Tuesday, March 12: Day 4
Living in Indiana, we donāt have to deal with as many natural disasters. We deal with tornadoes sometimes but nothing like what weāre seeing here. Location makes a difference. I wouldnāt know how to really help people in this situation if I hadnāt volunteered. It makes me want to learn how to help others even if I may not be in the same situation. At least I would know how to help.
Iāve volunteered after other disasters but a long time after they occurred. Iāve never been involved with this stage of the work so itās interesting be involved with this process, with the rebuilding houses.
This is a completely new unique experience for me.
I worked with habitat for humanity before and with that, youāre working from the ground up and here it seems like weāre almost working backwards. Itās still a similar experience because weāre working with families that are displaced from their home and really want to get back into their residence.
I have the ability to do physical labor and I see the people who live in these houses and know I can do more work that they can. In the first house, the woman was older and wouldnāt be able to do the amount of work that I can. In the second house, there was a strong looking man living there who looked like he could have been more helpful.
Itās different than any experience Iāve had. Iāve worked mostly in hospitals where people are physically unable to do some things where as here, weāre taking the initiative to help those who may be able to help themselves, but still need the extra hand to do the things they canāt. Itās a good experience but it didnāt come from something good.
A privilege to me was just that I could see the damage on tv and not have to be there. Anything that has to do with kids Iām really interested in volunteering. A child is more helpless and canāt do things by themselves but adults are usually able to take care of themselves. Now I see that these people really canāt do their own work and need people to help them.
