so i had a request for some more information about life here on the base.
i am currently located at mcclellan air force base. well, now its officially an office park, but it used to be an air force base. and there is a runway that i'm pretty sure gets used. for more info on the base's history check this out : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McClellan_Air_Force_Base. We have a few buildings in the corner of this base. 2 for dorms and 2 for meetings, kitchens and offices. Its a pretty standard looking dorm place with 3 story buildings and cinder block walls. There are p alm trees everywhere to remind me i'm in california and some citrus fruit trees too. but i won't be trying the fruit as the groundwater is polluted here due to chemical dumping. (more info in article) The trees are just nice to look at. i'm not sure if there are other groups living on the base, but there are definately businesses that operate out of it. many of them are government agencies, but some of them are not. there is a hotel nearby, a cafe and even the cable company.
for right now we cook inthe kitchens of the buildings we live in. so 15 of us live in our building and cook family meals. we have a food allowance of 4.50 per person per day. so when we put it all together we have plenty of money to feed us all. in fact we may even have leftover money to go out to dinner at the end of this week. when we come in under budget sometimes we buy dessert too. cooking meals is somewhat more complicated/eye opening as we have 3 vegetarians and one vegan. so tonight we had spaghetti and garlic bread with a choice of meat sauce or vegetable sauce. maybe i'll eat more vegetables than usual this year if influence by the vegetarians.
and last but not least, i have no idea what my next project will be. as i mentioned we were split into units, but that doesn't necessarily mean i will be travelling with those people. we will find out our first project assignment in late october. they try to give teams a good mix of experiences, so i am just eagerly awaiting the assignment.
on wednesday we will leave for our first mini-spike at camp mendocino. (http://www.campmendocino.org/). We will be doing some grounds clean up and prep for them and staying there until saturday. i hear its cold there and am looking forward to wearing some fall clothes for the first time since i got here! more about that next week.
