This weekend was a blast! We went out and did the typical Bourbon Street thing with all of the people and crazieness haha. It is a crazy place. There were a ton of bars a ton of people and even more drinking and dancing. It was something that you have to experience at least once while in New Orleans to say that you did it and prob will never do it again haha. Next weekend im sure we will find more fun and less crazy places to go. Saturday my community went into the French Quarter to enjoy the beautiful buildings, each delicious 'cafe du monde' beignet's, and walk around to see all the people. Sunday we had a bunch of former JV's over to our house for a bbq which was a lot of fun! There were also some representatives from the Jesuit Province to tell us about hurricane evacuation plans and such, which was comforting. Before the bbq my community decided that it was necessary to clean up the backyard a bit before guests came over. The clean up took about 2 hours and was hard manual labor work, but it was worth it! We have an awesome backyard now that i know we will enjoy using :)
The first day of work is never what you expect and you really have no idea how you will come out at the end of the day. My first day at the Harry Tompson Center was the best first day ever! I truly realised that the HTC is where i want to be. It is a family here made up of all sorts of people, who all look different, have different lives, and lived different experiences, but we have all come together to share in eachothers company and help eachother in any way possible. There are some guests who come in and do not talk much but simply ask you for what they are looking for and thank you politely. Then there are others who want to talk to you about anything and everything. I love them all!
I was on shower duty today. Emily was teaching me the ropes. There is a system to everything that goes on at the HTC. And the showers are no exception. A list of names was given to me right at 8:00am and from that minute on i was adding more people to the list, cleaning/ restocking each shower, and calling out names of the people next in line. Good thing i have a loud voice because there were 106 people who used the showers today and hundreds more just sitting around talking, washing, and eating. I met so many people today i cannot even believe it! The showers are not a very easy job because there are a ton of people and only 8 working showers. But if you stick with the list and keep track of who is in what shower then your good. I got the hang of it eventually but there were a few times when i had to have Emily or Dan (another volunteer on Mondays) knock on the door and ask who was inside. I worked at full pace, while multi tasking with the talkers, from 8:00am to 11:30am. It was crazy! And i loved every minute of it! I got a chance to enjoy my lunch with some of the Sisters who also work at the HTC and then after lunch i sat and talked with some of the guests who were still hanging around. One gentleman named Willy said he had lived in San Fransisco for some time and loved it but prefers New Orleans (he informed me that i would love NOLA better too).
Next week i will be working the laundry rooms and the week after that will be the phones. The laundry room will be a bit of a break from talking and interacting because you are more inside with the machines than outside with the guests. The phones will keep me busy and talking to guests though.
It has been a very long first day! And as tired, sweaty, horse, and dirty i am I cannot imagine being anywhere else :) The HTC is exactly where i want to be for the next year of my life.
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