Houma: Your home away from home

Today was my first full day being down in New Orleans doing service. Today's service was done at a Houma school house that needed to be painted, stairways rebuilt and also trees and brush to be removed to form a walkable path. I chose to tear down and rebuild the main entrance to the school house, which required a lot of time and effort from everyone. Tomas, the head of the projects today was very helpful and trusted all 43 of us like we were his own family. He trusted us to use all of the tools that we needed to complete the job, anywhere from a simple tape measure to cutting 2x4's with a skill saw and keeping them in place using a compressed air nail-gun. Today's service reminded me a  lot of the work that I have done in the last with my grandfather. My grandfather and I have done everything from cutting down trees to building and painting staircases.
However today was totally different from any of these experiences that I have had in the past. With my grandfather, I would do a lot of the "heavy looking on", gathering and handing him the tools that he needed for the job. He would also tell me what to do and how to do it and would watch over my shoulder as I did it. He would correct me when I was wrong or not as accurate as he wanted me to be. Today was the total opposite, the tools were already gathered and at times they were handed to me. I was looked at as sort of a "leader" in this situation as I had some experience in this type of work but did not tell anyone. Tomas looked to me and told me what needed to be done and I went out and either did it myself or informed the rest of the group on what needed to be done. "Measure twice and cut once" was a saying that was heard a lot throughout the day, just like when working with my grandfather. We managed to finished both stairways, painting the main room in the school, nailing all of the ceiling boards back in place and widening the path that was made last year behind the school.I hope that this was just the start of the great work that we all can do when we come together and work as one!
     ~Mike Niemi