First Day Experiences

Today was our first day of working and it was very tiring work. We have 3 teams, one team went to one site and the other 2 joined forces and worked on another site. I was on the team that joined forces with the other team and worked on this shotgun home. What we mainly had to do was mudding the side, which Karen, Paul and Gloria did and the rest of us worked on the outside of the home, scraping the flakes of paint off and removing Caulk, which was awful to remove. I was on a latter for like 4 hours doing this, took a quick water break and work again. My goodness, my feet hurt. After a while we took a lunch break were we just talked and some of use took a walk around the neighborhood we are working at. Some homes are beautiful but some are just horrible. We came back and started to work again. Around 4 or so, the owner of the home came by and just started talking to us. He was just talking about how he sells vegetables and fruits on a corner and that he sells this one type of tomatoes that are very popular. He stated that people from Florida, Texas and Georgia come to get these types of tomatoes. He also said that the home we are working at belonged to his father and that the neighborhood is not the same because people used to be able to walk into ones home and just have a meal with the people in the home. However, that is not possible because many are not back. In addition, there were two homes that were not affected by the flood because one of them was high enough that the water only touched the base and that is it. The other home, he stated the owner was just sitting on his pouch and the water only reached the high step. The interior of his home had 3 feet of water while the outside of his home had 6 feet of water.

I am going to back tract a little now. Before we actually arrived to the site we went to go to the St. Bernard project headquarters where we were assigned out site. On the way over there, we drove through New Orleans and some of the homes were huge and beautiful. The further we drove, the worst the homes got. We also drove through the lower ninth ward and I will say, it was very bad how bad these homes were. All of them hand spray paint on them, indicating when the home was visited, and other stuff I did not understand. When we arrived to the destination, we met the one of the founders of the St. Bernard Project. She told us of the story the owner of the facility they are located at. She told us that the owner was this really tough man who feared nothing. However, when the flood came he saw that it started off as a trickle and then it became horrible. Some of the water was 15 feet high. He had to go to the second story of the place and was afraid that he was going to die. He made a floating device, which consisted of a lot of Styrofoam and a chair. He was going to float to safety but was not able to do so because someone came and helped him out. He was taken to the roof of a bank, which had 300 or so other people and was stranded there for six days. This community was always independent but all of that was changed with the floods because they had to rely on others to help them out.
The highlights of my day were the end of the day when we came back from working, having that sense of accomplishment, walking the supervisor’s dog, Maya, which was very friendly. She gave me this big kiss. Hehehe. Also it was awesome talking to my peers, getting to know them. Also, a group of us went for a walk in the neighborhood we are staying at and that was awesome. I got to talk to someone on the street. We found this playground and all of us got on the swings and just let loose. I took pictures and it was just so much fun. Also, this woman Cellie come by and talked with Shelly and thanked us for what we are doing. As we was leaving, I extended to shake her and instead gave me a hug and called me handsome, which was pretty cool

Ebelio