It's been a long time since I've posted and a lot has happened. Sorry about that! Here's a long update with lots of pictures to make up for it.
My time in Center finished up well. The last week I was there, my students had state standardized testing, which I hope I helped prepare them for! I gave them and the staff I worked with my email so we can all stay in touch. Though it felt sad to leave, I feel I had good closure with my students and the community. The superintendent threw us a going away party on our last weekend in town.
Also, I celebrated my 19th birthday!
My team helped make that day really special... I woke up to a decorated house!
That weekend, we went to Calvillos, an amazing Mexican buffet in Alamosa. It was the best food ever, I was sung to in Spanish and got a free pinata!
I was also overwhelmed by love and well wishes from family and friends through the mail. Thank you so much, guys.
We journeyed back to Denver and had a blur of a transition week. It was really busy! On top of the normal transition week trainings and activities, we had to change over from our primary teams to our new shuffle round teams. Round 3 is a shuffle round where all corps members are moved around to different teams within their unit. That way, we all get to know different people outside of our primary teams and also have a better chance of getting a project we're passionate about. For shuffle round, corps members get to submit individual project rankings for the "lottery" instead of having to average their rankings with the rankings of their teammates. Usually, after Round 3 shuffle, teams go back to normal for Round 4. However, Fire Unit has lost so many people that Round 4 may be a shuffle round also.
It was sad to say goodbye to Fire 1. I have traveled, lived and worked with them since November, and they've become really special to me. I know we'll stay in touch, though, and there's still a small chance that we could be back together for Round 4. We went to Ben & Jerry's to celebrate all of our accomplishments together, and have a happy "bye for now".
I know I told some of you that for Round 3 I'd be with Fire 3 working with the Coalition for the Upper South Platte in Colorado Springs, helping restore areas burned in last year's wildfires. However, there was a change at the last minute, and I got moved to Fire 6. More on that later!
Besides switching from Fire 1 to Fire 3 to Fire 6, transition week also involved a service day at the Food Bank of the Rockies and a special day called Life After AmeriCorps (LAA). It was all about helping us decide and plan what we'd like to do next year. Even though I already have my plans to attend MSU, LAA day was really helpful and interesting. There were a lot of different presentations we could go to; I chose one on financial literacy, one on the Peace Corps and one on resumes and interviewing. Then there was an opportunity fair afterwards, where a lot of different nonprofits and government organizations had tables set up.
At the end of transition week (Easter weekend), Chris came to visit me in Denver. It was so wonderful to spend time with him and show him all of my favorite people and places out here. We explored downtown, I showed him campus and my friends there, and we even got to meet up with Aunt Niecer and Uncle Michael! It was the best weekend I've had in a long time.
State capitol.
Rockies!
Speaking of Rockies... right after Chris' brief visit, I left for my Round 3 project. Since Monday, I've been in Colorado Springs with Fire 6, working with Rocky Mountain Field Institute. They're a nonprofit "dedicated to the conservation and stewardship of public lands in the
Southern Rockies through volunteer-based trail and restoration projects,
environmental education and restoration research." Awesome, right?? With them, we will be doing two different projects. For these first three weeks (April 1 - April 19), we will be working on improving Barr Trail, the most popular trial leading up to Pike's Peak. Pike's Peak is very famous. It is over 14,000 feet high, and the woman who wrote "America the Beautiful" wrote it on her way up to Pikes, inspired by the awesome views! Since Barr Trail is so popular, it is in danger of being "loved to death". All of the people walking up and down it cause erosion. The trail needs to be maintained so it can be enjoyed by everyone for many years to come. Maintaining it has mostly involved replacing worn out timber steps, and working the soil of the trail so it slopes down instead of inward. That way, water can run off of the trail into vegetation instead of down the trail, wearing down its infrastructure. It has been a blast so far; I am learning how to use a ton of different tools, I am outside all day on the side of a gorgeous mountain, and our supervisors are very passionate about their work and teaching us new things. I love it!
While we're working on Barr Trail, we're living in a small house in Manitou Springs, a cute little tourist town next to Colorado Springs. However, after our work on Barr Trial ends, we'll move on to working in the Bear Creek Watershed! From April 22 - May 10, we'll be backcountry camping near Bear Creek, working to protect a threated species of fish: the greenback cutthroat trout. They are Colorado's state fish, and the population in Bear Creek is the only known natural population left anywhere! We will be protecting them by cleaning out sediment detention structures that are meant to keep soil out of the trout's fragile habitat.
I am both excited and nervous about backcountry camping. It will
be a brand new experience, and I won't have access to electricity,
plumbing or running water! I know I will learn a ton, though, and it
will be an awesome challenge.
My shuffle team... Fire 6! From left: me, Nick, C.A. (my team leader), Rishar, Katie, Dan, Daniel and Erika
The day we met the staff of Rocky Mountain Field Institute, they took us to see Garden of the Gods! It is less than two miles from where I'm living, and RMFI does work there sometimes. It is so beautiful!
The kissing camels at Garden of the Gods. Can you see them? =)
The cute little house we'll be living in these next three weeks. I love the tulips on the front porch rail!
Now that I'm on a new team, my go-to Denver address has changed slightly. It's basically the same, but now please put Fire 6 instead of Fire 1! They'll forward me letters, but not packages. (Packages will wait for me in Denver.) It's still good to use this one though, because I move around a lot. I'll write the whole thing out here.
Rachel Poole - AmeriCorps NCCC, Class 19A, Fire 6
3001 S. Federal Blvd.
Walsh Hall Rm. 136
Denver, CO. 80236
Here is a link to a map of where all the teams from my region will be Round 3. http://batchgeo.com/map/ba017a553087bbbd1dbc8fbe918933c6 Also, here is a video that Lani made from Fire 1's time in Habitat for Humanity! I know that was a long time ago, but it's still pretty awesome. =)
I hope you all had a Happy Easter! I will stay in touch.
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