salvation army and salvage market

this week i have been really busy working at the salvation army. christin is not what you would call organized.. her office was a dump (literally) and there weren't enough cabinets to hold things.. (notice the past tense) so yesturday i dragged her to a second hand furniture store and helped pick out some furniture that would work for her space. i guessed measurements by eye-balling, and everything fit perfectly! we got a lockable thing for binders and i repurposed a big wardrobe into storage space, and we added a coffee table and two chairs. then we spent the rest of the day and today and tomorrow moving everything out of the office, setting up the furniture in a new way (i made a fake wall out of all the cabinets and hid allt he stuff she doesn't need but can't trash in labeled boxes behind it) and ORGANIZING it. i wonder if my skills in this area are marketable? i forced her to throw out a lot of useless stuff, and threw some stuff out when she wasn't looking that just needed to go (seriously? ALL the empty bags and boxes she wants to store?! ALL?!?! and the broken microphone?! and the cassette tapes and floppy disks?!) quite a fun time.

and then i headed off to the indoor salvage market (like a huge garage sale) that is a three day a year tradition in karlsruhe. imagine a room the size of a soccer field........ i made a list so as not to get distracted and buy too much. on the list: gloves for biking in winter, a black knee-length wool coat in a modern style, and an electric coffee grinder (not chopper). well, i didn't get the gloves. but i got the rest!!! and paid.. drumroll please.. 6.50! to give you an idea.. the coat alone costs 150e and up in stores. on ebay i havent seen it go for under 50e. and it is BETTER than any i tried on in stores. thinner but warmer. with a modern, feminine and slimming cut. and the coffee grinder is from the leading brand (krups).

and then i headed over to steiger to teach englisch.. and was blessed by being bought a doener and coke for dinner. and someone else said she felt she should give me 20e. just like that! it was a good day. a good week. oh- and at street work yesturday it was -12 degrees... and yet people came... and they came because they knew we would be there! there is starting to be a real acceptance and appreciation of us, and we had another evening of AWESOME conversations with the werder platz people. karlsruhe is starting to feel like home.