Hey everyone. I know I never posted a topic saying that I was leaving for a week, but that's becauser I waited untill the last minute to pack and I ran out of time. So anyway, I was at a thing called ASP which is a thing that's a church involved vollunteer program where we go to an under developed community and help to fix houses for people who either cna't afford it or they pjysically can't do it.
So I was in Clinchco, which was a town about 7 hours away from where I live. It was an hour from the west virgina boarder. Just to give you an idea of how poor this town is:
-The main industry is coal mining
-The poverty rate in US is around 12%; in clinchco it's 26%
-The unemployment rate nationally is around 4%...in clinchco it's 16%
-The highschool graduation rate in the US is in the 70-80% I think. In clinchco it's 58%
-Only 4% of people in clinchco have a four year degree
I was with a group of 15 other people, kids and adults, at a trailer at the very top of the mountain. In a week we had to put treated lumber into the ground with rebar, nail 2x4 all the way along the bottem of the trailer, put up studs, blue board, and underpinning. We had to dig a ditch the entire way around the trailer to do all this, thien fill it in when we were done. We had to put up insulation, gutters, drainage pipes, build stairs, paint, and pour cement. There was no shade and the temperatures ranged from 85 to 104 and we had to wear jeans. WEe got everything done though, so that was good.
The part of the week that wasn't doing construction wasn't as great. One of my best friends, logan, had an emotional break down and threatened to kill himself. He'd been depresed for a while and then something pushed him over the edge but I don't really want to say much. And at first, the way they told us, they made it sound like he had killed himself, and I was so scared. It was really draining. He's okay though. I was really home sick, which is a new thing for me. I travel a lot and I've never had a problem with being away, but this time I did. I missed my mom, my dog, mel, maddy, and adam the most. Yeah, you adam, because I'm so damned used to talking to you. And now mel's in jamaca, and maddy has the flu....and I'm still really upset about logan.
Anyway, I'm back and glad to be. :)
awwwwwww
ki ki!
mel told me you were going to do a construction thing with the church. it really sucks about you friend logan i hope he finds the help he needs. i know what it feels like to be depressed and feel as if you have no one to turn to. hopefully he getting the help he needs to recover and live a semi normal life again.
i'm glad you are back.
Yeah, he's gonna be okay. Last summer, actually a year and a week ago, a kid in our youth group killed himself. And it's probably safe to say that we're not 100% over it yet. And I wasn't really friends with this kid because he was a lot older than I was, but logan and I really are good friends. but the difference is that logan requested to leave so he could get help, where as with kody nobody knew untill it happened. But man, it ruined my week anyway. I was already feeling out of place and kind of depressed myself and then it was just really a lot worse.
Plus my CD player broke so I couldn't listen to my Rufus Wainwright and mope.
But now that I'm home I'm better. AND YOU'RE HERE ROGUE, so that makes it a lot better.
lol i feel alot beeter now that i'm back.
i'm sorry to hear about kody though. that does tramatize a person to have to witness it or even here about it.
yeah, but it pulled everyone a lot closer in some sort of strange bondy thing. we were all scared out of our minds though. I'm confident that he's going to get better now though.
awww, rogue, you're the only one that likes me here enough to talk to me in my topic. mel will to when she gets back. I have two whole friends. go me. lol
Go you! lol.
I'll post about my vacation in my own topic (I love how I'm replying to stuff before actually saying I'm back. lol.)
I'm glad you got to finish the house and stuff, but I'm uber sorry about Logan. I'm really glad that he's okay, though. I know you care the uber much about him. :)
I MISSED YOU SO BLOODY MUCH! I didn't have anyone to talk to the entire time. :(
We'll jabber about accidentally nailing our feet to the floor (as I would've done. lol.) and not being able to understand what people were saying 95% tomorrow. :) lol.
~Mel