Ok, so I know this is not really sufficient to make up for an entire month-and-a-half without an entry, but I think I just need to give you the facts. More interesting things will come later (like pictures- oh my!) but for now bullet points will have to suffice. Needless to say, we don't have a ton of free time around here!

So, the facts:

My team has been stationed in Orange, TX since January 11th, where we have been working with the Fuller Center Disaster Rebuilders, an organization similar to Habitat for Humanity. The organization works with people whose homes have been damaged by Hurricane Ike and helps them to rebuild, with either financial or manual help from the homeowners themselves.

- We live on a stage in a gym, behind plywood walls, sleeping on bunks made out of 2x4's and plywood.

- Our first week here, there were 95 volunteers, most of whom were living at the church with us, sleeping on the gym floor right outside our room. It was a little nuts, but fun to work with everyone.

- Our site supervisor's name is Eddie Sherman. He's a construction worker from the Jersey Shore who decided to leave his work up there and come work for the Fuller Center. Since he started with FCDR, he's definitely had to give up working directly in construction, since he's basically the supervisor for all 20 or so houses the Fuller Center working on at any given time. He spends each day driving around between all the houses, checking up on the homeowners and the volunteers working there. I'm not absolutely sure how he manages to keep track of everything and at the same time remain so entirely invested in each project.

- There are six interns from the University of Cincinnati who will be here until March 20th or so. They're all either Architecture or Urban Planning students and it's been great hanging out with them. We're really in an awesome situation here, after having been sequestered in our trailers for a solid month last round with only each other for company (not that my team isn't great).

- Our team has worked on about 15 different houses. I wish I could tell you about all of them, but there have been so many and there is so much to say about each of them that I'm not sure you'd want to read anything of that length. Every homeowner has been incredibly welcoming to us (I think I've eaten more donuts here than in the last 5 years of my life!) and extremely helpful with every aspect of the work we do. It's been wonderful and moving to hear stories of the hurricane from these people and makes our work mean so much more.

- The weather here is beautiful, though sometimes rainy. It was in the mid-70's until about 2 weeks ago, and gorgeously sunny and not-dry. I love it here!

Well, I'll really try to post some pictures soon, and more details on some of the houses we've been working on. Thanks for reading!