Work and Play

Licha & Veronica potting plants for The Circle

The past couple of weeks have been busy.  I’ve been volunteering at Taller de José, a community resource centre offering accompaniment to people in need by connecting them to services and enabling them to access those services.  The staff, interns and volunteers work as compañeras, accompanying clients to court, medical appointments, social and legal services, referring them to partner agencies, translating documents, helping to fill in applications and assisting with reading letters or documents.  The majority of clients are Hispanic and my lack of Spanish means that I’ve been limited to reception - along with smiles and gestures, I can just about manage “hello, please wait there, your compañera will be with you...!”   Most of my time has been spent on data input of the clients’ questionnaires (essential for evaluation, development and funding applications).  This involves attempting to decipher comments made in Spanish which can be challenging particularly when the client’s written Spanish displays spelling even worse than mine... It took me a long time to realise that ‘ven’ was bien and ‘ke’ was que...

Cleaning one of the 75 windows...

Meanwhile the end is finally in sight of the renovations at The Circle.  This week the Big Clean commenced.  Cleaning the new windows (sticky labels, plaster and all) is no mean feat in a building with 75 generously sized windows...  We’ve had the help of a few volunteers though and people keep popping in to what is going on, which is a good excuse for a rest and another tour to begin!

Silver beach lighthouse, St. Joseph, Michigan

There have been opportunities for play in amongst this though.  This weekend was particularly good fun as Moe, her mum, Marty, and I took a trip to St. Joseph in Michigan, a charming little beach town on the Lake.   We took in a local craft fair, walks on the beach (a beach wedding provided excellent people watching), al fresco dining, a beautiful sunset and after the sunburn of Saturday, a day sharing round extra clothes and shivering on Sunday – I still can’t get used to the huge swings in temperature from one day to the next!   In a variety of attire then, we meandered back via the Indiana Dunes so I could feel justified in claiming my 13^th visited State.