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There Are No Mistakes
"I'm living in a barn...with 14 people...for two months."
Arriving in Anniston, Ala., on February 20, 2000, those are my first thoughts. My AmeriCorps*NCCC team has been assigned to Anniston for two months to help coordinate the local Habitat for Humanity chapter's Collegiate Challenge. The best housing that Habitat for Humanity of Calhoun County has been able to organize for us is this slightly renovated barn, in which we will be packing not only my team of 13, but two other Habitat volunteers. I didn't join AmeriCorps*NCCC with expectations of luxury living, but as I walk around on the concrete floor surveying my new home and realizing that I will have no privacy, let alone luxury, for the next eight weeks, I begin to question just how in the world I am going to make it.
My first two weeks at the worksite don't exactly bolster my confidence. Although this Habitat chapter has big plans—to build 13 homes in one year—it has only three construction staff to oversee it all. That's why my team is here—to help supervise the approximately 50 student volunteers who will be coming each week to spend their spring break building homes for low-income families. My team has very little construction experience, but after just one week of training, I find myself overseeing four newly arrived college students, even though I barely know what's going on.
I guess the best word to use for those first couple of weeks in Anniston is "chaotic." Fifty college students eager to be given work, 13 corps members trying to figure out what needs to be done and how to do it, and three Habitat construction foremen struggling like mad to create some semblance of order. Bringing in an NCCC team to lead a Collegiate Challenge for a small but ambitious Habitat chapter seemed like a good idea when we got the assignment. Faced with the reality of it, I'm frightened. If none of us know what we are doing, how can we possibly supervise fifty college students? It looks like a long seven weeks ahead.
Four weeks later: With my teammate Megan, I'm in charge of a roof. One entire roof. We have a week, ten college students, and no instructions besides "build the roof." It's up to us to frame it, lay the boards, rollout the tarpaper, and attach the shingles. Glen, one of the construction foremen, comes by about once a day to check on our progress, but we're basically on our own. We get the roof done.
In just a month, I've gained the confidence and the skills to supervise the construction of a roof. I've gone from clueless to capable. Four weeks of watching Glen and his colleagues, throwing myself into the houses we are building, and taking to heart Habitat for Humanity of Calhoun County's rule—"There are no mistakes; anything can be fixed"—have paid off. This roof, my roof, is evidence.
I'm not the only one. All around me, my teammates are leading students in framing, installing, sanding, painting, and all of the other tasks that make a pile of lumber into someone's home. Now that we are true leaders, as my teammate Karl points out, it's as if our work is multiplied by five—the results of Collegiate Challenge are truly impressive. By the time we leave, there will be eight separate homes that wouldn't have been there without us.
Three more weeks later: It's our last Monday in Anniston and, as is tradition, the homeowners on Habitat Lane have made us dinner—fried chicken, collard greens, and other Southern fare I've grown to love. A few other corps members and I invite Phyllis to eat with us. Phyllis is a Habitat homeowner whose house we've taken from drywall to completion. Just last week, it was dedicated and she moved in. Seeing the tears in Phyllis' eyes as she and her children received their first home ever was a moving experience, but sitting down and talking to her is probably what will stay in my mind the most. She simply tells us about her past—her struggles to raise her children on a small and unsteady income, stingy landlords who never made necessary repairs, and how Habitat was a godsend that let her buy a home of her own when no bank would ever approve her for a mortgage. Talking to Phyllis turns her from a friendly woman whose home I helped build into a three-dimensional person who truly deserves the chance Habitat was giving her.
When I think back to the words Phyllis used to excuse herself from her fellow homeowners to join us—"I have to go talk to my friends over there"—I feel a great sense of pride. My AmeriCorps*NCCC teammates and I have not only been partners in giving her that chance, but we have also become her friends. I had many great experiences in Anniston, but none equaled the pleasure of that realization.
Except when we finally moved out of the barn. |
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