Day 23: Hard Work, Good Food, & Happiness

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Today was one of those glorious mornings where you get to sleep in until 7am and roll out of your sleeping bag and not have to roll that & your thermarest up! Not only that, but we were all pumped for our first traditional build day with the weather in our favor! We ate some of the 70lbs of DMed day-old bagels from Panera (way to go Noah!) and there was plenty of left over fruit from dinner and bananas from Whole Foods so we ate well before working in the sun all day. NJ presented town facts for Jame’s Island while we ate and then we bid Ryan farewell as we loaded up the 15P and set out for our build.

Sea Island Habitat is the third oldest Habitat in world! It’s the third bc the first two were established, they broke for lung, and then sea island was initiated (apparently a true story!). It’s going on 40 years of serving the community with lots of active volunteer groups. When we arrived, we were greeted by Liv, Gary, and two others and they told us about what is called a “cluster neighborhood” where they have 18 Habitat homes that are being completed over a 3 year period (I believe these #s are correct). They pointed out the homes that were done during Women’s Build Week and told a few stories about the home-owners or soon-to-be homeowners and their families. We were working at three different homes at “kiddie corner” (they call it this because this section of the neighborhood will have lots of kids). They have some tight deadlines to hit for the end of June in order to help with costs so they were very thankful for our help!

The first group of 7 got to work on the foundation, moving dirt, and adding stabilization and other things I’m painfully uneducated on to help set the house up to be ready for its floor and framing. Noah & Magpie helped mix and pour cement for the porch steps landing of another house, while my group of 5 went to work on the giant hole in the ground behind another house. It was approx 6ft deep and nearly full of water (maybe 4ft of water? ??‍♀️) and surround by large piles of dirt. The cement was broken up and the ground dug up because of something with the pipes. Our job for the day was to fill the hole back up with the dirt piles surrounding the hole.

With shovels, rakes, and wheel barrels in hand, we got to work shoveling the dirt back into the hole. With all of the water and dirt flying from all directions, we all got splashed with mud, which made for some cool photos! We learned more about Liv, her tattoos (go Harry Potter!), and a bit about Charleston as we shoveled dirt. Sarah also helped Liv collect rocks and tip them into the hole. Working together with Kristi, Aiden, Sarah, & Mikey, as well as some help from Liv, we got all of the dirt back into the hole! Feeling victorious, we decided to celebrate by using a sledgehammer to break up the pieces of cement they had to tear up so we could add them to the hole as well. Going from a 6 foot hole surrounded by dirt to a mud pile that resembled stew with the chunks of cement, we felt pretty accomplished (& dirty!) and let the not-so-much-a-hole-any-longer sit in the sun and bake up some nice dry ground! ??

Tired and sore, we went and checked on the other team and helped filled in the drainage pipe hole that was just cleared by inspection. Kristi, Annie, & I pulled out the lunch coolers and bins and we broke for an hour for lunch at noon. We’ve never been more excited for cold spaghetti ‘ meatballs!! With all the bananas and Nutella floating around, we ate well and felt refreshed and ready to work the afternoon(or ready for a nap).

In the afternoon, we helped hang these brackets with nails that can hold up 250+ pounds each to the foundation that would eventually support the flooring. Working in teams and/or independently, we got to work and we’re able to finish the job by the time it was time to clean up the site. Usually a time-consuming and tedious job, we were able to complete it well as many hands make for lite work! Kristi pointed out how much can get done in such a short amount of time with the help of many people—life lessons by Kristi! ☺️

Tired and dreaming of coffee and/or ice cream, we loaded into the vans with separate duties and errands to run. Our van was on nugget try pick up & Aiden drop off duties while the other van went to Starbucks to meet one of the future homeowners—so cool! They also had to pick up a bike box for Annie’s bike since she has to pack it up for tomorrow 😞

As we were driving, I noticed that we were headed for Sullivan’s Island over the big bridge and knew that the nugget tray was to be picked up in downtown Charleston. So I texted Aiden from the back of the van and it seemed like there was a miscomm about which Kickin Chicken we were headed to (note to self: send address of location of DM to leaders when DM acquired) ? Since we were stopped at a Wendy’s to drop Aiden off, the rest of the gang went in for frostys as NJ & I tried to figure out what to do. The other van wasn’t through Charleston yet so we tasked them with the pick up of the nuggets and we told them we would grabbed Annie’s bike box for her—it all worked out! AND I’m top of that—the Wendy’s crew came back not only with frostys, but also DMed nuggets and fries—SO CLUTCH!! ?

We stopped at Mike’s Bikes (SC2SC’s partner bike shop!) to pick up Annie’s bikes and to look around. Though everything was on sale, I had to practice self control and leave empty handed since bike shops tend to get me! We went back to the host and the team graciously let me take the first shower since I was covered in mud and had plans to meet my friends downtown for dinner. Much scrubbing later, I went to investigate the chicken nuggets that just arrived and as I was doing so Christine called! For those of you who don’t know, Christine is one of my best friends that I did NC2SD14 with and helped inspired us to do a trip to begin with. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have done my first trip and wouldn’t be on this trip either! She was so encouraging and motivating when I threw the idea of me doing K2C this year, which definitely helped serves in my decision making process! Anyway, since we typically play phone tag, I had to take the call and catch up with her for a little bit before heading downtown.

A treasured and always too short convo later, we hung up after chatting for 20 minutes, I checked in with the team (I was starting to get FOMO bc I knew everyone would be hanging out on the beach for Annie’s last night), and ordered a Lyft to take me downtown to meet Yo with my friends Steph and Christian from PBA. we met at Savannah Bee Company where we tasted various honeys and caught up a bit. We then ventured to dinner and the place they had in mind had an hour wait so we went to their go-to place, Poogan’s Porch where we enjoyed cheese fritters, and Mac & cheese on the back porch. As a storing was rolling in, they moved us inside where we were served our dinner—duck for Steph, Chicken for Christian, and Shrimp & Grits for me—all of their house favorites! All delicious, though I have to say I think I enjoyed the fluffy biscuit with honey butter the best ?

We then walked to Henry’s House where we enjoyed Moscow Mules on the rooftop. This was super special for me because the first time I was in Charleston was with Christine & DJ (who was stationed here for a while after the fact), while we were driving back down to PBA for my senior spring semester. We happened upon Henry’s and it was just the perfect sunset find! ? I’ve been back when I visited DJ here and after having just talked to Christine and now being here on Bike & Build, it seemed full circle for me. Life is weird & wonderful! ?

Very sleepy, we started our walk to their car, which was enjoyable because it was through town and down (up?) the river towards Battery Park. A beautiful night for a nearly-pedestrian-free 1+ mile walk, we found ourselves back at their car and they graciously gave me a ride back to the church. Struggling to stay awake, we got back to the church, bid our farewells, and I went upstairs to pack my bag & get ready for the next day. After letting in a locked out NJ, I tried to go downstairs with her so I could sleep in the AC where I was last night. However, I discovered there was more stuff to navigate around and with my phone upstairs on the charger, I didn’t want to disturb the sleeping Amanda and Kristi so I went back upstairs to where my bag lived. I caught a slight second wind so I chatted with Sarah and Jess for a while before returning to my lonely room (but at least it had a view!). A few of us are planning on waking up early to catch the sunrise tomorrow so let’s just hope it proves to be better than our cloudy sunset...

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Photos

Moscow Mules at Henry’s
Apparently we are both on a muscle mule kick ☺️