Monday

Monday, October 22

On Saturday, we toured 5 sites where we plan to be working this week. This was lots better than last year, as we had a chance to do a little planning and more intelligent team assignments.

We asked how people are chosen to receive help from UMVIM. The answer is "because they need it." It osn't always because they are poor, but it is because they don't seem to have any other way to get their homes back without some help from the church. They do try to screen carefully and make sure that we are working where it is really needed.

Most people for the first week, or for both weeks if they are staying for both, arrived Saturday afternoon. We got together for dinner on Saturday, and then got together as work teams on Sunday morning, starting with breakfast. Most of us went to church next door to our housing. On Sunday evening, after almost all people had arrived, we again got together for dinner. You know, "'til we eat again...."

Monday morning, we awoke to rain. We hoped that our site visits and planning would make it easier to be ready to go Monday, but not when you get hit by what you can't plan for, like the weather. It rained on and off all day. Fortunately, most of our jobs were inside, but when it's raining hard, you have to go in and out through it. At least it's warm enough here that the air conditioning is running all the time, so you can get dried off. The weather here is different from California. We are used to warm days and cool nights. It doesn't always cool off here in the evening. It might be in the mid 70s when you go to bed. This is what I grew up with, so it's easy for me, but for some people, they have never experienced it. Some Californians have rarely heard thunder or seen lightning, but they heard and saw it today. There were some good "boomers!"

The weather has been severe enough that there have been some tornado warnings. It's curious to see people's reactions to hearing about tornadoes. We Californians don't get too excited about earthquakes, just like the people here don't get too excited about tornadoes. It seems that whatever is "normal" around you, you take in stride, but you can get really excited, and not in a good way, about what is new and unexpected and maybe unsettling. One of the coordinators told us about tornadoes, and said that if you hear a train but you aren't near the train tracks, you may be hearing a tornado. That got some people excited, especially when the train runs near us several times a night. Is it a train, or is there a tornado near? The answer, at least for now, has been "it's a train" especially if you realize that the train is a train if it is accompanied by a train whistle.  You might ask Brian Garrison about the difference between a tornado and a train whistle ;-)