¡Hola de Miami, por fin!
We’ve been here about three and a half weeks and are super busy and are loving it! We’re working with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Miami and are living in a Habitat house in Princeton, FL (southern Miami-Dade County not quite to Homestead). The house is in the second largest Habitat community in the country—Jordan Commons—which is a really friendly and quiet neighborhood for the most part. There are constantly kids out in the street shooting hoops or riding bikes and skateboards. We have plenty of space to run around for PT.
The first two weeks we were here we participated as supervisors for the 2010 Blitz Build, completing 10 houses in 2 weeks with an average of about 200 volunteers every day. We worked about 120 hours each in 12 days. The houses were built in a new lot of donated land about 3 miles south of Jordan Commons called Shrader’s Haven, which will be a community of 22 houses when all is said and done. We had so many volunteers during the Blitz that we wound up starting work on seven overflow houses on top of the ten main houses. It was really neat to be a part of such a huge experience—we saw the houses go from concrete shells to having walls, baseboard, countertops and cabinets, being painted inside and out and landscaped. We got to work with a lot of the homeowners and also got to attend the dedication at the end of the Blitz where they received their house keys.
raising trusses
shingling
shingling 10 houses at once!
painting the exterior stucco
it's a rainbow!
a homeowner and her family get their keys!
We’re now into the portion of Habitat’s year called Collegiate Challenge, where many high schools and colleges send groups down on spring break to volunteer for a week. My team and I are getting great experience leading volunteers and keeping people organized and on task throughout the day. It’s a little frustrating at times because we’re meant to be more “hands-off” during these supervision times, letting the volunteers do the work when we’d usually like to be participating also. I try to sneak in a couple of hammer hits and little bits of work when I can, though.
I’ve also been able to use my Spanish a good bit here. A lot of the construction staff are from various parts of Central America and Mexico and are excited to communicate with me in Spanish. I’ve been able to speak to several homeowners also, and it’s a good feeling that I haven’t lost that much of my fluency in my year and a half out of school.
I have a bit of a break coming up—Spence is coming to visit this weekend so I took a couple personal days and will be relaxing on South Beach from Friday afternoon until Wednesday. I’m very excited for some time away to get reenergized to finish up our time here March 11 and head back to Vicksburg for transition before our final project!
I hope you’re all weathering the winter warmly and surrounded by friends. Please know that you’re in my thoughts here in sunny Miami and I’d love to talk to you soon! XO
