Here we go! Another blog, another adventure, another life inspiring experience ( I hope!)
From my previous two blogs I've discovered (and hopefully if you've read them you can tell) I feel most alive when I'm serving and loving people. So. SERVING. my family, my neighbors, my friends, America, the World.
I'm exactly one week away from beginning AmeriCorps NCCC Pacific Region! wooo!!! Starting October 6, I will begin my AmeriCorps NCCC term. I will be stationed in Sacramento, California and will be volunteering and servicing in the Pacific Region of the United States. I’ll be traveling throughout the states in the region from community to community for 6-8 weeks at a time; serving in whatever way is needed. Education, disaster relief, nature conservation, affordable housing, etc etc. My housing, food, and uniform will be provided. I will receive a living stipend every other week and at the end of my term (ten months) I will receive an education award which can be used toward paying off student loans!! This is really the perfect opportunity for me right now: volunteering, traveling and paying off student loans while I figure out whats next. (Grad school? Real adult job? PeaceCorps??? Who knows?!?!?) Perfect.
Sooo once again, I am going to try and blog my experiences the best I can. Thoughts, stories, things I'm learning, places I'm seeing, people I'm meeting. I have my suitcase ready, a folder filled with important paper work, and am rapidly making plans with all the people I want to see before I leave. I've happily checked the weather multiple times for Sacramento, and am shipping my bike out this week.
OH I already have and exciting story to tell involving my bike, AmeriCorps and Sacramento and ALSO Bike & Build and South Africa. (big surprise, I'm talking about b&b and SA again...) Lets go ahead and tie everything together.
The story begins in South Bend, IN about a month ago, where I meet up with my dear friend Kate (who also happened to be in South Africa the same time I was). It is nice to reminisce about SA with her. Kate had so kindly invited me along with her to Indianapolis where she had a wedding to attend, knowing I had two Bike & Build friends who were currently living there! Unfortunately shortly down the road Kate fell sick with a migraine :( I drive us all the way to Indy, where we are so kindly welcomed by my dear dear b&b friend Britt and her new puppy Mia. Britt welcomed us into her new apartment and even gave Kate her bedroom to rest in. Britt and I had a very lovely visit, complete with a fabulous dinner cooked by Britt, watching the Food Network and The Notebook, a BIKE RIDE (Raja and Jet were so happy to be reunited), visit with THE Jen Hunt and skype with Raleigh, Laura and Will!! I made South African Malva Pudding and custard for everyone to eat, and Kate had made homemade doughnuts.
Come Sunday afternoon and we are on the road back home. About an hour away from Kate's house (where I have my car parked) we hear scraping whenever we go over a bump. Soon it's scraping ALL the time, as we drive down the road. We wisely pull over to look under the car and discover that there is a pipe of some sort hanging down in the middle of the car. After trying to call Kate's parent's for help and getting no response, we tentatively get back on the road, deciding that we will as far as we can until whatever it is that is hanging falls off. Luckily we ARE able to reach Kate's parents and they so kindly leave the concert they are attending in order to come rescue us. In the meantime we keep refuge at Kate's mom's friend's (Kelirae) house and we are greeted with ratatouille and quinoa. Naturally, Kate brags about my Bike & Build trip last year as she very often does, and Kelirae herself is interested in a cross country trek by bicycle herself so I happily oblige to talking about Bike & Build for 30 minutes.
Kate's parents arrive and Brian (Kate's dad) goes outside to temporarily fix the car. Tracy (Kate's mom) joins Kelirae, Kate and I, talking about biking, South Africa, and then AmeriCorps, this next adventure of mine. I'm asked if I'm bring my bike with me to California, and my face falls. This has been one of my biggest challenges in AmeriCorps preparations: can I bring my bike? How can I get it there? Where will I store it? Will I even have time to ride it? I had recently found out that there wasn't anywhere for me to store my bike. I would be moving around often anyways so maybe it wasn't even worth it to bring it out :( The thought of 10 months separated from my Raja brought me much sadness. I definitely had separation anxiety while I was in South Africa, using a used mountain bike instead of my own beauty. Anyways, I tell Tracy, Kelirae and Kate all of this, and in a wistful voice say, "I think the only way I can make it work is if I make a friend with someone in Sacramento before i get there who has space to store my bike" As it turns out...Tracy has a library friend in Sacramento! She puts me in contact with her friend, and today I printed off the shipping label to send my bike to its new home: Kate's mom's librarian friend's grandma's garage. Crazy how things work out
So I'm quite excited to be amongst mountains again, to bike amongst mountains again, and to be VOLUNTEERING!
