Louisiana Loneliness

I have never before been to Louisiana (as far as I know) but now I have and well it’s a different kind of place, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it there however on the flip side I didn’t hate it either. It was what I would call an adventure. I think it is fair to say that I am becoming one of those people that loves going on adventures, but I don’t like adventures that bring around 60 people and don’t really have a plan. If you haven’t already guessed, that it was my week was like. An adventure with no plan for what 60 students were meant to be doing for a week away from their new home.

Maybe I am being a bit too harsh. There was a plan but we finished most of it in the first day of work so then there was a group of girls who didn’t have anything to do but sit around and wait for something to be thrown their way. I was in that group of girls. One the first day everyone had something to do until about 2:30 – 3 o’clock and that’s when we realized we shouldn’t have worked so hard on the first day. However, they never told us that we were going to fast or that we wouldn’t have anything to do the other days. The leaders of our group and the church didn’t realize that 34 girls could work so fast and get the job well done. It was kind of mind blowing for them all and us.

There were a few jobs like repainting a wall – took three days, designing and pouring the cement for a sidewalk – took five days, redoing the foundation of the youth building – took five days, and making cement parking stoppers – also took five days that kept people busy for a while. But only so many people could be doing those jobs at once, we only had so many tools and there was only so much room at each work area. Which meant that there was a large job of girls who on the first day were clearing bush around the church yard (which is huge and I was one of them) that had nothing to do once done that. It was meant to take us a little longer than five hours. Never underestimate the Hill Girls!

The leaders then got together and began to brainstorm things for us to do. While they were doing that most of us found things to do since sitting and waiting wasn’t really what we wanted to do. Some girls ran water out to the workers while others cleaned the bathrooms, windows, floors, toys and class room walls and then there was the photography group taking pictures of everything happening. I personality went and joined the painting crew and then was on that for the rest of the week.

Thanks Mum for always repainting everything in our house and cabin and making me become a pro painter.

The boys had to sleep in the youth building on the floor for the week and eat all their meals at the church and be at the church all day long. The girls on the other hand did not have to be at the church the whole time. We were placed in people’s homes from the church. Jordyn, Sarah and I were placed in a very interesting home. It was a split house – as in the mother, Monique, was a Christian and the father, Brandon, was not. From the moment I stepped into the house, I just knew that’s how it was. Monique didn’t actually tell us that until maybe Thursday night when we were driving home from the church and it wasn’t like Brandon wore a signing saying that but it was just how each of them acted that made it so obvious. They were a lovely family, just different than we would have first expected. The first night was pretty awkward because we didn’t know what to do and didn’t feel very comfortable there yet. As the week went on things got better at the house, and we started to hang out with the family more and really become part of their family for the week. When everyone was hanging out at the church we would all refer to our host families as our family and talk as if we had lived with them forever.  Saying things like “Mom made pancakes with blueberries for breakfast” or “Dad took us out for ice cream after supper”. It was easier than saying the person’s name and then having no one know who you were talking about since we only really met our host family and not other peoples.

It was weird not being the same building as all the girls. Back at the Hill all but seven girls live in the same dorm, Emmanuel, so we normally see everybody a lot and now we don’t. I only saw Jordyn and Sarah until 9 o’clock when the meeting started at the church every morning. I didn’t enjoy that, I missed seeing my left side down stairs girls (that the side I live on). Jordyn is one of those seven girls so it was nice to still have her. But it was lonely not having my four roommates, it might have just been a month yesterday that we got here however, when these are the only people you see most of the time you become very close to them very fast. Since you can’t really do anything else unless you want to be alone, even that would be hard to do though.

Love,

a.m