ceviche
  • Cafe con leche
  • The homemade chocolate lady
  • My artisan Jeffery
  • Street Hamburguesas
  • New friends from all over the world