Went on the Saturday volunteer day for first-timers and it was a really great way to connect with other Bay Area people interested in helping out. We worked on preparing a sidewalk for paving in front of four new houses, in land bought from BART.

That was a great way, I thought, to use otherwise useless land on the side of the tracks. After a while I didn’t even notice the train going by, and I’m not lying! For lunch we hit a taco stand off John Daly Blvd. One lunch companion, from South Korea, told us that Habitat is really famous there, because they help with a lot of Mongolian rural people who otherwise live in shanties. Another volunteer owns a house, and wanted other Bay Area people to have the same joy of ownership she had. We all agreed, even the woman who was renting in the Mission, that it was too tough here to buy, so anything that helped was a good idea.

Photo is from Habitat for Humanity International Mongolian site and shows the type of structures they build there, specific for the wind situation.