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Today I buried two dead puppies who had either been bitten by a rattlesnake or had been poisoned by some kind of trash in their owner's yard. Today I laid on the roof of a house trailer and stomached the smell of dead rats in the wall that I was screwing siding onto. Today I spread roof repair liquid, stepping from stud to stud.Today I used a bathroom that didn't have sewer lines hooked up to it, only a pipe draining outside.Today I caulked the edges of the same roof to prevent future leaks.Today I ate Mexican food off the back of a pickup truck. Today was just another day in my life as an AmeriCorps member on the Faith Communities for Disaster Relief project in the Rio Grande Valley of Southern Texas.
The day I just described was typical for me in the way that it unfolded.I've been alternating duties, going back and forth between construction and case management, and each moment seemingly brings something unpredictable.In this way, the last two months have been an intense yet fulfilling experience.Intensely fulfilling, you could actually say.
First of all, everyday has been a lesson in cultural understanding.Living between two populations, Hispanics and white Texans, we face the reality of how border relations create an unfortunate link between race and economic status.I often find myself thinking, "Is this America?" because of how blatantly poor and unfair the circumstances are.It is obvious that this atmosphere affects Hispanics' access to jobs, government services, education and healthcare.It seems to also isolate the two ethnicities from one another socially.I can work all day in an area a few miles off the highway where it's stray dogs, struggling farms, broken down cars and boarded up gas stations with signs only in Spanish but then go back to the highway and see an RV Park on every corner advertising shuffleboard tournaments and flea markets at the church on Sundays.It has never been clearer that crossing a cultural border is just as tangible as crossing a physical one.As a result, our team has had the opportunity to learn Spanish in an immersion setting and my skills have improved so quickly that I have been doing all-Spanish home evaluations during case management.We'll take the truck out to the slum neighborhoods in the country that they call "colonias", knock on people's doors who have signed up for aid through their church, talk with them about the hurricane damage and their family situation and then do a walk around the home to take notes on what can be repaired.After visiting these houses, some of which have two or three families living in them with only one or maybe two adults actually working, it is evident that the language barrier also plays a role in keeping the two populations separate and on different income levels.
The following is a poem of sorts that I wrote as a final reflection for my team's project debriefing report.It tracks the words that were essential for me to learn in Spanish outside of normal vocabulary and the order I put them in tracks my feelings of disbelief, empathy and determination.I still can't believe what I see every day is happening in America.
El piso
Floor
La pared
Wall
Los clavos
Nails
El techo
Roof
Los boquetes
Holes
El huracán
Hurricane
La inundación
Flood
El moho
Mold
El papeleo
Paperwork
Las firmas
Signatures
Le negaron
Denied
Los ninos
Children
Trabajo
Work
Por Favor
Please
Los voluntarios
Volunteers
El tiempo
Time
La esperanza
Hope
- comments
June Again, my thanks and praise to you and your team. I pray for you, love you and miss you.
Lynnie Hunter Amazing experiences, Julie, that you will carry with you for the rest of your life. Bravo to you. Love your poem. The Peace Corps is 50 years old this week. You are definitely doing your part to help your fellow men/women/children! Love and miss you.