I’ve been away for awhile, working on a 3 month AmeriCorps internship with The Great Basin Institute removing invasive plant species on an agricultural farm owned by The University of Nevada, Reno. To say I had fun would be an overstatement. The work itself was kind of boring and monotonous, but isn’t all work? There were 3 other Americans on the team at first and then 3 more came near the end, but most of the team was made up of international “volunteers”. And when I say volunteers, I mean they got paid just as much as the Americans but had their housing provided…. Some of the people I became good friends with, others I didn’t get to know very well, and some I am excited that I will never have to see again. The list of characters include –
Americans –
First Team
Josh – the crazy local
Andy – the quiet country boy
Ronnie – the psycho introvert
Late Comers
Trent – the unassuming midwesterner
James II – the sports nut
Tim – the interviewer
Internationals
Alex – sporty spice
Sarah – the UK party girl
Corrine – the pretty Canadian
James I – the high maintenance Brit
Stephanie – the wall climber
Will – the chauffer
Donny – the broken machine
Dan – the skinny footballer
Rebecca – the overly flirtatious Kiwi
Ainoa – the annoying shit slinging Spaniard
Kirsten – the elder veggie
Elisa – the quiet Italian
Duncan – the baby
Kun – the Chinese nationalist
Late Comers
Chris – the pretty boy homophobe
Mike – the underage giant
Supervisors
Heather – the real thing
Alfredo – the Mexican substitute
Anna – the socially retarded German dictator
Jeff – the elusive leader
After my van was nearly broken into while I was sleeping inside, I decided to stay in a cheap motel called the Capri. It was nicer than most I had seen but having to spend most of my money on this ate in to a lot of what I was trying to save. The hotel was run by a sweet old couple who were very nice to me. It was my neighbors that were the problems. The woman next door to me was named Ninnette and was a fat old drunk who hobbled around on broken legs as well as a broken back that she sustained during a drunk driving accident. She was constantly whining and begging for help and called the police often, either on people she didn’t like or because she needed help opening a jar or something. Finally one night she had just caused too much trouble and after being carted off in an ambulance was kicked out the next by the management. My upstairs neighbors were always really loud and the woman would sing very poorly all day and night so I had to sleep with earplugs. She was constantly fighting with her boyfriend/pimp about weird and often disgusting things, like her feminine grooming. Finally one day, while taking some garbage to the dumpster, they were walking through the parking lot and were surrounded by several police cars and arrested for who knows what and then were carted away as well. Other than that there was little drama in my living space and it was nice to have a high pressure, steaming hot shower every night when I came home from work. On the farm, most of the work we were doing was very monotonous. We were removing an invasive plant species called lepidia latifolium, also known as Tall White Top. We would hand pull it, weed whack it, and spray it with herbicides. We also had to monitor the plots in a variety of equally boring ways, as well as try to plant new desirable plants. Yawn. Most every weekend consisted of going out with everyone in a group to one of the two bars we frequented and watch everyone get shitfaced. The few fun trips we took included a weekend trip to Death Valley and then another weekend trip to Yosemite which was great fun. Most of the things to tell though came from the interactions with the afore mentioned people I was there with, so allow me to go through one by one and tell you what I thought of them, lol.
Josh – the crazy local. Josh was a bearded wild man who we assumed must have been held together entirely by cigarettes and coffee. He had been working with the same organization for years and it was clearly trying his sanity. He could often be seen partying around town, sometimes at the house around the corner from my hotel where you could often find discarded dildos lying in the front yard. He was a good resource of local knowledge and always gave you good advice on how to pretend to work. He often bragged about being able to score with girls by making them mad because “girls just want to feel emotion, cause their emotional. It doesn’t matter what emotion, just make them feel.” And this seemed to be working for him with Anna – the German dictator, who was constantly all over him, but I’ll get into that more later.
Andy – the quiet country boy. Andy was from Wisconsin and came across as pretty quiet till you got to know him better. I didn’t get to know him as much but he was always cool. Even after wrecking his car into a snow bank in Yosemite he seems collected. He seemed to do well with the ladies to, though he only drunkenly made out with Stephanie on the couch in front of everyone.
Ronnie – the psycho introvert. Oh, Ronnie. Ronnie was bat shit crazy. She is 44 years old but would never admit her age to anyone. It was only discovered after Andy googled her looking for proof of her age and found it in the form of a police report that detailed how she was arrested in North Carolina for assault with a deadly weapon when she attacked and pulled a knife on the CEO of a fortune 500 company. She seemed hardcore about animal rights, so hardcore in fact that you could often find her having long philosophical conversations with animals on the farm. And that’s pretty much all she did on that farm, cause this girl was capital L lazy. She never worked, and constantly complained about the prospect of possibly having to attempt work. She was always good for a laugh though and had very twisted and obscure views on the world. And thankfully I have just forgotten her. Late Comers
Trent – the unassuming Midwesterner. Trent was a cutie from Kentucky who had a chinstrap beard that most people did not appreciate. I didn’t have much time to get to know him very well as we only worked together for a few weeks. He seemed great at work and got crazy when you would take him out for a drink and demand kisses from the girls. He went after Becks pretty hard though probably as a last resort.
James II – the sports nut. Also didn’t get to know him that much, mostly talked about sports all the time which I have never had any interest in. He also got pretty crazy after a few drinks.
Tim – the interviewer. Tim was on odd little one. He was also really into sports and often talked about all the concerts he had attended. He just asked a lot of questions, but not like he was trying to get to know you, like you were in some sort of weird job interview or being screend for a concussion or something. It seemed to be like he’ll turn into the type of old man that gets carted away for attacking a child with his cane when one of his questions were answered incorrectly.
Internationals
Alex – sporty spice. Alex was often described by the boys as the best girl footballer they had seen. She didn’t take shit from anyone and was cool to hang out with, just don’t touch her feet. We shared many adventures together and I look forward to having her drag me around the UK in the future.
Sarah – the UK party girl. Hung out with Sarah in the company of Alex most of everyone. We had similar views and got along well which is always helpful with a friend. We’d get drunk together and then wake in the morning with black-eyes and wondering why we head butted people. But all was well as we slowly complained our way through the 3 months I was there and enjoyed talking shit about the people who were clearly not on the same page us. I am sure Sarah will join Alex and I on my whirlwind UK tour.
Corrine – the pretty Canadian. Gave this girl a pair of my best heels and hopefully soon she will learn how to walk in them. Didn’t get to spend as much time with her as I would have liked as for most of the time she was connected at the hip with James I and they could rarely be separated, but I would be most delighted if our paths crossed again one day.
James I – the high maintenance Brit. Everyone was pretty sure James was gay at first. A prettyboy from Manchester who took an hour just get his hair just right before exiting the bathroom. Well you better play with while you got it I always say. I was frightened he might retaliate against me after I dumped a bucket of water over his well coiffed locks, but luckily nothing came. And we may never know whether he actually likes birds or not or whether it was all just a clever rouse to entice the pretty Canadain.
Stephanie – the wall climber. Steph seemed to me like she’ll be a really good mother some day. We didn’t have very similar senses of humor but we got along ok for the most part. She seemed to like pretending to be a lesbian with the Kiwi a lot even after she started shackin up with Will. Maybe it was just a façade to keep the boys at bay but we may never know.
Will – the chauffer. Will and I seemed to have a lot in common, aka super nerd. Buffy, Angel, Battlestar, chances were if my nerd flag went up so did his. Pretty cool guy, just a normalish nerdy bloke. Didn’t get to spend much time with him after he coupled up but that’s how these things work. Looking forward to chatting with him over a pint or two when I make it across the pond.
Donny – the broken machine. Donny was cool and got my jokes. We got on well and had some fun times. He broke his collarbone in a misguided attempt to impress a blue hat but we’ll forgive him, especially now that he is part machine. He is leaving in December out of New York and depending on how our schedules work out maybe I will ferry him part of the way cross country. We’ll see what the future holds.
Dan – the skinny footballer. Also pretty cool. He reminded me of the contractor from Pixar’s UP that is trying to tear down the old man’s house. Watch the movie and look for that guy, that’s what he looks like.
Rebecca – the overly flirtatious Kiwi. Becks was super flirty with everyone even though she supposedly had a boyfriend somewhere in the southern hemisphere. I told her once that I would be jealous if someone I was dating was that flirty with other people and she took that as me calling her a whore. Then Andy said the same thing, so she got mad at him for calling her a whore and then curled up in his lap on some front porch in Reno. She wasn’t too bad but we didn’t always see eye to eye and she talked like a valley girl with a New Zealand accent.
Ainoa – the annoying shit slinging Spaniard. Ugh! This girl was the worst, thankfully I didn’t have to work with her that much. She liked to say things were gay a lot, and when I asked her to stop she tried to tell me it wasn’t offensive, she only called things gay if they reminded her of gay people. Actually a lot of the Europeans liked to say fag and gay a lot in describing things, but most except for her would stop when I asked them to. She just continuously made it know that the only opinion that mattered about anything was hers, and if you didn’t agree with what she liked, you were shit, or the thing you liked was shit, or there was shit on the sidewalk, or she smelled shit. Cause very thing was shit to her. This is shit, you shit, that’s shit, we shit, that shit. Well eat shit baby.
Kirsten – the elder veggie. I didn’t get to know Kirsten that much which is unfortunate because she seemed cool. We had some cool talks about the nature of vegetarianism. But it was difficult to get close to her as she was held under the controlling grasp of the Noa regime.
Elisa – the quiet Italian. Hardly spoke with her at all, another victim to the vice-like grip of the Noa regime of complete control and domination over the quietest of the group.
Kun – the Chinese nationalist. Spent 16 hours in car with her on the way to Death Valley hearing about how great China is. She didn’t seem to want to believe anything bad about China like the bad working conditions or censorship. You have to take the good with the bad.
Late Comers
Chris – the pretty boy homophobe. This guy seemed to really dislike gay people (and you know what that usually means), as well as anyone who didn’t live in London or would consider living anywhere besides London. Then the one time we hung out after a few drinks he asked me if I would have sex with him if he were gay, and I don’t think I would Chris, I don’t think I would.
Mike – the underage giant. Pretty cool guy, only hung out a few times, but he seemed cool and he was nice and tall.
Supervisors
Heather – the real thing. Aww Heather! She was fun and professional and great to get to know. Originally from Idaho we didn’t get to know her too much which should be true about any supervisor but hopefully I see her again one day down the road.
Alfredo – the Mexican substitute. Alfredo didn’t work too much and was always the poster child for unprofessionalism. He got better over time and would start to grow on you somewhat if you were able to take his immaturity with stride.
Anna – the socially retarded German dictator. Oh dear lord was this woman the worst and I use the term woman loosely because I doubt she was 100% human. She was constantly chasing after Josh and trying to take over as supervisor from the actually supervisor. She had no idea how to talk or interact with other people and was often very scared of looking weak in front of other people and would therefore often rule with an iron fist. She once even watched Ronny through binoculars as Ronny was peeing behind a grove of trees. She was always prettiest when she had a scowl on her face though which is maybe why she wore it so much, because when she would get flirty with Josh and would “smile”, she often resembled some kind of monster that you rarely only hear about in children’s tales.
All in all Reno wasn’t the worst experience of my life. There were some good times and some bad times and I made some great new friends. I am looking forward to the travels of the rest of the summer and the new adventures that may come. Stay tuned…
-Radical Nomad
