Living the Dream: OKC Build Days

My explorative spirit didn’t carry me too far on that first night in OKC – I fell asleep at about 6 and was out like a light for the next 13 hours. This left me rearing to go for our build days though!

The OKC Habitat chapter we worked with over the last few days is really awesome and builds a house unlike any other I’ve seen! They include beautiful brick and stone work, even a two-car garage, and yet are still extremely affordable. Though these little details may seem like extravagances, our site manager explained how they helped Habitat communities be accepted as something more reputable and sustainable than something like “the Projects”. Our team worked at several homes in their Habitat development of over 300 houses, mostly doing exterior trim painting and masonry cleanup. I stuck with painting and quickly solidified my dominance in the “Messiest Painter” category, as is still evident by the thick coating in much of my hair.

Though we didn’t do any rebuilding from the tornado damage, our site director did help shuttle us on a little tour of the damage in order for us to just gauge the impact. Though I had a hard time keeping my eyes open in the van, I did squeak them open every time I heard a particularly loud “Wooww” and the damage done was indeed moving.

Mail drop also happened today! Amongst my awesome notes and packages was a particularly neat gift for the team from my grandmother – “cool bands”! We had a ton of fun picking out our patterned bands and figuring out weird ways to tie them on – pictures coming soon! We also got a chance to do a bit of exploring since our host was situated right down town. One evening Cassie and I went walking to meet some B&B alums living in OKC, Travis and Jodie, and stumbled upon an awesome little canal running through Brick Town. We spent the evening listening to the dueling pianos bar across the street and swapping SC2SC stories, which was a lot of fun.

We’ve been a bit spoiled what with the 7am wake up time and not having to pack all our things, but we must keep rolling! Until next time.

Lacy