Lessons Learned

Today was a good reminder as to why we should never underestimate the fact that there is always more to learn.  I'm a believer of life long learning and its not til I'm on a service trip that I'm reminded of why service trips are a wonderful tool for helping foster that.  This trip has contained some of the most rich and organic dialogue. Although we tried to foster this in the classroom, the raw conversations we have been able to have I believe are due in part to being outside the four walls of a traditional setting.

Our task today was to install dry wall in a previously flooded home in the Gentilly neighborhood.  By best guess the neighborhood had at least 10 feet of water. We could see water marks on the studs at about a 4 foot level but the house is also raised at least 4 to 6 feet off the ground. To keep the story short (and I'm sure someone else will take the time to blog about it) all the dry wall we hung before lunch,  approximately 3 walls in one room and 1 in another were all hung wrong and we had to take them all down and start over.  Everyone was frustrated because we had only done what we had been told to do. However it turns out we were told wrong and although we weren't responsible for the miscommunication we were responsible for fixing the mistake. Kind of like with racism or other injustices that exist that I might not personally be responsible for, I do have a responsibility to help clean up the repercussions they have caused.

I also learned that teams are only as effective as the communication within the team. We were all so focused on getting the job done that there wasn't really someone managing us as the volunteers. It remphasized that intentionality does not determine a job well done. Although it sucked to have to do the job again I was glad that we did because even if we would have finished our original way and we thought it was good, it wouldn't have really been finished because it was all wrong. I think through all of this we have all definitely learned how to correctly install drywall, but we also learned how to work together and persevere. Sure it took a lot longer but we came together and corrected our mistakes (and I do have to admit that it looks a lot better!). Tomorrow we set out on a strong foundation of practice and will hopefully accomplish a lot.

Renee