So, now I'm up in Maine. Chilling with the streams and trying to prevent erosion by building gabion baskets and planting willow waddles. Oh the adventures! Bushwhacking through dense vegetation, actually managing to not fall while conducting stream surveys(this is an amazing accomplishment for my clumsy ass!), playing with larvae and leeches, waddling around in waders, trying to avoid the ravings of drunken homeless old men, and teasing my team leader every day!
This is turning out to be an excellent project. Even on the days my team and I are crabby from fatigue and at each others throats. Even the days we were sent to find and move large, microwave sized rocks (fuckin boulders, really) with a pickmatic (pick ax) and rock bars (really big crowbars). By the end of the second day we were falling all over the place in exhaustion. Even when our waders have begun to rub through the skin on our ankles and toes! Even as we slip down hills, get hit by falling rocks, smash fingers, and ingest way more dirt than ever while consuming lunch (because it's way more simple to merely plop down where ever when it hits noon 'o clock, who needs to wash their hands anyway? such a thing is for doctors not NCCC corps members!)

Last project, after NOLA, I was assisting with an elementary garden club in Somerville, Massachusetts. I never really spent time with little kids before that. It was a real learning experience for myself as much as for them. I got to help Tai (she's the one who ran the club) teach each group of summer club campers about insects, plants, weather. Those kids were so adorable. Most of the time. Some times a few were having a bad day, but they were all good kids.
In Somerville, my team and I walked everywhere. Anywhere! Everything was so close. We lived in an elementary school. Slept in the art room, cooked in the teachers lounge, and showered at the YMCA. (we found out that showers are a luxury.)
Toward the end of the project, Emily came back from camping. She is who I was filling in for while working at the garden club. She was a week away from 20, wit, tomboy attitude, and cowpoke walk. I was crushing big time and sad to leave in a few days. But alas, everything comes and goes and all one can do is grin and take it easy.