What Would I Do Without You?

About 65% of Gentilly will be done by the early afternoon, and 15 of Gentilly's 22 neighborhoods will be finished. Nick (top photo far left, standing) and Zsuzsa (top photo far right, on the hood smiling at you) went back to Dartmouth yesterday for the start of classes. Sarah and Owyn are leaving tomorrow.

As this project has progressed the past few weeks, it's been interesting to watch how the participation of Gentilly residents and other volunteers determined what we accomplished each day. Now that will be evidently clear starting tomorrow when I'm the last person from Dartmouth here to finish this round of mapping.

In mid-December, there were about 11-13 Dartmouth people in the field on any given day. That number fell to 6 the past week. Meanwhile, from mid-December onward, we've changed from a resident walking with us occasionally to having a list of residents we can call and a smaller list of people we can really count on. The past week we've had 4-6 volunteers walking with the Dartmouth team members, on average, with a high of 25.

I can't finish mapping Gentilly very soon all by myself, but I know I'm surrounded by people who are willing to help if I ask. The looming uncertainty that's beyond my control is the weather, both real and anticipated.

If there are enough people who can map this Saturday and Sunday, we might be done.