[mit-habitat-exec] Workday Summary and Meeting

[Radhika Jagannathan]

First of all, there will be an exec meeting this Tuesday at 7:30pm in the 
third floor Mezzanine lounge of the Student Center. If there isn't room 
there when we all arrive, we can move somewhere else, but we'll meet there. 
The agenda will include discussing today's workday and plans for the next 
one(s), the MIT Habitat constitution, the Breakfast fundraiser, the IDF on 
Friday, and the upcoming Regional Conference. Please also bring any other 
issues you would like to see discussed, and be prepared to give a brief 
update on what you've been working on for the past two weeks (for the 
benefit of any officers who don't know). Also, anyone with Habitat 
receipts, please bring them to the meeting to give to Harini.
If you cannot make the meeting, please let me or Sid know. Thanks!


Secondly, today's workday was a fantastic success. 17 of the 18 volunteers 
showed up at that insane hour of the morning I like to call 7:30, we 
successfully got the van, I brought 4 shovels (they were useful!), and Neha 
and Lisa amazingly managed to return the van on time (they rock!).

Here is an account of the day for those who couldn't make it and were 
curious =) ...

The day was cloudy and cool, which was nice, since we were all working 
pretty hard. Immediately on arriving, a bunch of the volunteers started 
digging 16" diameter, 4' deep holes for the porch's post anchors. A few 
other people got the fun job of sweeping and moving wood. And I got lucky 
with the "cool" work of measuring and helping install a window, cutting the 
outer foam insulation around the window frames to the right fit and 
hammering the foam into the outside walls in places where it was missing. 
This made other people (especially those moving and sweeping) very jealous. 
It made me laugh... suckers. =) However, the laughing only lasted so long. 
It turned out the windows were inconsistent in size and molding and needed 
to be altered, the house design was flawed and needed to be fixed before 
the windows could be put in, and some of the windows hadn't arrived. So I 
ended up leaving the wonderful world of windows to try and help with the 
holes.

The holes, it turns out, were really hard to make. Anne was 
abso-f*ckin-lutely awesome at the digging. She was pulling out rocks with 
her bare hands, lying in the mud, jumping into the holes, and all-in-all, 
getting extremely fashionably filthy. It paid off in the end, however, with 
her hole being the first one completed, even before lunch! The other two 
holes were having a hell of a time... Full of rocks, thick clay, and roots, 
the work went slowly. Harini and Anne were virtual tape-measures for the 
holes, being 5'2" and 5'4" respectively, and narrow enough to stand in the 
hole. Sid managed to get out of the "moving and sweeping" job and started 
to "pogo it up" at one of the holes, by effectively jumping on the shovel 
to get it into the clay. But more than enough people were involved with 
these holes, so those of us (including me) who weren't being particularly 
useful, started moving dirt to fill in the "car trap" that had formed in 
the mud. A huge dirt pile (probably from the foundation) and a wheelbarrow 
were very useful in this task. After some time we got lunch... Shephard's 
Pie and macaroni salad made by two sisters who are going to be the 
inhabitants of one of the almost-completed houses in the lot (there are six 
houses... two almost done, two framed and almost ready for siding, and two 
relatively new sites.) After lunch we returned to work... the holes and the 
car trap...

The car trap was reasonably well filled in (though it was still squishy and 
I definitely lost my feet a few times...) when we were given a new task... 
still involving carting dirt. A small deck was being finished behind the 
two sisters'  house and the area under it was rocky and at a lower 
elevation than was desired. Our task was to fill in that area and bring it 
up to the correct elevation. Meanwhile, a second hole had been completed, 
and the last hole was getting there. Anne had come over to share her mad 
hole-digging skillz, and things were going well. Those of us on "the 
mountain" (the dirt pile) were having a good time shovelling dirt, throwing 
dirt at each other, slipping in dirt, using a pick-axe to loosen the dirt, 
and calling each other dirty names. We ran into a few massive rocks in the 
mountain and had to clear them out. Lisa and I also got wicked good at 
filling in holes and spreading dirt about with shovels, since we were the 
two who were actually at the deck-end of the job. The final hole was almost 
done by the time we were on our last wheelbarrow of dirt for the deck. But 
they'd run into "the mother of all rocks" which turned out to be part of 
the previous foundation, when they were two inches from the requisite 4' 
depth. Since it would have been hard, if not virtually impossible, to move 
the rock, they decreed the hole completed and started pouring the concrete 
for the post anchor. The other two holes had already been poured and dried, 
and were being back-filled with dirt and the deck-filling was finished. 
After the last hole was poured and backfilled (with dirt provided courtesy 
of the wheelbarrow), we cleaned up, found all our materials (ie. the 
shovels and our people) and left. Lisa drove us back, and amazingly, we 
made it to 77 Mass. Ave. (even with ridiculous traffic) by 4:15... After 
dropping us off, Neha and Lisa went to USave and returned the van, before 
they closed at 4:30! Everyone dispersed after this, and I at least, went on 
to take a shower, put on clean clothes, and eat dinner.

Also:
Matt Zedler got lots of good pictures of the day and they should be online 
as soon as I can get him write permission. He also apparently ordered 
people around a good bit, especially at the holes, since he was most 
experienced with concrete-pouring. Chris DiBiasio, one of the volunteers, 
proved himself to be the ultimate handy-man and spent most of the day 
telling the experienced construction workers what to do, and giving them 
advice on how to fix the window problem. Tom Wilson, another volunteer, was 
the mule-for-the-day, being one of the only people strong enough to push 
and control a full wheelbarrow. And Genevieve Ricart was one of my heroes 
today, by helping me carry the four shovels, which together probably weigh 
a good percentage of my weight, from Next to McCormick without dying. =)

I was really happy with how the workday went, and I hope we can do quite a 
few more. If you have any questions/comments about anything in this email, 
let me know.
Otherwise, have a good Sunday-Tuesday, and I'll see you all on Tuesday night!

Aslo extra thanks to Neha and Anne for organizing this so well, and Lisa 
for driving.

-Radhika