Today I volunteered to help set up tent city at it's new location. tent city
is an organized homeless encampment that travels around mostly to churches
(you can read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_City_4). It was
set-up day, so we spent a lot of time working with others hauling stuff like
pallets, plywood, tents and boxes. A lot of people helped; some were
residents of tent city and some were volunteers. Yes, you could recognize
some as either residents or volunteers but for many it was really unclear.
Some people were from churches, some from the synagogue, some were not
native English speakers, some were young and others very old. We were all
just people working hard together. You would hear these conversations
happening where a resident realized they were talking to someone who was a
volunteer. I heard several people say thank you, but then the conversation
would move. I was talking to someone who I thought was a volunteer and
turned out he was a resident. It didn't matter. What mattered was that we
were working together. There was lots of moving heavy stuff, unstable
footing, nails and commotion. What mattered was the person holding the other
end of the wood was being careful and that you were working together to
share the load. I've set up for big projects, done the heavy lifting and
many other projects over the years and this was the nicest bunch of people
I've ever worked with. Yes, some people talked more then worked. Yes some ...
