Grounding Myself

Three and a half weeks feels like a lifetime. I feel as though I have been here forever.

I don’t know why people complain that the New York subway is so hard,.. it
speaks English, after all. I don’t have to try to decipher muffled Czech, which is always a plus.

This weekend our friends who are volunteering in New Jersey came to visit for the weekend. On Friday night we made our way to a karaoke bar where the drinks started at $8 and Hannah and I continued with an excellent rendition of RENT’s “Take Me or Leave Me.” And on the way home, a different Hanna (of the hurricane sort) made for a wet trek to the subway. It was an adventure though, which I will never say no to.


And work, psh…piece of cake.

Okay, that’s not totally true…but it makes it no less enjoyable.

Also this past weekend I had the opportunity to attend my first parish sale with HandCrafting Justice. It was only a few block away from where we live, which really didn’t matter when walking through the rain that Hurricane Hanna brought us…you were just as soaked after walking one block as three…Regardless, the sale gave me an opportunity to put what I do everyday in perspective. It allowed me to see other people as excited about the products as I am and as I was taking their money from them, it was satisfying to know where that money goes to, and who it benefits, because it’s not me…but there are women in 20 countries who it does benefit.

To add to my perspective and HCJ experience, I had another outstanding opportunity this week to go to Fordham University to present to a Global Governance course on what we are and what we do at HCJ. It was an odd experience to walk into the building not as a student, but as a presenter, not as their peer, but as someone who had something to offer them and their education. For this course the students have a community service requirement and while we only have the capacity to deal with two weekly volunteers, there were more who wanted to be with us. I ended up with two women who are so excited about what we do and enthusiastic to help. Just like the sale, it was good for me to find other people who are excited about what I do as I am…

Some days, when I am sitting in my office, on the phone with the wholesale director in New Hampshire trying to figure out where the shipment from Indonesia ended up or when I am e-mailing Thailand to ask why we only got 143 of the 153 boxes of pottery, I feel like such a big kid. When people ask me if living with 6 other people in the convent makes for life just like college, I have to say, “No, not even close.” We each work 40 hrs a week at grueling jobs and only receive a small stipend for all of our work. I don’t worry about homework and I do worry if the invoice from Madagascar has been approved so that those women can buy dinner for their family. This isn’t college.

Community life is already interesting, which it was bound to be.

The city has continued to entertain me. Besides karaoke, I have made my way around to a few places. On Labor day, I went to the Met and saw the last day of the Super Heroes exhibit, which was fascinating, even for a non-super hero fan. Due to the fact that I was with three other people and simply due to the sheer size of the Met, I didn’t even get to see the section of European paintings that I wanted to, but it only gives me an excuse to go back.

I have also wandered around Alphabet City (the setting of RENT), gone to a show for a friend’s band in the Lower East Side, went to the Caribbean Festival in Brooklyn and begun to explore my home base of Astoria a bit more. I have seen Times Square both during the day and at night, yet don’t ever feel the need to go back.

The good news: I don’t think I will have a problem occupying myself for the next year.