Our second project is in Coos Bay, Oregon working with the Oregon Coast Community Action (ORCCA). The organization does an incredible amount of things for the community, and we are so lucky that we get to be a part of it. We were told we'd be living in a two bedroom apartment, with ONE BATHROOM. Yep, that's one bathroom with 10 people.
On January 9th, we hit the road for our 8.5 hour drive to Oregon. We had packed the van the night before and left our campus at 6am. It took us the majority of the day to get to Oregon, which of course resulted in attitudes and crabby comments flying all through the van. See, we drive around this 15 passenger van, however, we have to take out the last row of seats so we can all fit our luggage...which makes for a very tight squeeze for the rest of us. We have to switch drivers every two hours, so we end up switching seats that often because no one can stand more than two hours in the same spot anyway. I spent some of the trip sleeping, and some watching Community and Human Planet on my NEW LAPTOP :)
We were pretty freaked out yesterday when we arrived in our town. I heard such wonderful things about Coos Bay, and for some reason I was expecting this beautiful vacation destination city on the bay. However, it was gloomy, foggy, and the city just looked completely gray when we arrived. Our apartment, which for some reason I expected to be located in the center of downtown, was in a complex next to a school. There was caution tape in the yard and we were greeted by an apartment full of furniture that we had to move to a different apartment. So, I went to bed feeling a little nervous about the town, however, our tour today really proved me wrong!
We spent the day with our project supervisor, Amanda, who showed us around the city and gave us a little training. We were able to gain a different perspective of Coos Bay, and see the beauty of the coast.
We are now very excited to start our adventure in OREGON!
