What's Your Road, Man?

So, sorry its been so long things got a little crazy as we were preparing for transition, home and the next project.

We are now a week into Project R.I.D.E., a therapeutic horse-riding program for kids and adults with mental and physical disabilities. The project as it stands is amazing. You can clearly see the love the children have for the horses and the effect it has on them. The staff is deeply embedded in their work and there are new volunteers there everyday. The staff is pretty minimal but the core of volunteers is huge. Mostly, high schoolers and students at Sac State, but also some “grown-ups” who believe in the work being done.

We spend a lot of our time at work cleaning the stalls and the rest of the riding hall, but once a day we get to spend our time right alongside the kids as sidewalkers. Sidewalking means talking to the kids on there ride, we usually get to sidewalk with 3 different students from the Jessie Baker School, a special needs school across the way. Project RIDE was initally a piece of the school but has since become a non-profit independent of the school program. However, the relationship between them is still very strong.

After a week of working, the children already recognize us and choose to have us be with them during their lessons. It is extremely rewarding! We work 6 days a week, with 3 of them being ten-hour days. The kids make that easy to get through. I’m not really sure what this project will be blogged like, since it is so different from the first one. But I’ll keep posting and hopefully it will be more often than the last month ;)

I know it was awhile ago but, this was my busiest week of all time. The week prior to Thanksgiving was full of special training and a lot of education in fields I never thought I would learn about; plumbing being on the forefront of all of that.

I volunteered on Monday for trench digging, not knowing what it would entail. Little did I know that I would be doing the hardest work of any with a friend, Melissa, for the rest of the week. Day one, my fellow teammates and I dug a HUGE whole to find the septic tank, so we could solve the problems plaguing the woman’s restroom and shower-house. Digging into the rock as hard as ice (pre-snow at this point) was proving to be a challenge. Discoverires of rocks instead of hard-places got us stuck. Our sponsor Jay flew into to rescue the belaboring digging process with a backhoe. Quickly we reached the bottom of.. err.. the top of the septic system. Thus ended this day.

We hopped over to water leak on the second day. Same group, add Mikey and Mel. We have a leak sprung for many days now spilling waves of water into our parking area and causing some slips and slides for many a corps member. Digging this hole was both simpler and more challenging than the first. Mud is a messier enemy than hard ground. We dug deeper and bucketed the overflowing trench over and over. Dig, Bucket, Dig, Bucket, Dig. Until at last we found a pipe! It wasn’t leaky, Wrong pipe. Dig, Bucket, Dig, Bucket, Strike a rock and get excited then disappointed and continue. Until at last, 7 feet down we discover the sprung leak. We leave it for dead as the sun is setting and we can no longer see.

Wednesday I am alone with Jay and his son to finish the septic issue. We discovered the entire septic system, uncovered now for the first time since the 30s. We find the broken clay pipe and then digging around so we can work in the area. This took another whole day and us we move on to dinner and sleep.Thursday, I was needed elsewhere, still digging and working with Jay, but not finishing my projects.

Friday, Melissa and I work together again. The water up the hill is shut off and then we uncover the leaky pipe again. I get down and dirty in the 7 ft hole, to clasp an armband-like structure around the break. Fixing the problem. Melissa and I then moved on to digging a foundation ditch for the future laying of concrete for the water pump shed that is later to be built. After, we dug rain drainage trenches around various cabins to end the water’s venturing into the buildings. Two easy projects finished quickly. It’s 3pm again and is cold as the sun begins to set on my busy week. I am called to the septic system to wield a saw and cut the clay pipe so we can attach an abp to the clay pipe using what look like sleeves to a shirt. It takes so time to get the abp inside the sleeves already attached to the pipe, but it is finished in time to get to quants with ease.

Finally, my work week has ended, or so I think. Turns out, an academic decathlon team was journeying up the mountain for peace and quiet study hours. Yet, they somehow forgot to bring male counselors to stay in their cabins with the 14 boys. Since, I was already at the camp and had finished serving them their food, I volunteered to stay the night. This proved a rewarding adventure. I was glad to learn more about Ta Ta Pochon from our sponsor Jay, who has been on the mountain for 10 years, and at the camp for a year and a half. He told me of the tremendous job our team is doing, and the difference we are making. He explained to me some of the work we will be doing and told me more about what all I had learned. It was quite rewarding. Made me become proud of my newly earned nickname, Trench.

All-in-all, it was a pretty crazy week, full of Harry Potter Premieres and trench digging.

So living here on the Back of Greyback has been an interesting week. A handful of trips to Redlands and Big Bear have introduced us to this mountain community.

We spent the week raking up pine straw, cutting down dead trees and then burning the fuel so it doesn’t catch in the dry season. The cabins have been decently warm and the weather has been beautiful. My only complaint is that it is pitch black at 530 in the evening. This week we should be moving on to other things, such as painting cabins, roofing, plumbing, and electrical work. I hope to gain a little experience in all these areas.

This week was also Veterans Day. We honored our soldiers, by attending a ceremony put on by the town of Big Bear. During which they mentioned the hopeful moving of a memorial to the park where the ceremony was held. This sparked something in me and after the group went up to Mayor Harris to ask if they needed any assistance. I spoke with the City Manager and will be calling him tomorrow to set up a time for our teams to go and aid in the efforts.