100's of cups of coffee

So today was the big switch. Bonnie and I switched shifts with Erin and Tanya! This means I had to wake up at 3:30 am and start work at 4 for the breakfast shift. Anyone reading this probably knows the only time I’m up at 3:30 in the morning is when I haven’t gone to sleep from the night before. Somehow I was able to pull it off and I even made it to work on time. The morning shift is a lot different because not everyone cooks and preps food. Cassandra cooks just about everything in the ovens while Caitlin cooks the eggs. The eggs are prepackaged in these huge bags and to cook them you place them in boiling water. Gross, but at least its not made from a powder. We also served bacon, grits, biscuits and then all the cold food like cereal, bagels, toast… My job was to make sure the entire dinning area was clean and everything was stocked. For the most part I cleaned everything, made coffee, filled the juice containers, made sure all the cold food was stocked and stacked cups. It was a little more laid back then the dinner shift but I was still busy for the majority of the time.

This week is going to be a little crazier because we normally have between 200-400 people staying at camp. This week we are going to top out at well over 700. Luckily we have been able to convert the entire down stairs area into living spaces. We finished dry walling, putting up ceilings, cleaning the floors, and putting cots up. Unfortunately that was still not enough room to house everyone so a couple of our lounges are being converted. Furthermore, they are slowly breaking down our final big lounge that is right across the hall from us. They have taken down the middle shelf where we would usually use our lap tops. The large flat screen TV was also moved to another room but Dan and I stole it back.

Having this many people at camp also means cold showers. The plan is to get a shower trailer where there will hopefully be constant running hot water. There is also a rumor going around that we will be getting some port’o potties, but I don’t really see why we would need them. We don’t have a shortage of bathrooms just hot water. But with good news always comes bad news. We only have one full time maintenance worker at camp, Lizarick, and with all the new showers and bathrooms he needs help cleaning. So of course they are going to turn to the NCCC members to help clean bathrooms, hallways and take out trash on every Sunday and Monday. It’s really not that big of a deal but I think they should hire another worker instead. They are obviously making a good amount of money because everyone that stays here has to pay.

Working the morning shift also means I’m done work at noon and have the whole day to do whatever I want. Usually the morning crew takes a nap but today we had a team meeting from 11:30 to 12:30 and then James, Bonnie and I went on an ISP with other corps members. We went to a bike shop called Plan B. Plan B takes spare parts that they can scavenge from old bikes and builds “new” bikes for locals and kids in the community. They also give classes that teach people how to build bikes from scratch. I helped take apart bike tires today. We would take the axle and ball bearing apart from the hub of the tire and then take all the usable spokes off. In the 4 hours that we were there we were able to take apart about 20 tires. Every first Monday of the month is a volunteer day where they close down the shop from repairs and selling bikes and just clean everything and let people volunteer to take apart or build bikes. We met a couple other volunteers from around the area and had a pretty fun time. Depending on how long we will be in the area we might try to do this again!


I miss everyone and Happy New Years!

Feel free to send me mail!

Matt Walenciak - Green 2
1201 Bayou Road
Saint Bernard, LA 70085