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Since the hurricane's torrential rain, these beautiful rain lilies have sprung up all over the county. The only colourful things amongst the green trees and yellow grass, they have appeared so quickly as if by magic, scattered on people's lawns, the verges of the roads and as here in the long grass around abandoned houses.

Apologies for not posting all week. Its been busy. I've moved into Beacon Street (hooray!), we're slowly cleaning up but now have a functioning kitchen (hot water arrives tomorrow) and given my obsession with eating, that makes me feel like it's now home. And not many of you can say that you can drive a truck into your living room. Today we went via the man who sells animals (chickens, geese, ducks, goats, piglets, puppies, rabbits, donkeys, sheep) at the weekend at the intersection... to Footwash , a festival held annually near Uniontown (a town famous mostly for having a population of 2000 of whome 200 were recently arrested for dealing cocaine). It was fun. They don't allow any cops onto the site and everything you might expect as a result happens. We saw three other white people there. We danced to a one-man band with funky old black men (here's Cara May in action), we wandered around, watching men in fatigues and guns and women in not very much get swi

This evening I thought it my duty to catch up on the world of blogging, which I have neglected for too long...but continuing with the Southern theme, here's a great article about the origins of real American BBQ found at Butter Pig , a blog which delightfully fulfils my continuing fascination with the weirdnesses of American food combos that the rest of the world would consider totally disgusting. Not that BBQ is one of them. Or ribs from Mustang Oil, our wonderful American equivalent of the greasy caff, the petrol station diner with the best slaw. So good.

We have several (black) men from the local prison who work for us at the Rural Studio, and in other charitable-type jobs around town. Their profitable sideline is that they have all learnt how to make belts and other leather goods embossed with patterns, people's names, and anything else you might want, which they make to order and sell. They are recognisable by their all-white attire, with a discreet 'Alabama Dept of Public COrrections' stencil on one trouser-leg. Tyrone, one of these guys who has been working for some time in Newbern as the trusted handyman-gardener of the RS properties, had his parole hearing yesterday and it has been granted. I saw him today and his row of gold teeth shined with a big smile when I congratulated him. Thirteen years, he told me it had been. He's not an old man, not much over 30 I would have thought. Like Johnny Parker, an older white ex-con who is now one of the RS's greatest staff members, it's very hard to imagine him

In an attempt to get my 6-person team (far too many for the job) into action in time for a crit next Monday, today I morphed into my most bossy-dictatorial self, making 'to do' lists and generally trying to badger everyone into shape. Many friends of mine will read this and sigh, I'm sure. I have even made templates for people to fit their work to in an effort to make it all look vaguely co-ordinated and not like a bunch of people browsed the internet for a week in the name of 'research'. Getting five non-architects with generally dire drawing skills to design a house plan together is, however, more complicated. So far, intelligent people have drawn rooms with no way to enter them, bathrooms that are bigger than bedrooms, and miraculously thin walls, one pencil line thick. But my usual instincts for basic dimensions also keep going awry. Everything here is so much bigger - standard fridges, cookers and sinks are huge compared to the UK - and having to talk in fe

We spent all of yesterday clearing up fallen trees and branches around Newbern, which appeared to have suffered much worse than Greensboro due to its more rural setting. Many trees had fallen and although there was little damage to houses, the poorest sections of the community as usual were hit hardest. One family's home - a dilapidated trailer - was crushed by a falling pine tree which also wrote off their car, and another family's home was hit by a falling limb which has destroyed their living-room roof. The trees that did the most damage were the pecans, of which there are many and which create a lovely shade for many people's yards. Note to self: when siting the $20,000 house, although it would be lovely to use the shade of a tree to keep the house naturally cool, make sure it won't fall on the house, and steer clear of those pecans.

Well, I woke up around 6am, after a restless night of listening to the driving rain and the wind shaking my tiny house, to find the power was already out. I'd just taken this picture, when there was a loud thud above my head and I looked up to find a tree had fallen on top of my apartment! I figured that between braving the 70mph winds outside, and staying in my apartment watching everything get soaked by the torrential rain coming in through the hole in the roof, I preferred to get out! but before the hurried evacuation of myself and my few possessions to a friend's house down the road (who bravely drove down to get me) I took these two snaps of the view from my door and the inside of my apartment for evidence... But after that adrenaline rush while still in my nightshirt, the rest of the day has been pretty uneventful. The storm abated around lunchtime although a rather English drizzle continues, and it seems that the Brit wanting the 'hurricane experience' ha

It began to rain gently about 3 hours ago but the winds are still barely above a breeze, and after a good supper (cooked by the second year students under the tutelage of crazy German Frank) outside at the Morrisette house, it is still hard to believe that we are supposed to have 10-15 hours of hurricane force winds tomorrow. It feels like all this emergency planning and refugee-like mentality is a bit of an over-reaction. But already, Mobile (the port of south Alabama) and surrounding areas have had their power knocked out leaving around 100,000 without power in the Alabama area alone. Two people have been killed by one of five tornados in Florida, 52ft waves have been recorded by buoys and the eye still hasn't made landfall. I'm following it all at this newssite blog. One thing I still haven't got my head around is how the eye can be moving north at 12 mph yet the surrounding winds are at 135-160mph. Meanwhile, they still haven't cancelled the college football

This hurricane business is getting serious here as the eye path is currently headed exactly for us here in Hale County. The governor of Alabama has declared a state of emergency. All the students on the main campus at Auburn have been evacuated and classes cancelled. But believe it or not, the football game on this weekend is still happening. They wanted us to evacuate too, but where on earth would we go? Drive around the county chasing tornados for thrills in someone's jeep, I would think. It looks pretty scary on the satellite shots already. Even this arrogant and powerful country is in panic over this force of nature. And the internet is in full swing with a dedicated blog .

Meanwhile, I may be in for my first real hurricane experience as Ivan the Terrible is heading my way. People ask me if I've ever experienced a hurricane, and although the famous storm on my birthday in 1987 was pretty terrifying to a 7 year old, I can't really compare it to this 160mph monster. One of the predictable side-stories of the hurricanes this year that I hadn't previously considered is that those totally un-hurricane-proof trailer homes that we are trying to battle are on the increase.

A lovely weekend, with visits to Perry Lakes forest and park (and RS toilet block which dignifies the act to a sublime degree; see this view from the toilet seat) (well, they had a $50,000 grant that they had to spend...and given the incredible peace and quiet of this virgin forest, I could certainly imagine happy hours of meditation here!) ...and finally, to pay a long overdue visit to my friend Lucy 's wonderful (and prize-winning ) porch for Ola Mae - a woman in one of the poorest black parts of Greensboro around Martin Luther King Drive. The porch still looks great, though one of the kids has bust out a bit of the screening, and Ola and her family who live in nearby trailers gave me a great welcome. Actually, they thought I was Lucy until I came up close; when absolutely no white girls ever come to that part of town, two girls with dark hair, headscarves and smiles can easily be mistaken. But the most exciting bit of the weekend has been that another outreach studen

Today after meeting and working in the studio I went with another outreach student for my first lesson in driving on the wrong side of the road, down to Mason's Bend, a small and impoverished community at the end of a dead end road near the Black Warrior river where many of the best-known RS projects are sited. They are weathered and aged already by the climate here, but seem to have become more part of the place and fitting for their purpose. Already some are like relics from another time; the chapel particularly, empty and neglected, an architectural experiment lost in the wilderness. After dinner we went to the high school football game; Greensboro Raiders vs Jemison Panthers. The largely white Jemison team came with a troupe of glittery-costumed cheerleaders, athletic dancers and well-rehearsed band. Greensboro's band only started this year and has only been able to afford T-shirts to be worn with jeans, or black shorts. The sound they made was thin and their dance

One down side of my little apartment here is that I don't have a table to eat at. Or rather, I would have a small square one, but it's taken up with all this laptop/work crap. So this means that tonight, you get dinner-time blogging (plate on table in front of laptop) on the subject of food. I think I may be one of the only students here who actually cooks. (Tonight it's japanese-style chicken, with stir-fried vegetables and rice). I can see how this comes about. Cooking requires food shopping, which requires shops selling food and these are in pretty short supply. We have Piggly Wiggly, whose glamorous name belies its contents; although a superstore about the size of a usual Tesco, it seems to sell virtually nothing I count as food and lots more varieties of crisps (sorry, chips), processed ham and cheese than I thought the market could ever possibly sustain. Then there's Fuller's, which is much the same but a bit cheaper. There's the Greensboro Farmer

Spent the day with the thesis year students doing a blitz on the Thomaston Rural Heritage Centre project , a project by one of last year's thesis teams that's not yet finished. It's a pretty major building - the part refurb and part new build of a 5000 sq ft centre and community kitchen, and it's extraordinary to see what 5 (now reduced to 3) people can build with their bare hands - a really high quality of workmanship and design that is serious and professional. It's quite unlike the aesthetic of many of the well-known projects from the RS - much more polished and 'architectural' with glass, timber and metal - but also imaginative and fits its brief with style. And it's going to have a 100x30 ft long road sign donated by the Highways Authority above the building to signal its presence - so it's not entirely so serious. We got a great lunch of barbeque and brownies made by the women who run the Heritage Centre - the best barbeque around, people sa

Just back from spending Labor Day weekend in Memphis, an impromptu trip which originated when I called Butch , an artist friend of a friend who lives in Alabama and he told me he was going to be exhibiting at the Memphis Music and Heritage Festival and doing some partying along with it. Our party was completed by John Henry Toney, an extraordinary old black plowboy turned self-taught artist aged 76. He rediscovered his artistic talents at the same time as Butch, who is also self-taught, around ten years ago and draws these astonishing pictures on board and paper. He also sings and tells stories of the old times, and silenced the audience during his stage slot with his clear-voiced renditions of old gospel songs, before cracking them up with his stories. However we tucked him up in bed at the house of Butch's long-suffering friend and music journalist Andrea, before hitting the town, the whisky bottle, and some rocking dancefloors three nights running at Hernando'

I guess I should explain at this point that my project with the other Outreach Programme participants is to design and build a prototype house for low income families that can be built for $20,000 including labour. This is to fill the gap in the federal and state housing programmes for families in extreme poverty, of which there are a devastating number in West Alabama. Housing grants under the Rural Development Programme are allocated in proportion to household income as compared to the median income of the surrounding area. The government classifies 'low-income' families as having under 80% of the median income for the area. 'Very low income' families have less than 50% of the median. They recently introduced a third category, 'extremely low income' for those with less than 30% of the median. Hundreds of families in Hale County fall into these categories, and are classified as high risk. When the median household income is $25,000, so 'extremely low in

There is an ongoing programme here of lectures by invited practitioners from a range of disciplines. Yesterday we had our first Wednesday night meal and invited lecture - the weekly opportunity for the whole Rural Studio to get together and catch up. This week we had Chris Krager from KRDB talking about their efforts to build good design for the masses, or what they call affordable architecture for the urban/suburban middle classes who are not served by either the high-end luxury architecture or the social housing programmes. The main interest was that they effectively take a middle-class approach to the Rural Studio's self-build ethos, acting not only as architects but as the contractors, bringing a meaning to 'design and build' that is far from its British connotations. This evening we had two talks - firstly from two extremely enthusiastic brothers who have been looking into cob construction (similar to adobe) for houses principally in California and Oregon, and who

Finally I have my own internet connection fixed up with my laptop, which means I can show y'all some pictures! So, to backtrack, welcome to Greensboro! you can click on all the pictures to see a larger sized version if you would like... This is what I dived straight into when I arrived...many pairs of hands at Juanita's house and Andrew Freear, the Yorkshire-born director of the Rural Studio since the death of Sambo Mockbee, and his Italian photographer girlfriend Elena fixing up some windows... Andrew and Elena have got a grant to document a year in the life of the Rural Studio and produce a book next year. The projects this year are going to be exciting and Elena's already doing a lot of amazing photographic work, so it should be good. And here is Juanita herself with some of her family, talking to Andrew (sorry for the fuzzy photo) ...and her jars of preserves, neatly installed on her new kitchen shelves. And this is the Red Barn, the RS's