1. 2 years ago 
     PERRY POINT, MD - CORPS TRAINING INSTITUTE (CTI) We arrived in Perry Point, MD in the middle of Obama’s mid-Atlantic ”Snowmaggedon.” A bunch of us young folk, knowing neither each other or what would be in store for us in the coming weeks, were herded like cattle into our required roles, finding ourselves in a great banquet hall filled with new faces and a pretty decent buffet. Soon we were given nametags, some vague and unintelligible info, and were finally shown to our housing. It was all very disorienting, but I managed to discern a number of things. 1) Snow was everywhere. Deep and cold. It didn’t even seem like much else was visible. 2) I was not with the majority of my fellow Corps Members in the 9H dorm building, but instead was with the smaller group placed in a group of hundred-year-old houses referred to as the Village. I was apprehensive at the time being removed from the potential warmth and easy access to community inherent in dorm living, but little did I know that I would prove not only content but proud to live in the village, and thus be part of the Wolf Unit. And 3) It felt like the first day of camp. The 70 of us living in the Village, or the Wolf Unit (as opposed to the other 140, living in 9H, who comprised the Raven & Badger Units), lived on two adjacents streets about a mile from the dorms consistenting of 6-8 person houses. In this area we found a much better sense of community, privacy, and independence.

     PERRY POINT, MD - CORPS TRAINING INSTITUTE (CTI)

    We arrived in Perry Point, MD in the middle of Obama’s mid-Atlantic ”Snowmaggedon.” A bunch of us young folk, knowing neither each other or what would be in store for us in the coming weeks, were herded like cattle into our required roles, finding ourselves in a great banquet hall filled with new faces and a pretty decent buffet. Soon we were given nametags, some vague and unintelligible info, and were finally shown to our housing.

    It was all very disorienting, but I managed to discern a number of things. 1) Snow was everywhere. Deep and cold. It didn’t even seem like much else was visible. 2) I was not with the majority of my fellow Corps Members in the 9H dorm building, but instead was with the smaller group placed in a group of hundred-year-old houses referred to as the Village. I was apprehensive at the time being removed from the potential warmth and easy access to community inherent in dorm living, but little did I know that I would prove not only content but proud to live in the village, and thus be part of the Wolf Unit. And 3) It felt like the first day of camp.

    The 70 of us living in the Village, or the Wolf Unit (as opposed to the other 140, living in 9H, who comprised the Raven & Badger Units), lived on two adjacents streets about a mile from the dorms consistenting of 6-8 person houses. In this area we found a much better sense of community, privacy, and independence.

     
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So I, Sean Kesluk, left Los Angeles for a 6 month adventure abroad in Europe and South America. After a few weeks studying the Deutsch in Freiburg, Germany, it's two months up north in Hamburg working for the city's Jewish community center. After a brief foray into Sweden, I'll head South to Buenos Aires for some Spanish classes and volunteer work in a La Boca soup kitchen. After that it's back home to the States and national service with AmeriCorps NCCC. With a month of training at the VA medical campus in Perry Point, MD, it 's off to Baltimore for my first project, two months working for The Samaritan Women, a non-profit renovating a hundred-year-old mansion to use as a transitional home for women in recovery from heroin addiction and human trafficking, in addition to expanding a farm/urban garden to distribute produce to soup kitchens, shelters, and those in nutritional poverty. The second project will see us down in New Orleans, LA doing post-Katrina work with The Phoenix of New Orleans, a non-profit which renovates homes for Lower Mid-City homeowners who can't afford to do so.
 
 

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