Pre-Shabbat Reflections

Posted on February 18, 2011. Filed under: Reflections, Teen Writing, Trip |

We had another busy day at Our School at Blair Grocery. We planted, dug, sifted, painted and helped them get ready for a huge event on Sunday (more about that later). We then returned to get ready for Shabbat and we are off to Congregation Shir Chadash for the next 25 hours. We’ll see you on the other side. Shabbat Shalom!

Weeding and Planting a Garden

Today, on our second day at Our School and Blair Grocery, we continued the projects that we began yesterday, and also began new projects. We sifted through compost material with the sifter that we had constructed previously. In addition, we had the opportunity to build a new hoop house. We measured, cut, and hammered the stakes that marked the beginnings of the house. Working with the entire OSBG staff has been an incredible experience. They seem really happy that we are there to help them, and it is exciting to be aware of the difference that we are making. When we returned to the hostel, our bus driver, James, kindly offered to tell us his story of Katrina. We heard his stories of New Orleans pre-storm and post-storm. He shared the way that all of his belongings were lost and he has had to rebuild his life. It was a great day and I look forward to the rest of the trip! — M.W.

Painting Labels for the Garden

Today was really different than yesterday, for me at least. I spent the first half of the morning attempting to carve out a six-foot wide “walk-way” from a whole tarp’s worth of manure. Sifting was fun, that was done with the help of Rachel and J.J or Josh Jacobs. Then Ryan, the business manger showed up with her adorable son, Miles who I had the honor of watching for a while. After the babysitting came hammering in nails so that they could be cut by my sister, Hannah. Luckily nothing bad happened but then I was recruited into the helping of beginning to build the hoop house which should be done by Sunday. That involved a lot of measuring, and hitting of big wood against smaller sticks of wood. That was fun but a lot of hard work. Then after that we came back to the hostil and had the honor of listening to the story of our bus driver, James who told us about his experience before and after Katrina. He was kind enough to answer ALL of our questions. After that there was plenty of time to get ready for Sabboth. — E.T.