Answers to Questions....

We were asked some questions in a recent blog comment and I wanted to answer these questions for everyone's benefit.

Who is on each of the teams? As previously mentioned our team was split into two groups - one supporting Camp Coastal projects and one supporting Habitat for Humanity projects. The group was split such that each group had a similar number of pre-skilled people as well as similar numbers of men and women. The balance has been worthwhile.

What's the non-gourmet food like when its not McD's? Do you cook? Is it provided? Camp Coastal provides us with all meals. The morning is a self-serve breakfast of cereal or bagels. Very basic cold breakfast foods. In the morning we have an opportunity to pack a bag lunch which we assemble ourselves. It generally consists of a sandwich, cookies, crackers, canned fruit salad and other basic lunch box items. We've eaten dinner at Camp Coastal a few times. These meals seem to be more carb focused with selections like pasta and macaroni most prevelant. Many have opted for meals out in the afternoon and evening - provided it doesn't interfere with our work days.

Are you foraging in the woods? Not yet.......... We're actually afraid to run into the armadillos so we generally avoid the woods!! ;)

How many SEI'ers does it take to install a window? Tyvek a wall, put up roof trusses? I can speak firsthand about the window installation. I was on an excellent crew and we installed the windows in the house on Tuesday. There were 5 of us in total - Ria, Jen, Rebecca, Antonis and me. We had it down to a science!! Tyvek is not easy. It's basically gift wrapping a house. A number of our group was involved in Tyvekking the house. Roof trusses!!!! Wow - what a team endeavor this is. We tackled this on Monday morning. There were around 8 of us on the ground handing the trusses to the next group of 4 on the scaffolding handing the individual trusses (which were very heavy) to another team of 4 on the roof. An amazing team effort!!!

What's the most fun job? The worst? I definitely think the best and worst jobs are subjective and based on personal opinion. For example, I cannot do anything on the roof - yet Adrienne and Lydia were up there often (and have my full respect and admiration for doing that!!!!). Many of us really enjoy tasks that we can quickly master and create impact on the building project. For example there were two siding crews working for much of the last two days. It's hard work and diverse work. We needed to custom measure and cut pieces of siding to fit around doors and windows and then nail these pieces into place. Obviously the more we got done the higher we went so much of our time was spent on scaffolding. But the impacf on the project and the apperance of the house is huge.

How does the Coastal Team decide what to do given the huge number of choices that must face them? The Coastal team meets with a coordinator every morning to discuss available job sites and issues that they might face. They get an amazing diversity of projects!!

Are you letting anyone from the UK or Dublin offices drive? Anne (from our Dublin office) has been driving the entire trip and, in spite of much ribbing, has done a great job!!!!

Keep the questions coming!!! As previously mentioned we plan to have additional blog posts from other contributors in the near future. Continue to check out the blog in the coming days and into the weekend as we'll be working all day on Friday and returning home over the weekends.

Thx - Robb