Portland, Children, Gabrielle, and Salt Lake City

This weekend was the second spring "intensive" for Caldera, this time serving their Portland students. We were invited to join them in this intensive, giving our team the opportunity to travel to Portland and see the magical magnet city. We left Friday morning after two hours of lumberjacking on camp, and stopped first at Marylhurst University, where we were lucky enough to be housed for free in one of their old dorm buildings. We then visited Weiden & Kennedy, the world's largest independent advertising firm, and founder of Caldera. The building is incredibly beautiful- and fully loaded with all you'd need to work long hours- basketball court, ping-pong arena, coffee shops, penthouse, delicious food... etc. The Caldera staff was very excited to have us on board for their intensive, and we couldn't have been happier to be there! After swapping BDUs for jeans and grey for something fancy, we hit the town. Many of us visited Powell's Books, the largest independently owned bookstore. This place is its own city. I got lost (and a few books). Then we ate dinner at Cha!Cha!Cha!, a Qdoba-like "Mexican" restaurant, on Caldera, and inevitably went back to Powell's.

Saturday started the intensive, hosted at Nike's worldwide headquarters in a town called Beaverton, just outside of Portland. We parked right next to Brett Favre's personal parking space, and went into the Mia Hamm building for a day of creativity. The classes offered this weekend included painting with words, poetry & performance, digital filmmaking, photography, knitting, and improv. I helped out in painting, knitting, and photo throughout the two days, created two paintings very different from the way I typically paint, and learned how to knit on the diagonal! I also learned that Portland is a city geared mainly toward twenty something white people, and that a lot of the kids this weekend feel a lot of pressure to fit that mold, something they simply can't, and don't need to do. I learned that for many of these kids, college is thought to be unreachable, and money is rarely at their disposal. On top of all that, I learned that these young people have more creativity and power of expression than any I've seen before. I heard some of the most powerful poetry and saw the most meaningful creative pieces I could've imagined from such a young group of individuals.

Saturday night I got to hang out with Gabrielle, my "big sister" and close friend from Tosa, and it was nothing short of marvelous. She moved out to Portland a few years ago, so my contact with her lately has been much less than what it once was, but getting to see her gave me a little taste of home and I'm extremely grateful for that.

Yesterday (Sunday) was our last day in Portland, and it was sad to leave the kids we bonded with for such a short time. The Portland staff thanked us, gave us all job offers, and we said our goodbyes. Then, after much nervous anticipation, Becky revealed our next project:

From May 19th to July 16th, we'll be working at Camp Kostopulos in Salt Lake City, UT. The first week and a half will be intensive training on working with persons with disabilities, and for the next 8 weeks we will act as caretakers for people of all ages. I don't know too much about the details of the project yet, but I know that this is what many of us joined AmeriCorps NCCC for, and the eleven of us couldn't be more excited about what's next!

Also, Bon Iver is playing in Salt Lake City the week before we leave. What could be better?

above: one of the paintings i made during the intensive


To follow up on my last post, here are some pictures of our current housing:

Above: 3/4 of the cottages we occupy (L to R: The Asthmabin, The Elegant Cottage at Rochester Hills, the Mabin)
Not pictured: the Fabin

Above: the firepile on our porch that we make nightly fires with

Above: where the nightly fires happen

Above: the view of our space, from Rena's loft (my space is on the left)

Above: the kitchenette in our Asthmabin (the 3 of us have mathcing inhalers)

Above: the view from my front door

Above: the view of link creek from my back porchAbove: the sculpturally beautiful and functional fish ladder
Above: link creek on the Blue Lake side (and some of the clearest water I've ever seen)Above: the beautiful Blue LakeAbove: the dock at Blue Lake (complete with Caldera's logo)Above: a painting I found in the marina by Blue LakeAbove: Suttle LakeAbove: the grand room and ginormous projection screen in the $8 million Hearth BuildingAbove: last school year's Hello Neighbor Project (it's really awesome- check it out)


That's all I got!
Paz.