Today was hot, and involved lots of time standing underneath the sun with no sunscreen. The whole no sunscreen part is totally my fault, so I can't be too upset by the inhuman shade of red my skin has become, but still, an unwanted side effect of this weeks challenge. Anyways, seeing as today was the first full day of working and WIC wages, it wasn't that bad (aside from the sunburn!). My bowl of Cheerios lasted until lunch, however the lunch to dinner time span was a little different. Sure, at 5:30 my PB&J sandwich was wearing off and I was wanting to eat, but really, I was never unbearably hungry. However, after thinking about it more today, I realized that there was no way that a single person, or even a 2-3 person family could ever eat as comfortably as we have this week. There is power in numbers- especially in this situation- $324 goes a lot longer than $21.60! For dinner, we had nachos. It was quite delicious- but I'm not going to lie, I would have likely eaten anything put in front of me tonight and thought it was the most wonderful meal ever prepared. Mulching for 8 hours is a lot more intense than I ever could have imagined.
So, the proverbial elephant in the room. This morning. The whole not being on time, and why we weren't discussions. Honestly, I can see both sides of the arguments that were brought up. Yes, it was a hard day and a long night, and something that many of us are not used to, but also we are adults. We are spending this week as if we are employed, and in the "real world". So that ultimately means, suck it up, and get up. I know this really isn't something that I can argue as a struggle personally, but I can see how difficult it could be if you are not used to getting up and right to work early in the morning. But also, I'm sure we have all had 8 AM's that we could make it to, so can't we make 8:30 for one week? (I'm sorry for that little rant, and for upsetting anyone if I did!)
The farm. Well to begin, I will give you a list of things that were not in my favor today at the farm: 1) the sun. 2) the fact that I had no sunscreen 3) how pale I had become in recent months 4) manual labor.
So point 4 is an exaggeration, it was not bad today- tedious, yes; horrible, no- and in the end, we figured out a very effective method to get the mulch out much faster, and made a noticeable dent in the farm's mulching needs. But it was still way more demanding of a job than I could have ever imagined, and one that, after this week, I care to never mention again. So, I guess I should also include a list of things that were on my side today: 1) a sense of productivity. 2) good conversations and fun times while working hard. 3) surely this is building some muscle right?!?!
This evening, we met with Erin (sorry if I spelt that wrong!) to really have a discussion about what we have experienced thus far, and what we can be doing to impact the community with that. The discussion that we had caused me to begin brainstorming ways that we could impact the lives around us from what we are doing this week- obvious things like spreading nutrition awareness and health benefits to eating things that they could grow and things along those lines, and maybe somethings more along the lines of mentoring programs that do involve some work on the farm, something that gives people pride and ownership into what they are doing so that they continue to work to achieve the goal. The only way that the goal of making healthier populations is making the populations feel a sense of ownership and pride in the things that they are working on, and I'm not sure how to incorporate that into things in Abilene, but I could definitely see the Paul Quinn portion of this group having the ability to start a program that does involve general mentoring and a more "nutritional" aspect with the Farm as well.
Overall day two has been long, and at times overwhelming, but continues to be very eyeopening. I feel like I have already begun to learn so much and think about things in such different light than I did 48 hours ago, and it still amazes me how little I know.
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