Beginning of Round 2

Yesterday Blue 3 arrived in Green River, Utah after a day and a half of travel. Upon arrival in town a few cars driven by the people at Positive Action Community Team(PACT) surrounded our van and escorted us to the Boys and Girls Club while waving American flags out their windows. It was quite the welcome, and I feel like our presence is much more significant in this community than it was in Los Angeles. We met with the people working here (including several Americorps VISTA members and a former NCCC Corps Member from the Sacramento campus) and were told it was about time to pick up the kids from school. We walked a handful of elementary school students from their school to the Boys and Girls club and played with them until five, when Karate lessons started. At that point we were fed dinner and then sent over to a community hall meeting. It was really interesting to see the local politics in effect and to see the mayor and the council dealing entirely with tangible issues, rather than the vague promises and ideologies that seem to be more prevalent in larger governing bodies. After the town hall meeting we were finally given access to our housing, which is a really small two bedroom apartment, roughly the size of the apartment I had to myself back at RIT. Once we set up the place I crashed pretty much instantly.

Today, after our usual 6A.M. PT, we started a full day of work, which entailed us working at the Baxter Building, a run down building that they're trying to renovate into another office. I spent the majority of the day shoveling discarded parts of a layered tar roof that they'd recently pulled off into a dumpster. I was frequently up past my ankles in mud and was really grateful for all my personal protective equipment, as I got hit in the face with wood and found a roofing tack in my shoe while working. The wood was actually my fault, I threw a plank into the wood pile in such a way that it hit another one, causing it to come flying back at me. I don't think I've ever met such a vengeful pile of sticks before. After lunch half of the team left to work at the Boys and Girls club, but I stayed at the Baxter building to do more physical labor. After work we made dinner, finished setting up the apartment, and I'm currently writing this from inside the Boys and Girls club (we have unlimited access to this space too).

My first impression of the town is that it's a struggling, very tiny community. I think they don't really have the population to sustain a lot of business, so as a result a significant part of the community is unemployed. This further adds to the problem, because the town looks rather run down due to all the empty buildings, which probably further repels potential businesses. They do get by on what they have, which is commendable, but I definitely see why we're here. I feel like any work we put into this town will benefit everyone, which is very different from our first project. The town subsists primarily on agriculture and tourism, so they're subject to a lot of external factors as well.

Other random thoughts about our living: It's currently extremely muddy all through town; I doubt I'll be wearing my normal sneakers anywhere while I'm here. Food is really expensive here, so we'll have to be extra careful with our budget (we accidentally went way over today while grocery shopping). Having access to the Boys and Girls club is wonderful, because it gives us space to go away from the rest of the team in that very small apartment. The stars at night are amazing; I haven't seen them this clearly since I was in Maine. It isn't nearly as cold here as I thought it'd be, it feels pretty much just like being back home (not that home isn't cold, I was just preparing for worse). The people we're working with are awesome, they all seem really knowledgeable, funny, and mellow. I'm not ready to say that I'll like being here quite yet, but for now it seems livable and like our work will be appreciated, so I think it'll be rewarding in the end.