Aaron Clark-Ginsberg's Online Journal
September 10, 2006
The first two nights of camping have been great. I set up my tent at midnight on the 9th. I was the only one the first night. Yesterday, when I came back to go to bed, there was another tent with me. Today there are two more.
Momentum is building for this project. I'm meeting with the Greek council tomorrow and I'm going to try and get every fraternity and sorority camping out with me. One has already promised to camp out for two weeks. I'm having a BBQ on Tuesday, which I'm hoping will attract more support and bring out more people. The school paper is going to have a picture of me and the tents in the paper. The weather has been in my favor as well, which has been awesome.
More news to come...
Aaron
September 12, 2006
I met with the Greek Council last night to talk about the project. They all seemed interested. So far 10 other people have camped out with me. It's hard keeping track of them because they just come and set up their tent, which is awesome. Right now there are 7 or so tents out there. I've put up an American flag for patriotism. Just got my picture taken for the school paper, and I'm about to go get interviewed for the school.
It rained for the first time last night. My tent held up fine. Hope no one got soaked. I guess the BBQ is off…
Total money raised so far: $1037. Thanks, everyone!!
September 14, 2006
These last few days have been long. I've been busy and it's been hard to stay dry with all of the rain and such. Sleeping has been hard because the tent doesn't really block out the noise. Although Kenyon isn't much of a city, it can sometimes sound like one. It's been pretty windy too, which causes the tent to rustle quite a bit.
The DKEs had their meeting last night. They're still planning on camping and they're going to try and raise money as well. Apparently the Zetas didn't know that they had to raise money to increase the money that went to Habitat, so they decided to put off the camping and raise some cash.
I haven't showered yet. This isn't a conscious decision; I've just been too busy and haven't gotten around to it. If I play my cards right though, I should be able to sometime between 11 and 4 tomorrow.
This weekend looks promising. A bunch of people have promised to camp with me.
Cash total: $1267
September 17, 2006
These past few days I've done a lot of thinking about what I'm doing. Besides raising money for Habitat, I wanted to experience a different living situation so I could better understand the role that space has on the psyche.
I didn't really know what to expect when I began camping. I thought it would be a lot like camping outdoors in the wild. I didn't realize how weird it is being exposed to people all the time and how much you think about what other people think of your actions because of it. People see me come and go and know my day-to-day schedule much more than in the safety of my own home. I put on deodorant and brush my teeth in public. At times I feel like someone's always watching me, which can be a little creepy.
People even dictate my day-to-day schedule. The last two nights were the first nights outside where I got more than four or five hours of sleep due to the noise. I wouldn't be able to go to bed before two or three, and then I'd be woken up around seven by the traffic. It's amazing how much control other people inadvertently have over my life. Gambier isn't even that noisy or crowded, and if it gets bad, I can escape it.
During the day, I live a normal life. Today I went and "helped" Eric and Kate at their organic farm (and by "helped" I mean that I talked to the Helts while they worked). Then I went to the BFEC to "read" (and by "read" I mean that I played with friends in the garden and hunted for small animals). I spent around $10 at Middle Ground for breakfast and lunch and got free food at Gund for dinner. Tonight I'll sleep outside, protected by the privacy of my ten-person tent. In other words, my roughing it in scenic Gambier doesn't compare to what really being homeless is like. The situation that the homeless population faces is unfathomable: having to live always in the public domain, without real shelter and relying on the generosity of strangers. Playing at homeless is challenge enough. Playing makes me realize how much I take for granted sometimes.
September 27, 2006
So I'm over the halfway mark and I've raised over two thousand dollars. The DKEs have been camping out, and the Phi Kaps are planning on camping out as well. The weather's been all right and I've been getting good sleep. These last few days have been pretty sweet, at least in terms of tenting.
I think it will be a little weird going back to dorm life. Although I've only been sleeping in the tent, I live my life very differently than I would if I was in a dorm. For example, last year after a long day of class or work, I would go home and relax in my dorm and not really do anything. Now I have to find some place to go and something to do because the dorm doesn't feel like home yet (I've only slept in my bed three times since school began) and the tent feels too outdoors and public during the day for me to really chill out in.
Instead, I've become much more prone to relaxing in other people's places, whether they're there or not. Also, I only have a few pairs of clothing in my tent, which I've been wearing repeatedly since I've been camping, and I've only showered twice since the entire project began. I don't think I'm lazier than most when it comes to personal hygiene-the space is just not a conducive one for frequent showers or changing.
I've kind of grown to like this lifestyle, though. Day-to-day things that were once much more important (like showering) have become very trivial. I've become less distracted by them as a result. The days feel longer and fuller because I can spend more time doing things besides upkeep.
[Editor's note: For more information about the fundraising effort to benefit the Knox County chapter of Habitat for Humanity, e-mail clarkginsberga@kenyon.edu.]
October 1, 2006
I have less than a week to go, and things are looking good. The dampness not included, I've really began to enjoy the simplicity of the environment and the choices that I make because of it. In the most basic sense of the word, my tent has become my home. I now make my decisions consciously because I have to plan them-for example, I can't just get up and end up watching a movie because that's what's around. I still have the option to escape to creature comforts whenever I desire, but I think about them a lot more.
I've been thinking about why decent and affordable housing is such a problem for such a rich country. I believe a lot of this goes back to our lack of self-reliance-we've become such a service country, in the sense that we cannot create the basic necessities (food, shelter, and clothing) by ourselves within our community. Instead we rely on huge corporations to provide for us, due to their efficiency of scale.
By their nature, corporations concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the few lucky leaders, leaving the people who do most of the unskilled grunt work relatively poor. Communities have become weaker as a result of people no longer relying on each other for help. Communities lose their sense of binding purpose, and people lose their sense of place as a result.
So, all in all, I believe that the housing crisis is a symptom of a much larger problem plaguing our country. I am not trying to advocate a return to a past that existed only in myth, and I don't believe that the world will become a utopia with the creation of stronger communities oriented around a common goal.
I do believe, however, that if communities like these do develop, people will establish stronger connections with each other, develop a sense of place, and begin to care more about society and less about personal gain. The best parts of industrialization, which include cheap communication, access to information, and more equal access to economic opportunity along racial, religious and sexual lines, can be married with the stronger communities of pre-industrial society.