Yesterday we arrived at at our destination, the SALS (south Appalachian labor school), at about 7 PM eastern time. The thirteen of us ASBers saddled up into two minivans and made the trip. The journey was fairly uneventful with the exception of the final leg of the trip in WV, toward the labor school. The final leg was through a winding desert mountain road. The combination of approaching darkness, bad mapquest directions, and winding, dangerous, and deserted roads made this leg frightening at times. When we arrived we prepared previously purchased spaghetti, played a game called the mafia, and got some sleep.
There is no great word to describe the facility. The closest thing which it can be likened to is a small elementary school. It has a total of about 10 rooms. The building itself is very much in the vernacular style, haphazardly pieced together in the 70's and added to and subtracted from according to various needs. Its located among wooded mountains and is not really connected to to any other town center. There is a winding road, connecting the closest town which is over 10 miles away. Our school has electricity and water but its apparent that there is no gas line, as there are gas tanks around the place. While there is DSL here, most of the computers are locked out, and the remaining ones have outdated operating systems. There are showers and a full kitchen.
The primary use of the school is to provide supplemental education for K-12. The school also provides a home base for a number of different labor based clubs, and doubles up as a sort of community center. While the building is nothing to look at, its evident that it has been cared for. The bathrooms are in good working condition, there are no apparent leeks, the windows are not broken, and the kitchen is nice. Its also apparent that computers have been made a priority at this school. There are at least 3 which work, that I can log onto. There are another four or five which may work but I can't test because they require a user name and a password.
Everyone slept in till 12 this morning, and we went to try to find a state park. We never found the park but ended up driving around for a few hours. Basically all of the town centers are focused in valleys. The mountains are incredibly steep and seem like they would be difficult to settle into. These sporadic valley towns are generally built up around what appear to be industrial facilities. they are about 5 miles apart from each other, and I saw at least four of them while traveling through the valley. The SALS, however, is not located near one of the valley towns.
Things are a bit tight around the SALS. We are sharing the place for a week with another volunteer group from Rutgers college. We met them at our 'orientation' held here at the SALS. During this, a number of individuals 6-7 from the organizations which are advocating our various work projects discussed their roles in advocating justice. One member stated that their goal is to improve standards of living to a reasonable level. Im excited to start working tomorrow and that's about all I have for now. Im going to go get ready for bed.
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