Super Late Update

OK, I know it's been a while... A long while...  So here is what's been happening.

About a month and a half/two months ago, I had an accident on the job.  I was still working at Red Cross and I noticed a bunch of thirty pound boxes were on a broken pallet and were stacked incorrectly, so a volunteer and I went to go get a better pallet to restack the boxes.  As we were setting the new pallet down beside the broken one, all of the thirty pound boxes fell, landing on my shoulders, back, and head.  The weight of the boxes pushed me to the ground and I wasn't able to get up until the boxes fell off of me.  I sprained my wrist, knee, and ankle, severely bruised my other knee, and received a concussion. 
A couple of weeks after my accident, my sprains were healing up but I was having a lot of other problems such as serious memory problems.  AmeriCorps talked to me about taking a medical leave so that I could recover.  I said I would think about it, but would take the weekend to try and recover.  I spent the whole weekend in bed, trying to rest.  Sure enough, by the next week, I was fine again. 
After a week of being perfectly fine again, I was contacted and told I was being sent home for a medical leave.  I explained that I was fine, but they wouldn't listen.  Once home, I realized that they make coming back very difficult.  A lot of doctor paperwork and visits.  After a month, I finally made it back to AmeriCorps.  After coming back, I expected for things to go back to normal, but... no.  A bunch of teams were rearranged, including mine, so now I am on another team.  At first I was devastated, well, I still am, but I'm more optimistic than before.  The people on my new team seem really nice and awesome, they've welcomed me with open arms, so I'm hoping for the best!  There's only eight weeks of AmeriCorps left before we graduate! 

Week...... Yeah, let's go with Texas and Floods!

I don't feel like counting weeks, so I'll just start going by normal titles.

We were originally supposed to stay in Mississippi in a town about 50 minutes away from our Vicksburg Campus.  That changed to us travling around Mississippi.  We would be working with Red Cross helping with fire awareness, setting up smoke alarms, etc.   We were to deploy on Tuesday and we would be quite close to the ocean.  Monday, we were told that we had to pack our things and leave immediatly for the disaster in Texas.  Within 3 hours we were in our van off to Austin, Texas.

Austin was absolutely beautiful.  We didn't get to see too much of it due to us being shipped straight from Austin to Houston.  Our FEMA POC (point of contact) told us he didn't want us stuck in an office working, he wanted us out in the field.  So in Houston, we got to do just that.

Here in Houston we are working with the American Red Cross.  We are on 12 hour shifts down in a warehouse.  We load and unload trucks full of supplies like clean-up kits, comfort kits, food, water, snacks, diapers, gloves, wipes, etc, etc.  We also get to, sometimes, deliver these supplies as well.  On one day, I was able to go door to door offering clean-up kits to different home-owners.  One man, when he came to the door, was holding photographs in his hand.  You could tell he was very destraught, and at first, told us no thank you to the clean-up kit.  But after a moment, he told us he would like one.  He told us he was currently trying to salvage photographs in his home...

On Sunday, I was able to go in an ERV (basically a Red Cross ambulance full of food).  We went down a neighborhood honking our horn and speaking through a speaker announcing that we had food and drinks.  It felt almost as if we were an ice cream truck.  Many, many people came to us.  Most of them did not speak English, so communication was a bit tricky.  They were either of hispanic descent or Asian.  One lady was using a walker, so I helped carry food into her garage.  She looked upset and she told me that her power was off and that she was "off".  You could tell she was very scared and unsure.  I wished I could've done more to help her.  I asked if there was anything more we could do, but she said no.  She was very grateful for the little help we could offer.  Almost everyone we spoke to was.

In a county outside of Houston there are homes still underwater.  Roadways that looks like a river.  People are having to use boats to travel, or are having to swim.  On top of this, Dallas had to open some of it's flood gates, sending water to this community that's still underwater.  Now, on top of all of this, a tropical storm has touched land today.  Tomorrow is when it is expected to hit Houston.  Prayers for this would be appreciated.

All in all, I am absolutely loving this work! I can't imagine this work being any better! I love the people I am working for and they have been very kind to me in return.  I have been given an amazing oppertunity to really help people.  As I like to say, I'm not here to change the world, I just want to help one person at a time.  And with this oppertunity with Red Cross, I have been given that chance to help.

Last thing, this weekend, we will either be staying in Houston for a few more weeks, or will be headed back to Austin to go to a FEMA JFO (Joint Field Office) where we would be working in our specialty roles.  For me, that would mean Logistics, which means I would be helping set up shelters, that sort of thing.  Some of the other specialty roles are things like damage assessment, helping set people up for FEMA money, office work, people work, that boring-I mean fun- type of stuff.   

<----- An ERV

Week 12

Wow! Another week gone by! Well, this week has been a rather exciting week........

Thursday, we got to go to the fire department and have an informative interview with the fire chief.  That was awesome in and of itself, but then he offered to give us a tour!  They usually only give kids tours, so you could tell they enjoyed being able to actually explain things that they normally wouldn't be able to explain to children.  Like better discriptions of what each compartment holds in the firetruck, what different gadgets do, etc.  Then they asked us if we would be interested in going up on the 100 foot ladder.   Naturally, we all said yes!  That was super awesome!  After, we got a tour of the whole building-including their living quarters which apparently they normally don't show.  I finally get to say I saw a kitchen in a fire department!  That's been a weird goal of mine...  Then they gave us souvenirs! 

 On Friday, we went back to Red Cross and got to organize some cluttered cabinets and make them all pretty! Naturally, we have fun along the way....

Saturday, we got to go help out with some Cert Training.  (The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations. Using the training learned

 

in the classroom and during exercises, CERT members can assist others in their neighborhood or workplace following an event when professional responders are not immediately available to help. CERT members also are encouraged to support emergency response agencies by taking a more active role in emergency preparedness projects in their community)  The last test for these people was to rescue survivors.  We were the "survivors".  They put injury makeup on us, and then sent us to a dark basement (an old morgue, actually).  It was an awesome, awesome time!  They gave me a stuffed dog, so I went with the "crazy pet owner" and decided that I wasn't leaving the "disaster area" without my dog.  They had to carry me out on this blanket-thingy, then they wrapped my injured arm and worked on my "broken" leg.  It was definitely an interesting experience...

That night I went to World of Fun! That was super awesome! And then Tuesday, I went to a Mary Kay Convention.... There were a lot of rich ladies who were big into makeup there.  I wasn't one of them.  It was a fun experience though!

Nothing else has really gone on this week, but this weekend was busy! We went to Rolla, MO and went to two ISPs.  One involved cleaning a room of toys that was for children with special needs, the other was helping out at the Fugitive Run.  The Fugitive Run was awesome! I didn't run it, I just volunteered there.  At the end they let us go down this water slide, it was awesome! The impact was really hard but I really loved it.  It rained the entire time we were there and it was cold, so we were all soaked completely.  But I enjoyed it!

Sunday, two of us went to go to the animal shelter one last time.  We cleaned some rooms and said goodbye to our favorite animals.  They sent us into the feral room without telling us, so we couldn't figure out why all the cats were so violent.  Besides that, it was a good time. 

That's pretty much it for this week! Hope you all enjoy this post!

Week 11

Sorry for not writing in a while, it's been pretty busy and not much has been going on.  I moved from the Training Department to working for an archeologist.  My job consists of cleaning prehistoric artifacts and logging them into the computer.  I've mostly finished that work now, so what I'll be doing next, I don't know.  It was supposed to be something dealing with GIS mapping, but with only two weeks left here, I'm unable to get deep into a new project.

As for out-of-the-office stuff, sometime (who knows when, at this rate) we got to go to a farmers market.  It was huge and beautiful! It had a whole lot more than just fruits and veggies there.  They had musicians playing on the streets, booths of handmade soaps, native american crafts, and everything else you can think of.  A couple of weeks later, we went back and I got to go inside of an Asian market by the farmers market.  It was the largest one I had ever been in and I got to buy a huge bag of shrimp chips and crab chips, something I had never tried before.  The crab chips were amazing!

Another highlight of the farmer's market trip was that I got to try a ginger shot with my team leader! It was very good and had a pretty big kick to it.  Enough that my team leader thought there was actualy alcohol in the ginger shot.  Luckily there wasn't, but it was defininitely an interesting sensation. 

The same day as the first farmer's market trip we got to go to the central library and to a really pretty park!

That next weekend-or so- we got to do an ISP (individual service project/volunteer work, basically) painting for Salvation Army Camp that we were staying in.

Speaking of which, we changed lodging.  I'm staying in an extended stay now.  I miss being able to go outdoors and get some fresh air, but the hotel has some cool things like a gym, pool, free cookies, along with free hot cocoa, tea, and coffee.  It's not as nice as the camp, but it's better than other alternatives!

Some other volunteer work we've done include working at redcross and the atlas race, but I'll get to the race later...

Some of the other awesome places we've been able to go to include a big historical art meseum! It was amazing and beautiful! Some of the things there were so incredibly old.  I had originally thought we were going to a modern art mesuem, so this suprised me by a lot!

We also got to have a twenty minute informative interview with OK GO and got to see them live!

Last weekend we got to volunteer at Nile's Home For Children for the National Day Of Service, Global Youth Service Day.  We gardened in their organic, no-plow garden!  We all had a great time and really enjoyed the work! We also made some new friends, as well...

Now for the Atlas Race!  We volunteered there for ten and a half hours.  Some of us were handing out medals, water, and t-shirts to the racers, other's were out on the course handing out water out there and giving directions.  At the last minute I decided to participate in the race.  I ran up to registration and registered for my first race.  A 3.5 mile obstacle course with over twenty obstacles.  I had five minutes to make it to the start line.  I was really nervous about it in the beginning, not sure if I was fit enough to try something like this, but it was the most amazing thing ever!  Some of the obstacles I couldn't do, on one another racer helped me up a wall and then some other's helped catch me from the seven-or-so drop.  The racers were so sweet and nice! It was great to meet new people!  When I crossed the finish line, a lady came up to me and when she found out it was my first race, she put the medal on for me and gave me a hug.  It was a great, great experience!

Besides all of that, there hasn't been much else.  In two weeks we leave back for campus, then our week-long break, then we will be deployed somewhere else! 

Week 7

It's almost been two months since I've gotten here!! It's definintly been an interesting time.  This week has mostly been work.  I was moved from Lessons Learned, (where we take in the complaints basically and try to come up with ideas to improve FEMA) to Training where I train people on how to do things.  We've been working on training people on how to use Microsoft Lync, we've even made Job Aids! :D  It's been nice to get things done and have an actual schedule for once.

I don't have much to say, or pictures to show.  My team leader, a team mate, and I got to go volunteer at HELP Humane, an animal shelter not too far away.  That was really fun and exciting!! We had a great time! For years I have wanted to volunteer at an animal shelter, so being given these oppertunities are great! There are mostly cats.  It's a no-kill shelter, so there are a lot of highly abused animals, a lot of animals that "no one would want" type situation.  So because of that all of the workers and volunteers give the animals extra love and care!  There were about four or five dogs, two of which did not want to have anything to do with us.  One didn't like men...and we happen to show up in hoodies and cargo pants.  After a while he let me start petting him and my teammates stared suprisingly at the dog whom was letting me love on him.  Another dog kept trying to bite whenever we tried to get the leash on, but I managed to get it on and get him to like me, so that was a lot of fun!  I'm really hoping this will open doors for me for college...

Speaking of which, I am currently trying to find a way to job shadow at the Kansas City Zoo!  And perhaps even a vet and marine biologist? We will see! Prayers appreciated!

That's about all! Here are some pictures!  I will try to post again next week!
The dog who doesn't like collars(Waffles). A pug who is blind a deaf.

A paralized cat named Popsicle. A cat who had been very abused and was kept in a seperate room for rehabilitation.
One of the cats in the "diet room".

Week 5 & 6

I've made it to Kansas City!!  Very exciting!!  No more emergency room trips on my end, but I did have to go to the doctor for a long-lasting stomach virus.  It lasted around a week, if not longer....  Yet the doctor kept insisting it would only last 48 hours even though it had already been four days...

Anyways!  So going to Kansas City was amazing!! After a bit of a delay we left, and we made it to St. Louis at 10 or 11 at night.  My best friend, Hannah, met us at the hotel.  We must've looked like in the movies (or a really bad version of it) as we ran and jumped into each other's arms.  My best memory here so far would probably be that.  It was so wonderful and unexpected seeing her.  We had only known for about a day that we would even be seeing each other.  And then the day of, I found out I was staying 10 minutes from where she lives!  Very exciting!! 

The next day we went to St. Louis and got to tour around a bit! That was fun!  I got to get pretty close to the Arch, go into some cool buildings whose names I have forgotten...  I also got to have AMAZING gormet sushi!  And I got a bunch of neat souveniers!

We've done some other really cool things like go to this coin meseum, shopping, and an art mesuem too!

 

With the shopping we did, I did go a little overboard. ;) But it was a lot of fun! I also got to see some cats at PetsMart




As for this WEEK and not this weekEND, work has been interesting.  I work with "Lessons Learned" which is where after a disaster, we receive the reflections and comments on what should change.  The complaints and compliments basically.
So far though, I haven't been able to do much...  I got to staple some papers today....  And I sat in a conference with the LOG Chief (I'm in LOG (Logistics) in FEMA Corps), so that was exciting.  And another big head.  By mistake, I managed to call the conference and everyone tried to figure out where the echo of their voices were coming from while I frantically tried to figure out how to hang up.  Luckily they never realized it came from me.  This happened a couple of hours ago so I'm still pretty emberassed. 
I attended a new church this past Sunday.  A couple of families were pretty nice to me but it isn't like the church in Vicksburg by any means.  Hopefully I'll like it more as I keep attending.
Please keep me in your prayers, I'll try to post again when I can.