You gotta see it to believe it
All those amazing stories that I heard about Clarksdale, Miss., were confirmed last week as I and 17 other Uni students and three teachers spent Agora Days there on the annual Habitat for Humanity trip. It truly was an enlightening experience like none other I have had.
Among other things, the people we worked with were amazing. They came to help us hang drywall and mud, visited us bright and early to give devotions, and invited us to numerous potlucks. It was an unsurpassed generosity. The neighborhood kids were also extremely courteous and spent much time with us playing kickball, four square, and chalking the sidewalk.
The work itself was generally not overly tedious. We did things such as hang drywall, mud the walls, finish siding, help out at a local soup kitchen and elementary school, and fix problems in older Habitat houses. Six or seven hours of the day were for work, which seemed to pass quickly.
It was a learning experience as well. For most days, history teacher Bill Sutton would discuss with us the history of Habitat for Humanity in the area and the Mississippi Delta, as well as our personal reactions and thoughts. I learned a lot of other things as well, such as the game “Mafia,” which occupied a greater deal of our free time by the end of the trip. I also found out I’m pretty good at poker, especially when people go all in when I have two straights in a row.
Of course, it was also a bonding experience. I got to know my classmates a lot better. At this time I should probably thank JJ a bunch for coming up with the nickname and interviews. We will get the third one someday. We ended the last night there by painting the wheel of respectability on the ceiling (you’ll understand “the wheel” when you take Mr. Sutton’s U.S. history class), signing shirts, and for some of us, staying up the whole night talking and sitting around in awe of the past week.
If you’ve been wondering about the song that we played today in the lounge during lunch, it’s “Round Here” by the Counting Crows, one of the theme songs of our trip. It might not sound too interesting the first few times you hear it, but after a week of exposure, it starts to stick and forces you to sing it every time it’s played.
There were literally hundreds of pictures of the Habitat trip taken, some of which can be found on Facebook. Be sure to take a look at some if you get the chance.
By the time we arrived in dreary Champaign-Urbana, everyone had started missing Clarksdale, its people, and warm weather. As Bethany told us on our last day, we are all currently dealing with reverse culture shock, which is pretty much culture shock, but when you are returning to your home.
One of the most defining moments of “Round Here” is near the end, which I will finish my entry with.
Round here we’re never sent to bed early And nobody makes us wait
Round here we stay up very, very, very, very late
— Benjamin Fu