NCCC Part Deux

So it's been a pretty crazy ride to mid November since the start of my second round of AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps. I've been trained as a leader, made new friends, been assigned a team, have stepped up to be responsible for them, and am now leading them through some pretty trying times.

Our first project was jettisoned in favor of six weeks working under FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) for Hurricane Ike disaster relief in Texas. My team (11 including myself) is currently staying at Camp Tarmac, a big set of tents constructed on an unused airstrip at the Galveston airport. On Saturday we'll be deploying to Winnie, TX, a small town in the county north of Galveston, where we'll be the only NCCC team.

There we'll be doing official needs assessment surveys for hurricane victims, and it'll involve being in the field and doing damage assessments of people's homes, getting details of their stories, helping find out what FEMA and nonprofit grants & loans they have and/or should apply for, and in many cases being the first person of influence that a lot of folks will have had the chance to speak with. I feel very official, especially with the Corporation for National and Community Service/AmeriCorps NCCC, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and BrookStone Emergency Services (a contractor) credentials, too.

So those are the specifics of it. As for my team, I really like them. It's hard to imagine a more different group of people--and I don't mean different as in collectively weird, but as in different from each other and from me. One benefit of this is a fortunate lack of cliques, and a lack of false intimacy at the outset--we'll get to know each other for real. Something that has stood out to me, though, is what was said to us during our Team Leader Training--that our team will start to mirror our behaviors, mannerisms, etc. It's kind of shocking, too, how a team that started out seeming so different from me has picked up some of my banter and started acting more wacky. Wonderful, I might say. The impromptu talent show I hosted at lunch on the worksite on Wednesday was a good indicator.

Yet everyone has their own unique identity and personality. I like it, and I especially like how the collection of individuals is forming into a team. I'm pumped that we're moving away from Camp Tarmac, with its 500-person living tent and nine other teams, to a small town where we'll have only each other. I've already planned out a great activity for our first team meeting (in addition to setting up work & cleaning schedules), so Sunday night will definitely be a blast.

I'm doing great, though I don't have much time or energy to keep in contact with people outside of the "Ameri-bubble". I feel as though I'm really doing important work; motivating & enabling my corps members to get involved in service, doing direct service myself, getting out of an office & interacting with folks face-to-face...particularly in the context of disaster relief, something I very much wanted to do in NCCC Charleston but didn't have the chance to.

So I'll wrap this up. Nothing particularly sensational (other than the described disaster relief and the fact that I'm leading a team of ten 18-24 year olds!) has occurred, and I'm sorry I haven't more witty quips to write, but now that I've caught up on the hard facts I can put more effort into that.