Sunday School with the President

While attending the Disaster Rebuild course, we stayed in Plains, Georgia.  We were lucky enough to be there on a day when Jimmy Carter was teaching Sunday School so several of my classmates and I walked next door to the Maranatha Baptist Church.  Prior to the service, we were briefed on our expected behavior by Miss Jan.  While she was a very nice southern lady, Miss Jan left no doubt in anyone’s mind about exactly who was in charge.  She has lived in Plains her whole life, is a retired teacher, even teaching Amy Carter in 3^rd grade.  We were instructed on when we could take pictures, not to call President Carter, Mr President, (not sure what the difference is between Mr. President and President Carter, but if Jan said it, it was law).  She briefed us on what we were to do when we had our pictures taken after the service.  She said the Carters will be holding hands because they have been married for decades and do not want you to stand between them.  Do not try to shake hands with them and do not touch them.  This last point is sure to excite the secret service hovering nearby! Do not try to engage them in conversation, do not try to have them sign anything etc.  If you do everything correctly, you will feel the sweetest little touch in the small of your back when the President puts his hand there.   After the briefing President Carter came out and talked to us for about 10 minutes.  First he asked where everyone was from, then gave a brief overview on what he had been doing for the past few weeks.  He talked about the Carter Foundation projects to eradicate Guinea worms and River Blindness.  He was very excited to report that cases of both of these parasite infestations are down tremendously.  In fact, Guinea worm disease is poised to be the next human disease after small pox to be eradicated. 

Basically the guinea worm is a parasite that is ingested when a person drinks stagnant water.   The male and female worms mate.  The male dies and is absorbed by the body. Over the next year the female grows to about 3 feet in length and travels down thru the body to the lower extremities where she creates a very painful blister to get out of the body.  To extract the worm, a person must wrap the live worm around a piece of gauze or a stick. The process can be long, taking anywhere from hours to months and is reported to feel like the afflicted area is on fire. It can also be removed surgically, but it is normally found in areas with no access to medical care. http://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/mini_site/facts.html

River Blindness is also caused by a parasite, this one transmitted by a small black fly. The body’s immune response causes severe itching and can destroy optical tissue in the eye.  http://www.cartercenter.org/health/river_blindness/index.html

Next he discussed his upcoming trip to Myanmar and Nepal, hoping to find ways to encourage democracy in the two Asian nations, which are undergoing political transitions. 

After Sunday School and the regular church service everyone lined up outside for individual pictures with President and Mrs. Carter.  I had on a Habitat Care-A-Vanner t-shirt and someone behind me in line asked about it. She said she was a CAV too and had just come from Albany Georgia.  I said me too and she said oh my goodness are you Lisa?  Seems Jimmy and David told her group to make sure they kept the trailers I worked on so hard, neat and organized.  So nice to know my hard work was appreciated. 

When it came my turn to have my picture made, President Carter noted my Habitat shirt.  Remembering the previous instructions I simply said yes Sir.  President Jimmy Carter put his hand in the small of my back.  Guess I was a good girl who listened to Miss Jan.  Not everyone got the former presidents arm around them I might add.  How utterly cool is that!!!  He is such a kind man, to give so much of his time just to take pictures with each and every person who comes to Sunday school.  He belonged to another local church but moved when they asked that he not open his Sunday school class to the public and not take pictures afterward.  He keeps an impossible busy schedule for a man of his age; he is very active in his community, he’s an active member of his church; (he’s the only president knows to have taught Sunday school while in office) he’s an active participant in world events, still traveling the globe in pursuit of peace and fighting disease in 3^rd world countries.  Regardless of your views on his politics, I don’t see how anyone could dispute what a great contribution he continues to make to the betterment of the world in general.  If only other politicians could get over their petty differences and work to make the world a better place.

After Church I headed back to Tuscaloosa for my final week.  Roger said he was saving both tiling and hardwood floors for me.  I’ve been wanting to try my hand at it for a while.  He didn’t disappoint, I laid tiles and grouted in the kitchen, bathroom and 2 closets and laid hard wood floors in part of the living room.  It was actually easier than I thought, but took a while to get going on the kitchen tiles.  I was working with a lady from the Presbyterian Disaster Corp and we were well underway when we noticed a big gap forming by the outside wall.  Everything else was lined up perfectly.  Of course the mortar had started to set and it was really hard to pry the tiles up.  I must give credit where credit is due, Roger is the one who started us out (crooked). J  We finally got the tiles pried up and laid back down.  Unfortunately, after a while we noticed that we once more had a widening gap by the same wall.  It was at this point that we discovered the walls were not perfectly square, so Roger was off the hook; he didn’t really start us out wrong.  We were able to minimize the widening gap once we were aware of the cause.   He and I worked well past quitting time when everyone else left on day 2 because we had to get the tiles in so we could grout the next day.  (still waiting for the overtime pay). We were on a tight schedule because the cabinets were coming the following day.  I manned the wet saw outside while he  worked in the closet to lay the last of the tile.  It’s at this point that I should mention that it was about 45 degrees outside and nice and toasty inside.  Too bad I wasn’t faster at laying the tile, instead I offered to cut.  Stupid choice of tasks on my part.  To cut the tile you had to use a wet saw, meaning my hands were in cold water the entire time.  Needless to say, I think I had frostbite by the time we were done.   The next day was equally long as we had to grout 2 bathrooms, the kitchen and 2 closets.  We decided to lay some hardwood floor first and got a big chunk of that done before we started on the grout.   The day got away from us and again Roger and I worked well past the time when everyone else went home.  We had to leave by 6pm because the Presbyterian Disaster Corp invited all the volunteers and home owners to a lovely spaghetti dinner.  Everyone was waiting for us by the time we made it to the church, but it was a very nice evening.  I’ve only worked on this one house and know the home owners Lee and Paulette very well, but haven’t met the other 3 homeowners on the block.  It was nice to have the opportunity to meet them and talk to the other volunteers. 

I had some errands to run on Wednesday, so got to work later in the morning. Much to my horror I found out that in our rush to finish the day before, we completely forgot to clean up the grout in the bathroom and it had dried all night long.  My volunteer partner had been on her knees for 2 hours with a putty knife scraping the dried grout up.  I see now why the directions explicitly say not to let it sit longer then about 20 minutes before cleaning it with a damp sponge. 

The cabinets were delivered as promised, but there was a problem with the ADA ramp, so after we installed the bathroom vanities we all shifted our focus outside.  That was OK since the weather had warmed up significantly.  We were joined at noon by my friend Doug Augustine.  We worked together in Louisiana and when he said he had signed up for the Tuscaloosa build, I was excited to learn he could come a few days early so we could work together again.  We spent the next two days finishing the wheelchair ramp and rails.  We had to take the rails down and shorten the posts due to a slight miscalculation in the correct height.  It was all hands on deck so to speak, as teams of 2 or 3 cut wood for the rails and planks; installed the rails and planks; routered the hand rail on both sides; removed the deck frame and spindles; remeasured and cut the posts; and finally reinstalled all parts again.  The entire project wasn’t completely finished till Sat, when I was long gone. 

Since we were all outside, we got to watch the house next door going up.  There was a large group of volunteers so they moved along at a pretty good clip.  By mid week they had put up scaffolding and were putting on the roof.  Having just come from a week of having scaffolding safety preached at me, I was particularly interested in watching this.  I noticed the deck to the scaffolding on the front of the house was only half way across.  In other words, if the scaffolding is designed to be 3 planks wide, all 3 planks need to be used.  This one only used half.  As Roger and I stood debating how best to approach the site supervisor on this oversight, another roof rafter went up.  Something went wrong and the guy standing on the outside wall was shoved backward and went flying off the roof. He was lucky enough to land on the very edge of the incorrectly installed scaffolding deck.  It was the closest I’ve ever come to witnessing a potentially catastrophic accident.  A fall from that height can certainly break a neck, back, leg etc or even kill.  Eventually they stopped work and installed all the decking and side rails.  Thanks again to the safety training I got in class, I noted several other concerns, most notably not everyone wearing hard hats.  You can certainly bring these concerns to the attention of the site supervisor, but if they chose to ignore them, there isn’t much I can do as a volunteer not even working on that site.  It did resolve to make me more aware of safety issues in the future. 

So my last day on the house has come.  It was really satisfying to see the progress that had been made over the 6-7 weeks I’ve worked on it.  I really enjoyed working with all the visiting volunteers, but especially enjoyed making friends with Jon Ward, a local volunteer.  I know he has been a great help to Roger and I really liked working with him.  I hope he continues to volunteer his time with Habitat, he has a lot to offer as a skilled worker.  I have also really enjoyed working with the homeowner Lee.  He’s quite the character and it was a real pleasure getting to know him.   I know Habitat is dead on when they make the homeowner put in sweat equity on their house.  You can see the pride in ownership that comes with helping to build your own house and I can especially see that in Lee.  He took great pleasure in coming out and working with us as much as he could; my first day on the job he came by on his way home from the hospital.  He had just had a heart attack, followed by pneumonia.  When he should have been home recuperating, he was working on his house just as hard of not harder than the rest of us.  I must say it’s more like hanging out with a group of friends then working when I worked with both Lee and Jon. 

So I’m on my way to DC for another Forest River Owners Group (FROG) rally.

Pictures:  https://plus.google.com/photos/118205599704530902363/albums/5846870599277451841?authkey=CN2a_p6ytqvwdg#photos/118205599704530902363/albums/5846870599277451841?authkey=CN2a_p6ytqvwdg