6/5/11

What’s Happening Everyone,

It’s been awhile since my last post, so I got to catch ya’ll up on some things.

My team and I have been in Pawnee City, Nebraska for the last two weeks and we’ve been working at the Pawnee City Historical Society.  So far, we’ve scraped, primed, and painted two buildings and are in the process of priming a third building.  It’s been good work—a lot more physical than our last project as camp counselors in MI.  It’s true that it can get monotonous doing the same few tasks everyday from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm.  I’ve been either scraping paint off the exterior walls of old schoolhouse, priming those scraped walls, or applying the top coat of paint to those primed walls.  I’ve spent whole days just scraping or just painting.  And I’ve probably spent a couple days total on ladders—extension and step ladders.  It is good work, though.  It has definitely given me the confidence to be more DIY when I get home.  I feel like I’ve figured out methods of painting and scraping that work and don’t work.  Another thought that has come into my head while performing this work is that our project sponsor believes enough the quality of our work that she is willing to have a volunteer group of 10 young folks renovate her buildings.  You can’t help but want to do a good job and hold yourself to high standards. 

Pawnee City is a pretty small city; in fact, in the last couple of years the population has dropped from 1200 to about 800.  Most of the folks who live here are elderly.  There is not a whole lot to do in the surrounding area since it is mostly farms around us.  And it has taken some getting used to.  I’ve only been here two weeks but it really does feel more like a month.  At the same time, I don’t mind.  The lack of major tourist attractions or venues gives me a chance to do some reading.  Aside from reading, most of my time has been spent exercising, playing some basketball with my teammates, and watching moves with them too.  Haha, for some reason, most of the movies we’ve watched have been romantic comedies.

Last week for Memorial Day, my team and I helped set up an “Avenue of Flags” at the county courthouse.  We helped set up flag poles and American flags.  There was a reverent mood in the air.  I know that I for sure was afraid to drop the flags on the ground or to make any mistake.  Although it was kind of stressful setting up the flags, it was really a nice site to see after we and the other community volunteers were done.  Nebraska has been having some pretty heavy winds recently.  Just picture about 75 American flags blowing perfectly in the wind.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

Next up, the bison farm.  Tomorrow, my team and I are going to be visiting a local bison farm.  We’ll see if it’s possible to ride one of them.  I’ll let you folks know how it goes.

Til next time,

David