Home > Monday, April 09, 2007

Improvisation: The AmeriCorps*NCCC Way

Green Five has lived in Alpaugh, CA for about two weeks, and after spending all of our time in a town of just about 800 people, we have learned to really appreciate the little things in life. While people living in, say, Los Angeles can go into the city when they get restless, one needs to travel more than 20 miles from Alpaugh to get to the closest grocery store. Our options are pretty limited here, so we have had to improvise and think creatively for our entertainment.

One way we have been doing this is to watch a nightly movie. We “commandeered” a projector from our sponsor’s office and use it against one of our walls to amazing effect. We have been given a basketball and a foosball table as well. The foosball table is a little warped in the middle, and sits about eight inches off the ground, but the table fooses, dangit. It fooses well.

Also, on account of our keeping a weekly blog, the team has been writing daily quotes and random events in a booklet that we can reference for this summary. The hilarious occurrences that happen each day that you wish you could remember are remembered, and the antics of our team are revisited nightly as we spell them out. For example, one of our jobs was to clear the tumbleweeds out of a canal. We did this by throwing them into the wind, and watching, with great glee and joy, the tumbleweeds tumble away. After fifteen minutes of work, more than 100 rolling balls of weeds were spaced out across the farmlands, blowing endlessly with the breeze.

As for the work we did this week, it was mostly outdoors planting native species such as willow trees and oaks along two different canals. We also spent a good part of a day clearing out one of these canals, as ripping up noxious plants and preserving the native ones is very time consuming. It felt good to get out and get our hands dirty, our fingers callused and our boots muddy. The standard uniform we were issued has finally been getting good use; we even pulled our rain gear out for a gloomy looking day. Over the course of three days, we planted over 1,200 plants; mostly grasses, and close to 100 trees. As we are becoming more familiar with the area, we are gaining a clearer understanding of the need for these efforts. Trees lightly spot the land, but it still feels bare and lonely.

We also finished our work with the efforts made to relieve some of the harm done by the orange freeze in the winter. The team traveled to Porterville to assist in the distribution of food boxes for the migrant workers affected. We compacted hundreds of boxes, and then filled others with non-perishable food. During the actual distribution day, we helped park cars into the lot, and Jared, one of the media coordinators for the team, was interviewed by Univision and was on television that night.

The team also had the fortune to attend the world’s largest agricultural show in Tulare, CA. This was an eye-opening experience for many of the group, as the large scale of farming was really made apparent through this event. Companies from all over the world collect to showcase their products for both small farms and corporate ranches. We were to help the Alpaugh Historical Society prepare rib-eye and tri-tip sandwiches to sell. We made a lot of steak sandwiches – delicious fun for everyone except our wonderful vegetarian team leader, Chelsea. It was surprising to see her in such a good mood as she was cutting up pounds and pounds of things that she stood so adamantly against. But ever positive, she got through the day because that’s what needed to be done for the team and for the community.

Overall, this week was amazing. The team is really starting to get to know each other better and the little tendencies and habits of everyone are coming out as we become more comfortable with each other. We are all falling into our roles quite nicely, finding out where everyone’s strengths and weaknesses are and how to supplement each other. And as our work is becoming more challenging we are supporting each other more and learning when that helping hand is needed. The lessons we are learning about each other now are only going to prove useful later as we travel and work together over the next eight months, reinforcing the framework of an effective and useful team.

- The Tribe