The first assignment that we received this morning was to turn the old isolation room into the new staff break room. We swept the room, cleaned a bunch of chairs and tables and stocked it (heavily) with snacks, juice, and water. We took a few minutes to enjoy the snacks and headed off to our new project.
Instead of doing the same thing over and over again like we have the last 2 says I had a lot of random projects in lots of different areas. Our second project was outside! Everything was so foggy that for most of the morning you couldn't really see more than 50 yards away. (Picture below). We moved the cots from the isolation room that Holly and I had sprayed down with Lysol twice on to a pile of cots that still needed to be cleaned. We were super grateful that that was not our responsibility. Afterwards we wiped down the portable showers, and moved all of the used and contaminated Red Cross blankets into black trash bags and out to the dumpster. Usually Red Cross blankets are donated to animal shelters, but because of the high risk of contamination and disease everyone felt it would be better to dispose of them. We agreed.
We (Jenna, Holly, and I) had the opportunity to move more cots! Yay!...? Leila, our supervisor didn't want us to have to clean any more because she knows it is a miserable job. So she is trying to find another solution but wanted all of the cots moved over by the trailers so that they are out of the street and out of people's way. It took some time, but we were able to finish it fairly quickly.
Our next task was to move 4 pallets full of water bottles from the back of the shelter to the food dock entrance. Thankfully we had those nifty machines that allow you to lift up a pallet by pumping the handle so that you can easily pull it to where you want it to be. Demarco and his brother Berry helped us and they pulled while we pushed the pallets down the ramp to the food dock. For the second trip Holly pulled one and I pulled the other. Everything went pretty smoothly until Holly accidentally steered her pallet on to a pot hole in the middle of the ramp. It got stuck and took several of us to pull it out. After that we took a short break on the grassy hill where we were later joined by Dani and Alex, the head of security. (Pictures below)
After our break Demarco, Holly, Jenna, and Berry borrowed a car and went to Target. I, of course did not go partly because it was Sunday and also because I am here to work, so that is what I did. I kind of wandered around the building finding odd jobs here and there to help with. I retrieved, cleaned up, and set up several cots for some of the clients. I also visited with Joanne again because she needed help from the bathroom back to her room and I talked with several staff members about their deployments and what I can do to make my experience as successful and positive as possible. It was fairly productive.
Just after that Leila met up with me and she and I worked in the sleeping area to move several cots around to make sure that our fire escape routes and pathways were clear so that we didn't get I trouble with the fire Marshall. It was nice to work with her and I think it helped her trust me more.
The rest of the day was eating dinner, helping Joanne again and then getting ready to leave for the day. About half of the staff shelter went out to a bar around the corner tonight and you can bet that I was invited. You could also bet every dime you own (unless you are LDS) that I also did not go. I stayed at the staff shelter and played scrabble with a few people and won! (Those scramble and words with friends games are finally paying off) Then Dan, our friend who sanitizes everything found out that I was "Mormon" and that sparked a rather deep religious conversation. I told him multiple times that we aren't polygamists but I'm still not sure if he believes me.
Everyone came back from the bar and headed to bed fairly quickly. Overall and really quiet and much needed night.
I totally missed being able to go to church today, but I did find out that Thursday is my day off and I am hoping really hard that I will be able to meet up with missionaries or even go to the New York temple! It would be so cool!!
I'll definitely keep you all updated. Until tomorrow, happy sabbath!
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