Our Fearless Leader

Christina may just be one of the most maniacally organized people I have ever met

We were sitting in the office of the Mississippi Center for Justice after a long day traveling between FEMA trailer parks. Like everyone else in the group, I was waiting for Crystal to give us a debriefing when I noticed Christina giving my scarf the hairy eyeball. It’s one of those scrunched up scarves that looks like its falling apart and she was not happy with the fact that it was unevenly “scrunched.” She peers curiously at my scarf, blue eyes peeking through tortoise shell spectacles, her head cocked to the side. After a moment of silence, she finally says “I don’t get it” and starts to pick at scarf with her fingertips, pulling it here and there (keep in mind – its still on me). Eventually she decides that it’s just easier to just take the scarf completely off me (which she does) and she proceeds to go bat shit crazy on it. She starts pulling the thing like she’s in a taffy making contest. At one point, she enlists me to sit there and hold one end so that she could get up and start pulling at the other end. A few minutes later, she stopped and handed me my scarf. My fashionable scrunched up scarf was now completely straight. I thanked her and cautiously took my scarf back.

This is just one example of why I have come to admire Christina. She is a girl who knows how to get things done. She somehow manages to get all thirteen of us to do exactly what needs to get done in a sweet but really forceful voice. (I like to think of it as a seersucker glove over an iron fist.) I want to somehow communicate to all of you how bad it is down here, but I can’t. You have to see it for yourself. You have to see how shitty it is down here with your own eyes. It’s eerie….absolutely gut wrenching at times. They are dealing with a serious SNAFU here in Biloxi, and there is no way we can put a dent in the work that needs to be done here. Our time in Biloxi is very short. We need to be efficient. We need to make sure that we manage our time well. This is why we kind of need Christina here to crack the whip and keep us focused. If she can beat my scarf into submission, she can do the same to us. I don’t think we could have asked for a better leader.

Pam