Genevieve's thoughts

Hi – I’m Genevieve, designated driver for my small group. Yesterday was pretty tiring – I made the sketchy choice of walking to BART at 4:30 am and taking that to SFO rather than taking Bayport or some other shuttle. Luckily, Berkeley was kind to me and I made it safely to BART after an actually very pleasant walk along a heavily policed and thus deserted Telegraph. Made it to the airport, met with the group, boarded the plane! Read a book for both flights, met some of the people in the group, adjusted my sitting position a million times, etc. At this point I was still a little unsure about what we were actually going to do -- I guess I just knew I was going to do it.

We were delayed a bit in Houston, but it wasn’t a horrible wait. The woman on the plane next to me on the flight to New Orleans was far more wiped out than I was, so I felt better about my own tiredness. I craned my neck to get a glimpse of the city as we landed – we came down over Lake Pontchartrain (go me for knowing!) all marshy at the edges, with a long bridge going across. Wasn’t able to get much of a view of the city until later. We spent some time renting a bunch of vans at the New Orleans, and I got geared up to drive the van. The weather was very balmy and cloudy. It reminded me of Hawaii, the only other tropical place I’ve been.

---break in writing: dinner---

WELL! The weather was very balmy and cloudy, and so it remained for the rest of the night. I got us only a little lost on the way to the church that has kindly put us up, but another van in the caravan had a better idea of where to go so we were soon on track again. As we drove I could see some damage on some homes, and a lot of deserted buildings and boarded up restaurants, but otherwise nothing too drastic. The church is near the Mississippi, but I haven’t seen the actual river yet. Hopefully I’ll get to walk down there one of these evenings or at least on Sunday (free day!). Anyways the street the church is on is very pretty and the smell seriously reminded me of the smell at the beginning of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride – I kid you not – they got it right. Ha! Gnarly (in both senses of the word) trees just span across the street and the architecture of the houses is distinctly New Orleans, as far as my stereotype of what it should be tells me – all porches and pillars and rod iron. It’s not absolutely gorgeous or pristine, but it is very lovely and old and overgrown.

This is getting long.

I had my first taste of the accent when we got some food down the street (walked) at the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen (LPK, guys!), and it was like awwwwwwww they’re all southernnnnn. The food was good, too, though not much different from anything in California : )

No fireflies…

Or old men playing the banjo on their porches.

Or pirates.

Yet.

There are 87 of us, but some still only made it to the church by 11pm, when the rest of us were getting ready for bed (floor of the large room upstairs in the rec hall). Others who took a red eye only got in this morning. Fun fact: there is an interesting adjoining room to the sleeping hall that is full of all kinds of chairs. Full as in a floor to ceiling jungle of old fashioned wooden and metal chairs. I thought it was cool, anyways.

The four girls who are putting this entire trip on are absolutely amazing – I cannot imagine the amount of work they have put into getting us all here, the lack of sleep they are dealing with, the constant questions from everyone, etc. Everyone is pretty compliant and ready to go, though, so I’d say we’re on a good track, for so large a group.

This morning my group and two others drove to a food bank, Just The Right Attitude. To get there we drove on a highway that gave us a better view of the city – the Superdome, some skyscrapers, a pretty church, etc. I didn’t really know what to expect given the name of the place, except that it would be a positive environment. I expected a sort of soup kitchen near other businesses, but it was actually housed in a small building in a more remote part of the city. At this time it was still balmy but the sun was out.

The folks at JTRA were very friendly from the start – introducing themselves and getting us right to work. A couple of us got hairnets and started making the lunch that they give away (spaghetti and meatballs – I had never seen a pot so large in a place so small – it was a CAULDRON full of a THOUSAND meatballs!!!) The rest of us got to work in a massive assembly line stuffing paper bags and boxes with canned and dry foods. I am now an expert double-bagger. Others are expert fit-the-spaghetti-in-the-box-ers. People lined up outside and started picking up their allotted foodstuffs. Later in the day another line sprang up for the lunches. A bus full of senior citizens came, and they all got a second meal as well for dinner.

I didn’t have much contact with the folks picking up the food, me being more on the assembly line inside, and I didn’t have a lot of chance to really talk to the JTRA workers. We will be working there until next Tuesday, when my group of seven will start working with a different organization. I assume in this time we’ll get to know everyone a lot better!

I still haven’t seen any real flood damage, though one of the groups today went on a tour of the levees in the city – the saw levees in the lower, middle, and upper class areas, and said the differences were just astounding. Other groups worked at an elementary school, and others worked cleaning up a historical home. I could write more but I think this is enough for now : )

Later

---Genna