Day 4: June 22nd, 2010
This morning we left a little earlier so that we would be able to visit another work site before getting back to work on our own house. The house we visited was spectacular! (Everyone called this site “Salina’s House.” I don’t really know why but I will adopt this name for convenient reference.) The Salina’s House featured a frame built by 2×4’s instead of garage doors. It also had brand new windows and doors and was going to have cabinets, recessed lights, and a bathtub installed. Whereas our group consisted of 15-17 year olds their group consisted of more college aged people and adults. They seemed like they had more experience and had actually built their trusses (the structure that supports the roof) in their wood shop class. I am looking forward to returning next year with more experience, better plans, and better materials and hopefully build a house as magnificent as the Salina’s House! We would have to fund raise quite a bit but I’m seriously thinking about getting the word out to schools around the area and perhaps some schools back in New Jersey and kicking off some fundraisers.
Though the house we visited was definitely impressive, I still thought our house was verrrry nice (While in Tijuana we, okay maybe just Melissa and I, had this ongoing joke where one of us would say, “Verrrry nice” and the other would follow up with, “How much?!?!” ala Borat which neither of us have watched by the way.) As stated before most of us do not have much experience but I think it’s this lack of experience that makes our house more personal. There was a lot of uncertainty and we had to improvise a lot which made our success even more of an accomplishment.
Sometime during the work day, Jessica, her little sister Gavriella, and Jessica’s friend Isis came over. They brought tambourines and I asked if they could demonstrate how to play it and they taught me a tambourine dance! It’s wonderful how even though there is a language barrier we are able to communicate and enjoy each other’s (attempts at choppy) conversation.
When the work day ended and we drove back to our dorms the adults stepped out and Johnson told them that he was taking some of the teenagers out to visit the Salina’s House. They had made some substantial progress! It was really motivating to see how much progress they had made and how much progress we could have made if we had more experience. Johnson was going to let Jerry drive on the way back but as Jerry was scrambling to sit in the front seat we heard the furious pitter patter of feet. These footsteps belonged to Father O and Vincent. Father O reprimanded us for leaving without telling anyone (even though we told four parents…) but I have to say I was more focused on the bugling vein on his left temple.
On a side note, I hate it when people treat me differently just because I’m a girl or because I’m younger and this automatically correlates to inexperience, obvi. Agggh! For example: I was tracing a piece for the trusses when John Moore told me I had done it all wrong and proceeded to snatch the template and pencil out of my hand and trace just as I was. It took him a while to realize that I had been tracing correctly and thankfully he apologized but arghs it was frustrating! (2) Sometimes when I asked if I could help it seemed like I was going to be assigned something to do UNTIL they saw that I was a girl and muttered, “Oh, no nevermind…” Wait wut? (I feel like the w-u-t spelling of what is appropriate for this situation.)
Lessons learned:
- I dislike it very much when people underestimate me or are condescending towards me. I thought that I would become passive aggressive but I’ve learned that I have quite the attitude. I used to care quite a lot about offending others and how I was perceived by others and was thus cautious about angering others but I’ve learned to act for myself instead of for others. I used to be extremely codependent but I am on my way to being independent. I still care about offending those that I care about but my actions are becoming less and less dictated by how others will react.
