Mississippi Semester: And folks we have walls!!!

This was a tiring but great week! So last Friday I learned how to hang joists, so that I could learn and then teach the volunteers how to do it this week. Not only did the volunteers hang all the joist on the house for the Smiths, but they also put up the exterior walls. The volunteers this week were two different groups, from New Jersey and New York. The group this week was a good mix of kids and adults and was all very competent. The fact that they did so much meant that I was on site all the time and that they had many questions, so they kept me hopping all week. For a little history on the Smiths, they live further back off the coast and are not on a flood plain. They left when Katrina came, her niece came and took a look at the house after the storm, and said there was no damage. Well, all the damage was on the inside. So they had to live in a FEMA trailer, and now lives in a Mississippi cottage. Mississippi cottages were designed by architects, to solve the problem of the lawsuits against the FEMA trailers. So MEMA, bought them to replace the FEMA trailers. So a lot of the health problems people had from living in the trailers got better. But the Mississippi cottages have to be gone by March and so all of the people living in them have to have houses. So now we are in the process of building them a house and Mrs. Smith is so excited and bought the group this week oranges. I have been learning so much and just love this experience!