Haverford House

1. Eagles training camp at Lehigh University

2. Fort Mifflin

3. Bartram’s Gardens

4. Fair Hill Burial Ground

5. This thing:

6. A Mummer

7. Indotown

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, I thought I’d explain a little bit about us and what we’ve been up to for the past three weeks (how did July move so quickly?).  As Cara mentioned, our Hav House year started July 1.  We moved in from July 1 to July 4 and started orientation on July 5.  For our first real week here, orientation week, we learned more about our upcoming year, non profits, Philadelphia, and a combination of the three.  Among other things, we had numerous tasty meals, had a Mural Arts tour of North Philly (check out www.muralarts.org/), had a bike tour of our neighborhood, and talked about what living as a communal house was going to mean for us.

Two weeks ago, we started working at our job placements.  Cara works at the Philadelphia GROW Project/ Witnesses to Hunger at the Drexel School of Public Health, Chris (Dio) works at Community Legal Services, Luke works at Committee of Seventy, Misha works at Fair Food, Rosie works at Project H.O.M.E., and I (Rebecca) work at Philadelphia Legal Assistance.  In addition to working, we have been cooking (see Cara’s post),  exploring the city a little (today we went to the Italian market!), and meeting up with some of our old Haverford (and other) friends.  And, of course, being supremely, overwhelmingly grateful for central air conditioning.

Everyone knows that the new year starts January 1, but a lesser known fact is that the Haverford House year starts July 1.  The new year is fully underway, and one thing the six of us have figured out is that we love to eat.  We also figured out pretty fast that we do not like to eat after attempting to cooking six separate meals in one average-sized kitchen–and so, in the interest of elbow room and group bonding, we instituted a communal dinner schedule.

Here’s how it works: on Sundays, we all work together to cook a meal–dinner, or maybe sometimes brunch.  Mondays and Wednesdays, one person cooks a meal for the group, and we rotate evenly who’s cooking.

Last night was my first dinner, and we got some photo documentation (and yes, cheated and did it on Thursday).  It took like 2 and a half hours.  I got some jalapeño in my eye.  But in the end, it turned out pretty well…see below.

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I’ve been working in the employment unit at Community Legal Services, a non-profit law firm, for 2 weeks now and I think everything is running smoothly.

So far I have had the chance to play for the firm’s softball team. I went 3-4 with 2RBIs and 2 runs score in an unfortunate loss to a bunch of cooperate lawyers who were taking the game waaaay to seriously. Fittingly, they argued every call against them and they even taunted our team by yelling “four-eyes” at one of our players who wears glasses. If you ever want to understand the difference between corporate lawyers (the bad guys) and non profit lawyers (the good guys) just come watch one of our softball games.

Philly Fact: In my first weeks here I have learned that the main body of water that runs through the city of Philadelphia, the Schuylkill River, is dirtier than the Hudson. And because of its filth, the Schuylkill river is more often than not referred to as the “sure kill river.”

I’ve been on the job at Project H.O.M.E. for almost two weeks now. Major accomplishments to date:

1. Dusted, swept, and decluttered (somewhat) the office in the back of Our Daily Threads, Project H.O.M.E.’s thrift store.
2. Installed what appears to be the office’s first ever trash can.
3. Learned the meaning of the word “rolodex”.
4. Learned that everything we think is amazing about gmail already existed in Microsoft Outlook (not a paid endorsement).
5. Got a top, a cardigan, and a pair of Converse All-Stars at the thrift store for a total of less than five dollars (kind of a paid endorsement).
6. And, on the one serious note of this post, am learning to work in an environment where I alternately interact with highly efficient non-profit pros, customers, and formerly homeless people of various backgrounds and abilities.

Rosie