Sam and David Blog from May 22-25

So it turns out we missed quite a few blog posts, so here is one extra long one for the past week:

On the night of last Sunday, we pulled into Sara's grandmother's home in Charleston, SC. During our planning stage, our agenda in Charleston was more organized and planned than any other city on our trip, so we were able to get to work early in the morning. David and I set out from Mrs. Huser's house at about 8 or 8:30 in the morning to head to the Sea Island Habitat for Humanity ReStore (Sea Island Habitat is the branch of Habitat for Humanity on John's Island, slightly south of Charleston. Charleston has its own branch but they weren't very cooperative). The ReStore in Charleston was much more impressive than Savannah's ReStore - it had a lot of different rooms with different genres of items, a large warehouse of larger things, and then a whole outdoor section full of delightful treasures that would make wonderful additions/replacements in homes. It was boiling hot on this day, but we still managed to get more than our share of excellent footage.
The following day, David and I got up really early in order to get to Sea Island Habitat's build site in some tiny development. We were the first volunteers there, so we walked down the street to look at the houses. It turns out that of the 12 or so houses that were on the street, 3-4 were finished and inhabited, the rest of which were being built by our favorite organization. After introducing ourselves to the people in charge (we learned that two of them were from Ohio, and one went to school at Kenston), two white vans full of volunteers from a local church organization arrived and everyone piled out. We got into a little circle/crowd and the man in charge started to talk to us about what we were going to do, what we should be aware of, safety, etc. Everybody then prayed because Sea Island Habitat is apparently a Christian organization. David is devoutly Buddhist so he didn't pray. After that, people got assigned to tasks. David and I volunteered to go with the guy from Kenston. The three of us mixed cement in a giant rusty, clanky machine using shovels and brute strength. We then spent hours tediously putting down part of the cement and cinder block foundation for the house. It was incredibly hot and humid and the sun was directly overhead, but we managed. It was interesting to see how the foundation of houses were actually made, but it was a pain to line everything up using levels and tape measures, then make markings, move everything, lay down cement, put everything back, try to line it up with the markings then use levels and tape measures to make everything straight and even, and then repeating the process for the next cinder block. It was hot.
After that, we went home and took showers to get all of the dirt off of us, and then we relaxed for the rest of the night. The next day we left from Charleston and got home by nightfall. Since then we have been working on our presentation/documentary.

The end.