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<\/p>\nYou can only spend 14 out of 20 days in a NM state park. It was that time, so I hooked the truck to the back of the motor home and took a short ride from City of Rocks State Park to Las Cruces, NM to join the Care A Vanners, nine other RV\u2019s parked at the Mesilla Valley Habitat for Humanity.\u00a0 Care A Vanners are a subculture of RV\u2019ers who travel around the country with a purpose \u2013 to help Habitat build affordable, safe housing for strangers.\u00a0 Care A Vanners can be a strange group \u2013 generally, as in Las Cruces, it\u2019s not a group of spring chickens but a group that, with few exceptions, qualify for senior discounts and Medicare. The exceptions in this group were Jake and Angela, a couple in their early 30\u2019s who choose to spend the majority of the year volunteering for Habitat; they work nights and weekends to support themselves and then go home, to regroup financially, by working harder still. There was much cross-generational banner, and the young couple added a different flavor of levity to the group.<\/p>\n
As I said, Care A Vanners can be a strange group.\u00a0 And so this gaggle of mostly old people came together for ten days to pound nails.\u00a0 Forming a chorus line of limping, creaking, grunting, and stretching as we tried to work out charley horses, crunchy knees, bad backs, and blown shoulders, we worked HARD, framing, building walls, attaching sheathing, and lifting trusses.<\/p>\n
Jake and Angela, the youngest and strongest, volunteered on the roof. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Many days the core group of Care A Vanners was joined by volunteers from the local community.\u00a0![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/IMG_2555-e1511222663818.jpg\")
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the officers with the Las Cruces Police Department were a big help. And, yes, we felt very safe!<\/p><\/div>\n
We also had the great privilege of working alongside several future home owners. What a joy to watch their eyes sparkle as they talked of how excited their kids are! The houses Habitat is building are more than just decent housing \u2013 they are homes to be proud of, homes to raise children in.<\/p>\n
This Habitat affiliate does not allow nail guns, so we pounded \u2013 by hand \u2013 every single nail. Actually, we pounded many more nails than were \u201cnecessary.\u201d\u00a0 The wood was hard, there were knots, and our aim wasn\u2019t always good.\u00a0 When there were two or three bent nails on the floor for each one securely in the wood, Pete and Dyana, the two supervisors, never complained or criticized \u2013 their goal was a quality product, and so they bought lots and lots of nails.\u00a0 When the plates failed to line up flush, we pulled them apart and tried again. When the nails attaching the sheathing missed the studs and flashed \u201cshiners\u201d at us, we pulled them out and began again.\u00a0 We used lots and lots of nails \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
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I hadn\u2019t worked on a Habitat build in seven years, and something strange had happened.\u00a0 \u00a0Now 70 years old, I\u2019m somehow not as strong and don\u2019t have as much stamina.\u00a0 What??\u00a0 But my sudden onset of aging wasn\u2019t obvious to the others; they were too busy dealing with their own.\u00a0 So we made bad jokes and took pride in the fact that though we were all given the senior discount without having to ask for it, we weren\u2019t home watching TV, or sitting on a bar stool complaining. \u00a0As the days went by, each of us hurt somewhere.\u00a0 My \u201csome where\u2019s\u201d generally woke me up for a conversation during the middle of the night.\u00a0 Shooting pains across my upper right shoulder after a particularly long day of hammering, followed by red-hot pain between my right thumb and forefinger \u2013 right where I held the hammer. Ice, ibuprofen and wine seem to help. Collectively we went through almost as many ibuprofen as we did nails.<\/p>\n
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a can can? Well, what do you expect when you give grey haired women hard hats and hammers?<\/p><\/div>\n
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Pete helps out by adding his weight. Two men standing around, while a woman hammers.<\/p><\/div>\n
Mesilla Valley Habitat stresses excellent product (let me repeat \u2013 they were NOT shy about telling us to pull something apart and begin again), safety, and, yes, FUN. \u00a0So there was much banter during the work day; those exchanges intensified as we sat around the camp fire after hours and were in high gear in the morning circle. \u00a0Pete and Dyana were serious if not a bit fanatical about safety \ud83d\ude09 \u00a0(everyone, always, had to wear a hard hat \u2013 period \u2013 no exceptions)\u00a0 Eye protection \u2013 but no gloves – when using a saw. \u00a0I consistently added hearing protection to the litany of required safety items, but I\u2019m not sure it was enough, given my significant hearing loss.\u00a0 I have an appointment with an audiologist this week; I hope to learn it\u2019s a reasonable option for me to work other builds, with consistent use of hearing protection.\u00a0 Somehow manual labor \u2013 for such an important purpose \u2013 is very good for me. \u00a0Good work with good people for a good cause.<\/p>\n
Some of these Care A Vanners will stay at Las Cruces until March.\u00a0 Others will move on, to see the country and aim their RV\u2019s at another Habitat build.\u00a0 Often Care A Vanners provide the backbone (though admittedly an old, creaky bone) for home construction.\u00a0 Mesilla Valley Habitat will build five houses this season, a goal that could not be realized without a cadre of aging gypsies who enjoy working and playing hard.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/IMG_2557-2-e1511223863644.jpg\")
we looked like an army of ants, but together it wasn’t hard<\/p><\/div>\n
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And up they go. Pete was part traffic cop and part conductor of a disjointed orchestra .Because he knew what he was doing & we did what he said – believe it or not, no one got squashed, and one more house has roof trusses<\/p><\/div>\n
And Las Cruces does such a good job, there are no available Care A Vanner RV slots for the rest of this build year.\u00a0 But there is always room – and work – for anyone who shows up<\/p>\n
For more information see \u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/www.habitat.org\/<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 https:\/\/www.habitat.org\/volunteer\/travel-and-build\/rv-care-a-vanners<\/a> and<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.lascruceshabitat.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You can only spend 14 out of 20 days in a NM state park. It was that time, so I hooked the truck to the back of the motor home and took a short ride from City of Rocks State … Continue reading