AmeriCorps is similar to the Peace Corps except we help people right here in on our native soil. In exchange for my service, I am almost sworn to poverty like a Franciscan monk, but all my needs will be met. I will receive a small "cost-of-living" stipend, a housing voucher, food stamps, insurance and child care. VISTA will even pay a handsome relocation allowance as well as a large sum towards my student loans. I qualify for these government programs because my income while a VISTA is well below the poverty level. I get to go to my own Wigan Pier and be somewhat homeless in Rapid City for a few weeks while I look for a place to stay and work my new job. And since I work for the government, what better place to begin my new career than under the shadow of Mt. Rushmore?
Even so, the poverty level is so unforgivably low that if I were to receive child support, I would not qualify for child care.
Setback: my cousin in Nebraska, that I'd hoped to stay with on the drive out to RC, will be out of town that weekend so I'm tsol. She'll be in Rapid City about two weeks later, though, so we'll get to meet then. She works for the Salvation Army and suggested I stay at the YMCA :) The weekend I bring Max back, we'll stay with Madeline in Nebraska.
I sorta had a traveling companion lined up but he's been m.i.a. since I gave him the start date, less than two months away. Cold feet, I guess. Which sucks because his mother lives in Missouri and I was hoping to stay there one night on the drive out too. So I may be about to strike out on my own, on my own. And with absolutely no where to stay other than in my car. I can't think of anyone else I'd rather spend a week in a car with, honestly, so I'm a little less excited to be arriving at my new life on Valentine's Day alone than I was earlier. Well I'll have my little dog, and in a city of over 70,000, surely I'll find someone somewhere to ease the transition to city life.
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