Day 9: Charlottesville, Virginia: "And Build"

Once again I must subject my audience to a mad-long entry. Charlottesville has been action=packed and filled to the brim with college-town goodness and community service.

After bed on the first night in CVille I woke early enough to walk to the corner with Heather (the record store girl), Kathryn (tax accountant from Oklahoma...doing BNB?), Jen (from Florida, out to see the world), and Jesse (Of Americorp fame). We got a hot breakfast and real coffee at Bodo's, and the meandered back to Tri-Sig house to get ready for our first build day.

I threw on my BNB shirt and helmet, hopped on my bike, and we all biked across town to Habitat's build site. On the way I randomly ran into two more friends, Paige and Mia, as we were rounding the corner. The rest of the team heckled me for being so popular. Psh.

We arrived at the build site and split up into smaller groups to tackle some projects across the city. I was assigned to work on the first build day a the Habitat Store, and wound up learning a great deal about Habitat and how the store works. basically they take donations from the community in the form of furniture and furnishings, clean it up, sell it at a discount price, and donate all the profits to the local Habitat chapter. That in turn produces about 3 or 4 houses a year, according to the manager, Buck. Pretty awesome stuff.

Buck split us up further and four of us rode out to Stanardsville to collect some donations being made from a long-time customer who was moving to DC. On the way out to her house I had the chance to ride with Larry, the spokesperson for the store. His story is a tremendous testament to Habitat's success. He'd always lived on the brink of poverty, and roamed the country for most of his life, struggling with alcoholism, a lack of formal education, and a lack of a supportive family. When he moved to Charlottesville, however, Habitat served as the catalyst that turned his life around. The work he put into his house allowed him to get a good deal of self esteem and security for his family. He wound up sobering up and now he actually works as an employee for the Habitat Store. It was amazing to see the kind of good this work could do, and it made me certain that I was dedicating myself to a worthwhile cause.

We arrived in Stanardsville about 30 minutes later, a little wiser from our conversation with Larry, and got the break-down from the house's owner, Jamie. She warned us to watch for wasps, bobcats, snakes, and bears while we were working. This was an incomplete list. Her house was way out in the sticks and up in some very serene wood. We spent that morning deconstructing her porch, which was especially difficult considering our drills weren't charged, so we had to remove screws manually with regular screw-drivers.

After a lovely lunch where Larry hilariously recounted his trip to Niger to meet his wife's family, we picked up serious steam with our newly charged drills and wound up finishing off the porch. We also gathered a sizable window which Buck anticipated would turn around to make a good deal of profit for the store in a short amount of time. By then, it was time to ride back.

Arriving back after our first Build Day to Tri-Sig, I immediately headed out to visit my friend Kirsten before her move to Mississippi. Kirsten and I like to say we were high school friends, even though that's not really possible since I went to an all-guys high school. This just feels right to us. We had a great visited as she made me regale the details of the trip and...pulled a few juicier details out of me, as is her way.

Dinner, back at the Tri-Sig house, was provided by two BNB alums, Whitney and Marie. They made an incredible spread of bread, salad, and chicken, and enthusiastically told us about their time in BNB and how excited they were for us. When I asked for advice, all they could say was cherish it. When I asked for highlights, all they could say was everything.You could see just by talking that this experience transformed them, and I really hope (and feel like I'm beginning) to get a similar feeling about it all.

Dinner was followed by an epic porch jam where people were using anything they wished as an instrument. Guitars, bongos, bike spokes, it was all good. Following the jam, we got on the subject of the Haka.

The Haka, for those unaware, is the New Zealand Maori war dance made famous by the New Zealand All-Blacks, the country's national rugby team. It's entire purpose is to psyche a team up for war, and after explaining what it was to my team, they insisted I teach it to them.

We then proceeded to rehearse the Haka right in the street. It was hilarious. I mean, how do you teach a person to look as terrifying as possible? "Stomp with enough force to break the Earth" "Dig deep into the diaphram". "Remember: grab the chicken, snap the neck". We had an awesome time. My best guess is within a week the team will have it down. By the time we get to Cannon beach the goal is to have the entire team do the Haka in the waters of the Pacific. It. Will. Be. Epic.

The Haka lesson was followed by a collective migration to the bars in town. Being underage and restless, I worked to convince people to come steam tunneling with me. Fortunately I can be very persuasive when I want to be. I managed to convince Emma, Chicago Jesse, and a BNB alum named Lynn to join me for adventure and mischief of the highest degree.

So we did that. We walked into grounds, snuck into the tunnel system under the school, and avoided detection from about 30+ construction workers working right above us. I showed them some quality graffiti, and then we exited.

However, Lynn, as it turns out, is a chemistry TA, and was excited to show us the lab, which even I had never seen before. We explored the chem building and played with liquid nitrogen, freezing grapes and then smashing them on the lab floor. Such good times. And educational too!

We then finally meandered back to Tri-Sig. I got another Gus (sorry, Dad) and then went to bed.

Then the next day we all mixed it up and went to new volunteer sites. I was at the build site and spent my morning painting the house and my afternoon caulking the bathrooms and making immature jokes inspired by the caulking.

Today's volunteering was followed by a brief trip to a new sprinkler park which has recently opened. It was only about 2 blocks away from the build site, and we were the oldest folks on site by, oh, about two decades. We had a ball though and cooled off in the fountains that were obviously not built for people our size.

We then biked back to Tri-Sig. I got a shower and shaved my beard for the team beard-off which will be taking place. Starting today, we have until June 30th to grow the best beards we can. The women will judge based on length, volume, and "effect". The next day will be a creativity day, in which we are free to trim our beards in intriguing was however we please.

We had dinner at Gabe's house and raised a ruckus in his mom's living room, laughing and hollering as if we'd known eachother for seven years, not seven days, but that seems to be the effect when you're never seperated from the company of these folks. Plus, they're just so cool.

We had a town hall meeting where we all gave highs and lows from the trip and shoutouts to each other. It's one of my favorite things that we've done. It just illustrates perfectly that this is not any one person's individual challenge. Seperately, we have strengths and weaknesses, but as a full team we our unstoppable. We ended the meeting by talking up tomorrow's ride, which will easily be our most challenging thus far. Not only our we leaving civilization, but we're waking at five, biking 80+ miles, and doing a considerable chunk of those 80 over our first actual mountains.

We will make it to Lexington. Of this I am certain. Tomorrow will be a long day but a great day. As for now, I've definitely written enough and feel it's time to start getting some sleep.