Well here we are the second day of the second week of round four. Officially Ice now been in Seattle for one week. Gold 1 has crammed into a shady two bedroom one bath. Its one of those apartments you see from a main stretch of road. You know the ones hidden behind all the trees with only a snippet of second story concrete balcony and people loitering there....drinking smoking and doing drugs. Now imagine nine 18-24yr olds crammed into one of those apartment. They file out at eight AM and wearily trudge back in around six PM. Luckily our neighbors are just as loud and as crazy as us.
Work has been interesting. We are centered in the international district or Chinatown and the Danny Woo Community Garden is right on the edge. We have had lots of time to explore; one of the days Lisa (an intern who is our contact for the children's program) set us free to rove around and explore. We have found lots of good places to eat. There is a huge bus station which can take you many places for free during the day. We took it downtown once but I still would like to go more- obviously to actually see stuff. The buses reminded me of the underground in London. There is an actual road underground the buses travel on very much like the tube!
Work itself has been interesting. Gold 1 functions not like many other Ameri-teams. In order to work we must play. In order to follow directions we must try to make it most efficient and long term. We constantly have even better ifs and suggestions. with our sponsors we interrupt constantly and probably pry more than appropriate and banter with sarcasm and teases. We have been very fortunate at every other project to have sponsors who enjoy this, also function this way or have adapted quickly and added to our playful work. after seven days here it doesn't seem to be the case. miscommunication seems to be the regular communication tactic and were feeling underused (in the idea of better suggestions which are rejected) or unwanted (for more than just work).
the garden is very neat; however, it seems to be full of shady characters and upon arrival a bit trashy. We have really wanted to work on clear definition of the children gardens plots as well as added color and kid friendly environment. We were concerned immediately by the trash in the garden and after finally nagging our way into trash duty picked up MANY syringes condomns and bags of poop. How could we expect kids to want to be safe or comfortable here with these concerns?
We spend our mornings with kids. Today was day two. Due to a lack of actual children wanting to come we recruited a nearby Daycare. Were running 18 3-5 year olds. And 4 other ppl who had actually signed up. The program is going much better than we thought it would and we're really enjoying it. The boys do other stuff then too. After lunch we have other garden stuff to do. We're being directed to pruning, creating compost, weeding etc but were constantly trying to convince Jonathon to let us work in the childrens garden. We want to make a rainbow in the walk way to signify the entering and exiting of the childrens garden. We were able to finish one. We also want to create a welcome sign and bright colorful things to draw in kids and make them feel more at play.
Last weekend we went to the Solstice festival in fremont. It was supposed to be crazy and hipstery and artsy and showcase a naked bike ride but the morning got off to a rough start and we missed the bike ride, were rather grumpy and then also realized living in NOLA during Mardis Gras seems to have ruined all other parades for us.
Money is tight but I've come to the irresponsible decision that I'm here now I should enjoy it and figure out the rest next year. Ill be sleeping in my car on the road trip haha.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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