3 weeks to go

Yesterday was a pretty scary day.  It was the first time that I was truly worried about the safety of the kids. 

Usually during dinner, Paul or Jake (the camp program directors) tell us the plan for the evening.  The usual plan is to go back to our cabins with our campers for about an hour (~6:30 to ~7:30pm) and then do some dodgeball before our campfire at 9:00pm.  Yesterday, for some reason, Paul told us to meet back for dodgeball at 8:00pm. 

Now earlier during the dinner, Paul had asked to speak to one counselor from each cabin (starting this week, there are a group of Education students completing an internship with the YMCA.  And we will be paired up with them).  As we were walking back to our cabins, I learned from Chad ( a 34-yr old Education student) that what Paul had told us was all a cover-up for the kids.  The truth was that a hail storm was quickly heading our way.  We had to get the kids in the cabin and stay there until we heard word from the staff that it was okay to come outside.  It was almost a certainty that golf-ball sized hail was going to fall.  And there was a 50% chance of a tornado hitting our area.

As we were walking up the hill back to our cabin, the air was eerily still.  It was relatively quiet also, except for the wind that was starting to pick up and the quickening thunder.  The sky was turning grayer and grayer.  On the outside, I tried to remain calm so that the campers wouldn’t freak out or anything.  Inside, I was still pretty calm.  But I kept thinking about how awful it would be for the kids to have to experience a thunderstorm with hail and a tornado.  I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be what they were expecting from camp.  And if a tornado did hit, I’m not sure what would happen to our cabins.  All I knew was that if we heard the sirens, Chad and I had to get our kids into the shower as quickly as possible.  I didn’t want to even imagine how scared the kids might become when the hail started falling and we were all smushed into a small bathroom.  What if the kids started crying?  What if they started screaming uncontrollably?  I could only imagine.

Fortunately, we eventually got the word and we ended up playing dodgeball around 7:45pm.  There was no hail storm.  Luckily, there was no tornado.  Now that was a close call!

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On another note, my team and I learned last week that our next project will be in Pawnee City, Nebraska.  We are going to be living at the Pawnee City Historical Society and will be helping dust their artifacts.  We are also going to help renovate some of their main building.  I’m looking forward to it.  We are going to be there for a total of 6 weeks.  It’s going to be a lot different than living at Sherman Lake YMCA.  There are only like 6 restaurants in the entire city.  Yesterday, I was looking it up in Google and it looks like there are no other cities around for at least 25-30 miles.  I imagine I will be staring at dirt in all directions, as far as the eye can see.  I’m not thinking about it too much because I still have 3 more weeks at Sherman Lake and I want to make the most of it.  The thing I’m thinking most about right now is that I’m going to the state where my grandparents first immigrated to from the Philippines.  I’m a ways away from Omaha, where they lived.  But I’m sure I still get a feel for the type of scenery they experienced.

Til’ next time!

Some Pictures

Written on 4/10

I left out a very important piece of information on my last post.  WHERE I’M STAYING AT.  The YMCA camp my team and I are working at is located in Augusta, MI.  The biggest city I’m near is Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids.  I’m on the southwest side of Michigan.  A big difference I see between southwest Michigan and California is the amount of woods in Michigan.  On the freeway, on the side streets, in people’s backyards, in their frontyards, there are woods everywhere.  It doesn’t look really pretty right now because it’s not spring yet.  But I imagine that it must get pretty green once spring hits.

The schools in Augusta and the surrounding areas were on spring break this past week, which meant that my team and I got a one-week break.  While I was not working with campers, I was doing maintenance work for the YMCA.  Over the course of a week, I spent about 7 hours raking maple leaves.  I chopped some logs into firewood for four hours and then picked up some fallen trees (which had been chainsaw-ed into logs) for the rest of a work day.  I helped finish a dirt trail, leading from the dock to another site.  This consisted of sawing off fallen trees, leveling uneven ground with a shovel, and making dirt platforms.  A few of my teammates and I also installed some hand-rails along a trail that was pretty steep.  I learned how to put in a metal post and how to burn through climbing rope with a propane bottle.  By the end of the week, I was pretty sore.  It was good, physical work.  It was also the type of work that I expected to be doing as a part of NCCC.  There were some moments where I just wanted to rest and chill.  But I’m glad I got through it.  It will definitely help me adjust more quickly if our next project is a more physical one such as trail-building. 

Friday was a pretty scary day.  My team leader got a call from the Iowa campus informing her that if Congress didn’t come up with a budget by midnight, we would have to leave Michigan immediately and head back to Iowa—once we received a phone call.  It definitely caused all of us some stress.  Throughout the night, I kept on checking the time, hoping and waiting for my team leader to text us any updates.  Luckily, at 11:30 pm, I received a text from my team leader letting me know that a budget deal had been reached.

Today, I watched the news and read the paper, trying to find out what kind of deal had been reached.  It’s kind of weird that I wasn’t able to find anything.  It’s interesting that what may have been an important issue to NCCC—being a federally funded program—may not have been as important of an issue to the outside world.  My team and I were literally on the edge of our seats, anxious to hear about what was going to happen to us.  I’m glad that what sounds like a temporary deal has been reached.  It means I don’t have to pack up everything and leave for Iowa. 

But this whole government shutdown mess truly doesn’t make sense.  It was Republicans and Democrats fighting over planned parenthood and the oversight of the EPA.  While these are important issues, I feel that they have no direct connection to the economic recession, which is what politicians were all talking about before this all happened.  It really was annoying to know that so many people’s lives would be affected by so few people.  While I am interested in working in the government/public sector, this shutdown scare opened my eyes to the fact that a government job can also be unstable.  In a lot of ways, your job is dependent on the politicians and lawmakers and the decisions they choose to make.

After an eventful week, I’ll be working with the campers again.  Time to gear up.  I’ll keep ya’ll updated.

-David