It's been such a busy week at IC. Good old Nate Henn put it in perspective for us by taping a giant countdown to the door that we all walk in and out of every single day. At the time he taped up the countdown, we had 10 days left to book. Ten.
Now, we're down to Seven. In all reality, though, it's probably less than that. More like 5.
We have to book nearly our entire tour before we are even considered to go on the road. And with only 5 or 7 days left to do that, everyone is a bit on edge and incredibly apprehensive. At the same time, however, it's incredible how relaxed everyone can become once we return to the roadie house at night. Despite our late trainings and despite all the pressure from the staff, we can all come home and lounge around as if it's a high school Saturday night with no football game and no good movie at the theater. I love it.
But at Invisible Children we truly do play just as much as we work. Friday we were told no one should get to the office before 9am (the East Coast teams had been getting there at 7:30 every morning to call appropriate for the time zone difference). My alarm was still set for 7am, but at 6:50 I heard a dozen or so voices speaking very loud and very excitedly and the next thing I know we have a staff member or two barging into our room happily telling us all to wake up! Not exactly what I wanted to be doing at the time, but since I was going to be getting up in 10 minutes anyway what they heck.
Then it hit me. That was
staff. That means that the people walking around our house before 7am were our bosses and we were all still sleeping. A few of us wandered out into the kitchen to see what on earth was going on and literally all of the Movement staff (Margie, Zach, and all the Regional Managers + Nate Henn, Natasha Bliss, and BWB rep Aaron King) were buzzing around the kitchen toasting Eggo waffles, slicing bagels, cooking scrambled eggs, pouring orange juice and setting out all the coffee additives. Heaven.
I knew this day was coming. I'd seen pictures of it from previous roadies. But I never thought it would be on a Friday. IC works too hard for that. Lo and behold, though, Friday it was.
We spent the rest of the day getting in touch with our inner selves--Meyers Briggs tests, marriage counseling questionnaire, gender differences and how to respond appropriately, etc. Essentially, they were preparing each of us for the three-month haul on the road. It's so awesome.
What wasn't awesome was the 102 degree heat and our house's lack of air conditioning. We ended up back at the office for the second half of training before we all broke off at the end of the day to visit cliffs and beaches and other fun locations like the infamous In-n-Out.
To back up to Thursday night, that's where all of this fun began. After work, Jedidiah got on a megaphone to announce that we had 20 minutes to get dinner and to figure out in our groups the riddle that he had handed out on cards. The riddle's answer would tell us our destination for the night.
Ultimately we went to Mt. Soledad where we played Running Charades--if you are unfamiliar with this game, I'll gladly play with you sometime. Bring friends. And from there we drove down to Mission Beach where the staff, including a lot of the art department, Jason, and Ben Keesey had built us a bonfire on the beach. The stars were gorgeous, the smores were lovely, the water was warm...and salty, and the sand is the SOFTEST in the world. I dare you to prove me wrong.
But better than all that, we had a special guest come to speak inspiring words to us. A man who has long loved Invisible Children and who does more for the organization than even the most dedicated fan could not possibly know. Hollywood director Tom Shadyac danced around the bonfire and told us his views on life and how we as roadies fall directly into his most revered category because we are donating our life and trusting that everything will be okay for five months. How do we return to the real world? A spirit of love and understanding. It sounds so textbook and cliché, but his delivery was sporadic and distracted and powerful all at the same time. I have a great new appreciation for this man, especially since I was unable to see him at Lobby Days.
I love my job.
