Day 6

We got a HUGE food donation today from a church...it's pretty exciting. We got two massive sheet cakes, tons of pasta, chicken, and garlic bread. All the new volunteers decided to throw a FIESTA tonight with dancing in celebration.  We decided to cook dinner instead of having guests do it in order to celebrate.  Finding guests to cook is one of the WORST parts of being on shift, so this will really help to inspire some fun spirit.  We're even planning on having some salsa dancing. Hopefully that will end up happening :-)

as we say in Annunciation... a comer!

a festejar!

Day 5

So this morning I had my first solo AM shift! I survived!  I slept really poorly last night because I kept thinking of everything I would be needing to do.  Since it's the weekend, thankfully shift does not start until 7AM (instead of 6AM).  The house was a lot emptier today compared to the other days because many of the guests were out looking for work, both for the day or possibly more long term.  Overall, the shift was fairly "quiet," but I was still running around answering the door, phone, fetching items for guests from the tiendita, assigning chores, prepping cleaning and meals, cooking and sorting beans, checking fruit, trying to chat-up guests, etc.

Day 3 or 4...a veces no se contar

Yesterday the three other new volunteers and I shadowed Amanda (Volunteer coordinator) on the PM guest servant shift. While on the guest servant shift, that one particular volunteer is totally in charge of running the house, answering the phone and door, etc. Everything. It was really good for Amanda that we were all shadowing and helping yesterday because it was a CRAZY shift.

Between 2pm when the shift began and 10pm when the shift was over SO much stuff happened...apparently it was an exceedingly unusual day...even at A House

Day 2

Today I'm playing a bit of catch up, but I think I'm doing alright. Yesterday morning when I was sick everyone was going through orientation about how to do the AM shift at Annunciation House.  Each volunteer is responsible at some point (weekly) for running a shift.  While "on shift" that volunteer is responsible for answering the door, phone, directing the meals (breakfast and lunch) and chores, and basically everything. We shadowed Sarah today, so we had to be ready to go at 6am.  It's a lot of work, but it's all necessary.

Among the four volunteers I have the first AM shift this Saturday.

Day 1(ish)

So first, a recap of the rest of yesterday (Day 0):
I ate dinner with the other volunteers and a few of the house guests; we had rice, beans, chicken "flautas," salad, and some other things. As usual, I was the last to finish eating since I'm an incredibly slow eater.  I was able to talk to a couple of the guests, Margarita and Rosa for a bit in Spanish, and it was really nice.

All of the guests had a lot of trouble with my name. Margarita kept thinking i said my name was "Yarda" (meaning yard in Spanish as you probably guessed). So in order to clarify, Taylor and I kept repeating "es como Sarah, pero con D" (It's like Sarah, but with a D).  We had a good laugh about it.

Day 0

I am writing from my top bunk in my new room for the next 10 weeks.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. A "bit" is a bit of an understatement.
The other volunteers who I've had the opportunity to meet all seem really interesting. I'm looking forward to getting to know them.

fever

I keep looking at my flight reservation for El Paso in anxious anticipation...I have no idea what I will encounter there.  Right now, though, I concerned about even getting on the plane.