More to come later
Monday, August 25, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Iowa is over!
Hello and goodbye Iowans.
After 30 days of mucking houses ravaged by the floods I have left Iowa. For almost 4 weeks straight, I traveled around NE Iowa, touching the lives of homeowners in Cedar Falls, Waverly, Mason City, Clear Lake, and places in between. We worked hard and saw some pretty disgusting houses as well as some extremely depressed homeowners. We did what we could and got extremely dirty in the process. Due to the nature of the work I never actually had my camera on the job so I do not have any photos of the actual work. Bummer, I know. I might end up with some pictures if I can steal them from other people. I do, however, have pictures from our free time, and from our travels. I left last Saturday and traveled the first day stopping in Detroit, MI to spend the night. While in Detroit, we stopped at what is known as the art block, which is a street decorated in controversy and historical art all produced by a resident of the area. Detroit was a pretty poor area, the area I visited, and I was so close to Canada I could see it! I wanted to go, but we were not allowed to. We made it back to Maryland late the next evening and spent the next couple days relaxing on campus. I left again this morning to head to New Orleans, LA. We are halfway there, stopping tonight in Knoxville, TN. I have about 2 weeks in New Orleans and I am not sure what I am going to do. My team has been trained to lead volunteers in building houses so I will probably help the volunteers. After those couple of weeks I am heading back to Maryland again for fall break. Cory, Sarah, Rae, and I are going to spend 5 days in New York. Should be a good break. After that break I have only 2 months left in AmeriCorps and should graduate on Nov. 13th. I am extremely excited to come back home. I know it has been a while since I have posted, but I have been busy, busy working and busy hanging out with my new team. The team was amazing and it was sad leaving them to rejoin my old team.
Iowa was simply INCREDIBLE!
Found a cardboard cutout of Princess Leia
Nice rainbow over Meijer (new favorite store) outside of Detroit
Painted doors artwork on the art block
The OJ House (home of the artist) on the art block
Noah's Ark on the art block
Faces on cinder blocks under phones on the art block
Weapons of mass destruction on the art block
Camel Cancer ad on the art block
Vacuums under boots representing women's rights on the art block
My reflection of our work in Iowa. Mud on tile with permanent marker
There was also a tree covered in stuffed animals with shopping carts at the top upside-down representing the animal rights, meat industry, and supermarket industry. Too cloudy to photograph.
All photos can be viewed in larger formats here
Take care everyone, I will write again when I am in New Orleans.
See you in 3 months!
After 30 days of mucking houses ravaged by the floods I have left Iowa. For almost 4 weeks straight, I traveled around NE Iowa, touching the lives of homeowners in Cedar Falls, Waverly, Mason City, Clear Lake, and places in between. We worked hard and saw some pretty disgusting houses as well as some extremely depressed homeowners. We did what we could and got extremely dirty in the process. Due to the nature of the work I never actually had my camera on the job so I do not have any photos of the actual work. Bummer, I know. I might end up with some pictures if I can steal them from other people. I do, however, have pictures from our free time, and from our travels. I left last Saturday and traveled the first day stopping in Detroit, MI to spend the night. While in Detroit, we stopped at what is known as the art block, which is a street decorated in controversy and historical art all produced by a resident of the area. Detroit was a pretty poor area, the area I visited, and I was so close to Canada I could see it! I wanted to go, but we were not allowed to. We made it back to Maryland late the next evening and spent the next couple days relaxing on campus. I left again this morning to head to New Orleans, LA. We are halfway there, stopping tonight in Knoxville, TN. I have about 2 weeks in New Orleans and I am not sure what I am going to do. My team has been trained to lead volunteers in building houses so I will probably help the volunteers. After those couple of weeks I am heading back to Maryland again for fall break. Cory, Sarah, Rae, and I are going to spend 5 days in New York. Should be a good break. After that break I have only 2 months left in AmeriCorps and should graduate on Nov. 13th. I am extremely excited to come back home. I know it has been a while since I have posted, but I have been busy, busy working and busy hanging out with my new team. The team was amazing and it was sad leaving them to rejoin my old team.
Iowa was simply INCREDIBLE!
Found a cardboard cutout of Princess Leia
Nice rainbow over Meijer (new favorite store) outside of Detroit
Painted doors artwork on the art block
The OJ House (home of the artist) on the art block
Noah's Ark on the art block
Faces on cinder blocks under phones on the art block
Weapons of mass destruction on the art block
Camel Cancer ad on the art block
Vacuums under boots representing women's rights on the art block
My reflection of our work in Iowa. Mud on tile with permanent marker
There was also a tree covered in stuffed animals with shopping carts at the top upside-down representing the animal rights, meat industry, and supermarket industry. Too cloudy to photograph.
All photos can be viewed in larger formats here
Take care everyone, I will write again when I am in New Orleans.
See you in 3 months!
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