Where am I?
Nov. 8th, 2005 06:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newmanWent to bed about 9 p.m. last night. Woke up to the complete refugee experience. It was pretty humid last night, and by morning the fog had rolled in -- in and out of the tent. The condesation had built up inside the nylon tent and I was woken to the Chinese water torture. I contorted myself for a while to try and avoid the drips, but eventually decided I had had 9 hours of scattered, broken sleep, and that was enough. Besides, the kitchen crew was going to be starting on breakfast (of course, I saw an open terminal, so I thought I'd update instead of helping in the kitchen).
I'm going to try and describe the physical place where we are, since I can almost certainly do that without getting depressed about what surrounds us or angry at the people who run this shelter.
The New Waveland Cafe is part of several community service tents clustered on the parkign lot of an old strip mall. The bulk of the Cafe is three large tents, plus some referigerated tractor trailers.
The largest of the tents is a massive geodesic dome that serves as a dining hall. We serve three meals a day here. THus far, the meals have been very good. The Big Dome has tables, chairs, a soundsystem, a small stage (!) for entertainers, and a "library", about 100 books collected by one of the volunteers. Mostly romance novels. When meals aren't being servied, the tent is public hang-out space. I taught The Ax and Pax how to play Texas Hold'em there last night. Pax is frighteningly lucky, for someone who was half asleep already.
Next to the Big Dome is the kitchen tent, which is also where these terminals are. The kitchen isn't bad, especially by camp standards. There are a bunch of propane powered grills, griddles, and stoves, as well as several stainless steel prep tables, and two refrigerators, and a couple of shelving units. There's also a smaller storage tent with pots, pans, and some other kitchen supplies.
The third major tent is the Small Dome, which is "sacred" (or "private") space for the staff. I don't spend a lot of time there, although I think i can. It's unclear. It's definitely not for the locals.
There's also a refrigerated trailer (an 18 wheeler trailer, not the little one we pulled down) full of perishables, and another trailer full of non-perishables -- everything from canned frutis and vegetables to grains, pancake mix, etc.
There are some other storage tents, and a complex dishwashing station, set up in its own tent.
For facilities, there are two banks of porta-johns and half a dozen cold showers, hoses run into stalls made of scrap lumber, pallets, and ubiquitous blue tarp (with FEMA stamped on it). It's adequate by Pennsic standards, but if you're used to living in a house... there are also a couple of foot-pumped handwashing stations around. They're compulsive about some kinds of cleanliness here. Hand- and dish-washing are the two they seem to care about. Other things, less so (every smokes in the kitchen while doing food prep). I'm not sure who set the showers and porta-johns up. The johns seem to get cleaned out every day.
Sharing the parking lot with the Waveland Cafe are a couple of community services. The "hospital", which consists of two small quonset hut shapped tents -- one seems to be a waiting room, the other for treatment. Fortunately I don't have a lot of experience with it. The nurses we dealt with were very pleasant. They had been sent down from the hospital at which they worked in Ohio (I think). There's also CALM, the Center for Alternative Living and Medicine, which offers non-traditional health treatments. Haven't spent any time there, although I may be able to find someone to beat on my back for a while.
There are two large open air "markets" set up for county residents. Pavillions with no sides which some wit referred to as "Wall-less Mart". No one actually sells anything there, but the set up reminds me of New York street fairs. People have bushels of shampoos, towels, and toothbrushes. As far as I can tell, one of the markets is for personal items (toiletries, etc.), and the other one is for other stuff -- everything from clothing to electronics. You have to show an ID to "shop" there. My guess is there are 20-30 merchants in each market. I don't know where they get the supplies they are distributing, although trucks of stuff roll up here everyday.
On the fringes of the compoud are the tents. It's hard to tell, because they arein and among huge stacks of canned goods in some places, but my guess is there are about 500 people living here, although some don't seem to eat at or interact with the folks from the Cafe at all. The areas seem to be vaguely segregated by short-term and long-term volunteer, and residents, but I'm not sure. Mostly people live in small, modern tents, but there are a couple of military surplus tents, converted school buses, RVs... you get the idea.
It's very odd to be wandering towards the toilets and to see a blue haired church lady come popping out of a little Sears dome tent.
More later. I'm going to go and see what needs doing. I think The Ax and I are cooking dinner tonight. Whether we succeed or not remains to be seen. Politics. More on the personalities when I'm away from here.
I'm going to try and describe the physical place where we are, since I can almost certainly do that without getting depressed about what surrounds us or angry at the people who run this shelter.
The New Waveland Cafe is part of several community service tents clustered on the parkign lot of an old strip mall. The bulk of the Cafe is three large tents, plus some referigerated tractor trailers.
The largest of the tents is a massive geodesic dome that serves as a dining hall. We serve three meals a day here. THus far, the meals have been very good. The Big Dome has tables, chairs, a soundsystem, a small stage (!) for entertainers, and a "library", about 100 books collected by one of the volunteers. Mostly romance novels. When meals aren't being servied, the tent is public hang-out space. I taught The Ax and Pax how to play Texas Hold'em there last night. Pax is frighteningly lucky, for someone who was half asleep already.
Next to the Big Dome is the kitchen tent, which is also where these terminals are. The kitchen isn't bad, especially by camp standards. There are a bunch of propane powered grills, griddles, and stoves, as well as several stainless steel prep tables, and two refrigerators, and a couple of shelving units. There's also a smaller storage tent with pots, pans, and some other kitchen supplies.
The third major tent is the Small Dome, which is "sacred" (or "private") space for the staff. I don't spend a lot of time there, although I think i can. It's unclear. It's definitely not for the locals.
There's also a refrigerated trailer (an 18 wheeler trailer, not the little one we pulled down) full of perishables, and another trailer full of non-perishables -- everything from canned frutis and vegetables to grains, pancake mix, etc.
There are some other storage tents, and a complex dishwashing station, set up in its own tent.
For facilities, there are two banks of porta-johns and half a dozen cold showers, hoses run into stalls made of scrap lumber, pallets, and ubiquitous blue tarp (with FEMA stamped on it). It's adequate by Pennsic standards, but if you're used to living in a house... there are also a couple of foot-pumped handwashing stations around. They're compulsive about some kinds of cleanliness here. Hand- and dish-washing are the two they seem to care about. Other things, less so (every smokes in the kitchen while doing food prep). I'm not sure who set the showers and porta-johns up. The johns seem to get cleaned out every day.
Sharing the parking lot with the Waveland Cafe are a couple of community services. The "hospital", which consists of two small quonset hut shapped tents -- one seems to be a waiting room, the other for treatment. Fortunately I don't have a lot of experience with it. The nurses we dealt with were very pleasant. They had been sent down from the hospital at which they worked in Ohio (I think). There's also CALM, the Center for Alternative Living and Medicine, which offers non-traditional health treatments. Haven't spent any time there, although I may be able to find someone to beat on my back for a while.
There are two large open air "markets" set up for county residents. Pavillions with no sides which some wit referred to as "Wall-less Mart". No one actually sells anything there, but the set up reminds me of New York street fairs. People have bushels of shampoos, towels, and toothbrushes. As far as I can tell, one of the markets is for personal items (toiletries, etc.), and the other one is for other stuff -- everything from clothing to electronics. You have to show an ID to "shop" there. My guess is there are 20-30 merchants in each market. I don't know where they get the supplies they are distributing, although trucks of stuff roll up here everyday.
On the fringes of the compoud are the tents. It's hard to tell, because they arein and among huge stacks of canned goods in some places, but my guess is there are about 500 people living here, although some don't seem to eat at or interact with the folks from the Cafe at all. The areas seem to be vaguely segregated by short-term and long-term volunteer, and residents, but I'm not sure. Mostly people live in small, modern tents, but there are a couple of military surplus tents, converted school buses, RVs... you get the idea.
It's very odd to be wandering towards the toilets and to see a blue haired church lady come popping out of a little Sears dome tent.
More later. I'm going to go and see what needs doing. I think The Ax and I are cooking dinner tonight. Whether we succeed or not remains to be seen. Politics. More on the personalities when I'm away from here.
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Date: 2005-11-10 04:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-13 10:49 pm (UTC)