They call me.....Girl with big broom....

They call me....Girl with Big Broom....or some of you know me by Mindy...hehe :)

The past couple days have been waay awesome. I didn't blog yesterday...so i'll have to add that in now.

Yesterday, me and 9 others went to Pete's place to help him finish gutting out his store so that he can fix it up. The guys spent the day up in the attic tearing out the rusted tin ceiling as well as cleaning out the insulation from up there as well. The girls spent the day hammering in nails that were coming out of the walls, hammering out electrical sockets (my favorite :) ), as well as cleaning up the mess the guys made from removing the insulation from the ceiling (BIG job...hehe). But yea, it was sooo much fun. All of us got so dirty from the insulation. It also hurt pretty bad too. The fiberglass from the insulation would get in our clothes and on our skin and be really itchy before it would start hurting...didn't feel too good. But it was still so fun over at Pete's place. So much in fact, that all of us wanted to go back the next day (today) which we did..along with two more people.

Yesterday at Pete's place, we all got awesome names depending on what job we did or how we were working. I was "Girl with Big Broom", because I was sweeping with a large push broom. It was pretty awesome. The other names consisted of: Little Broom, Big Cheese, Holy One, Man Who Changes Colors, Man Who Climbs Tall Places, Man with Big Sneeze, Tall One, Steady One, Man With Huge Vision...with the addition of the two more: Woman of Liberation, and Man who likes to break things...haha you guys were so awesome! Pete, especially is great! It is wonderful listening to what he wants to do to help the people around Buras. In the hurricane, he pretty much lost everything, but now he's coming back and rebuilding. But not rebuilding for himself, but rebuilding to make something that would help others get back on their feet. Pete, of course, is "Man with Huge Vision", you can probably figure out why :) We're all gonna miss Pete!

After Pete's place, we all came back to the ymca for dinner and we decided to take a trip down to Venice, LA. It was very pretty seeing the sunset in front of the water, and we saw many alligators in the wild. Many of us learned how to make an alligator sound to attract alligators...a skill that I have mastered...and many were trying to get me to make the alligator call. Well...I did, and the alligators started coming closer, so I stopped that right away and we all got back in the van rather quickly. Scary! O.O

We got down to a boat dock in Venice and started walking along the dock admiring the view. A few of us started making posed pictures of us pushing each other in the water. Well...it got a little crazy when one group member ran up from behind me, picked me up and held me over the water. Yep...that was pretty scary. But it gets better....I'm thinking, hmm..he wouldn't seriously drop me in the water, so I calm down and finally get down when he says, "No, I seriously would have jumped just then, but you had your bag on, and I didn't think you wanted that to get wet." Thank heavens for bags with phones and money in them!

We also saw a bucket with gutted out fish in them...which one group member so creatively pointed that out to me...you know who you are! ;) But yea that was also very interesting.

And for today...a big group of us went back to Pete's place to continue our work. It was also very fun just like yesterday. One group member, who was a female, got up in the rafters and was hammering parts of the ceiling with the guys. A job which none of the other girls in our group had done. We were all pretty impressed!

After Pete's place and lunch, a group member and I went to work in distribution. Distribution is a shop where residents from this area can come and get things that they need for free. There's clothes, miscellaneous groceries, toiletry items, and various other stuff that people would need. It was really rewarding having people really thank you for all your help. It's also nice to get to talk to the residents about what they experienced from the hurricane and how they're planning to go on from it.

We then had dinner and finally...our last group meeting. It's very sad knowing that we're going back tomorrow, and many of us will be gone soon...either for the summer, or moving out of Knoxville. I had soo much fun with all my yellow ninja buddies, and I had experiences that I'll never forget. I will truly miss everyone and I really hope that we all will keep in touch and get together again. It would be awesome to have a reunion back down here when Pete get's his place fixed up into another area like Emergency Communites where volunteers come to work and help out the residents. But yea, we all need to get together. I'll miss all my yellow ninja buddies. What am I gonna do in Charlotte without you guys?! I love you all!

~Mindy...or "Girl with Big Broom" hehe :)