I'm gonna look like the Incredible Hulk by the time this is all over

            The last two days have been pretty long and tiring. This past week was my first “real” week of work, done without the help of previous volunteers. On Monday, our core team (Maribel, Don Petronilo, and myself) met and discussed how things were going to work. That was nice to finally have that hashed out, since I'd sort of been making stuff up for a week, which is not how I prefer to do things.

           Wednesday was a pretty big day for me. I left the house at 630 with Don Petronilo and Maria, one of our residents, and headed to Whole Foods in Berkeley to get some “used bread” and slightly stale cakes. It was terrifying. I had to drive the van during the first part of rush hour on the Interstate. And I got sort of lost twice. Mostly because I don't know which way south is, and when the directions say to go south, well, I just pick right or left. I chose wrong. But now I know which way NOT to go, so that's good, I guess. Learning experience, yay.

            At about 9, I started cooking, my first time without any help. I made pinto beans and rice, like we do most days. It's easy and we always have the ingredients. Definitely gets pretty boring, so I'm sure I'll branch out more at some point. I did find out that pinto beans expand a lot when they're cooked. So that was interesting. I had to dip some out of the big pot and put them in a smaller pot. And then of course, I ran out of food at about 1230, so I made more, but then no one showed up to eat it. So I had a lot of extra food. Woohoo for leftovers.

           Juan, another of our residents, had to run some errands in Hayward, further south of Oakland, so I took time off of cleaning the house to take him around. That also involved Interstate driving. So far, no one has died, so I guess I'll call it a successful venture. When I returned, I finished cleaning, made a pasta salad, reheated all of our beans, and served supper to our residents and several members of the board, who were having a meeting. Ben also came over, and it was nice to see him. I'm afraid I wasn't very good company – I was so pooped! We watched “Up!” with Maria and I worked on my applique.

            Thursday (today) is our weekly food distribution day. At about 830, the Alameda County Food Bank dropped off pallets of potatoes, sweet potatoes, watermelons, and cauliflower. Don Petronilo and I were the only ones at the house, so this random homeless guy stopped to help us. The bags of potatoes weight like 50lbs, and the boxes of sweet potatoes are 40lbs, and since there were only 3 of us, I lifted and moved a lot of pounds of potatoes. I'm going to look like the Incredible Hulk by the time this is all over.  Or Wes Goodrich.  Handy as that would be, I think that the hassle of buying clothes to fit my new physique would really outweigh any potential benefits.

            We actually distribute food from 11 until whenever we run out of normal food and people don't want to take any more sweet potatoes. We always have a lot of sweet potatoes. Our primary clients are Hispanics (a lot of Mayan/Guatemalan women, actually, which is exciting), and Vietnamese. Occasionally there are some African Americans, but not a lot. The line for food stretches around the block, and is usually about 300 people, but we never know for sure because a lot of people get their food, loop around, and stand in line again (and again). I feel like that's sort of disrespectful because we have a lot of people that are still coming at noon or 1 when we're starting to run out, and so sometimes people get 2 watermelons and some get none. And no matter how many times I tell people they can only have one of something because there are so many people and only so much food to share, there will always be those few that swipe a couple of extras when they think I'm not looking. So that's kind of frustrating, but I guess that's how it goes.

            So now I'm just vegging out in my room, recovering from the last two days and from speaking and thinking in Spanish all day long. It's exhausting. I hope everyone back home is having a good time, what with the start of school and jobs and whatnot. I love you all and miss you very much.