Emotions

Well today we continued to work on Mr/Mrs. Ruossel's home and we discovered that Christina and Dave spoke to them and told us that they were in tears while they talked to them. That is just something that makes this worth it. They are appreciated what we are doing and that means a lot. Also, Melanie bought us more drinks today and I believe that she is just so awesome. She does not have to buy us drinks, offer her small trailer to us but she does and I believe that is awesome. I also went on a solo mission with Dave today. We went to Ms Martha's home to finish up some stuff. Ms. Martha is Dave's favorite person down here and told me that when the flood came she had to stand on the roof of her home and had 3 feet of water covering her body. We arrived to the home and I got to look at the inside and I was just amazed of how it looked. The Kitchen is beautiful and Ms. Martha is just a sweet person. It was good for me to see a home that is almost complete. When I got back, I helped with the painting of the Ruossel home. For lunch we ate at this restaurant that surved Po Boys, onion rings, oysters and other things. It was very good but I was kind of bummed out because I wanted to play some Marvel Super heros, which was an arcade game they had. Oh well. Right now I am just so grateful for this oppurtunity because I am in the company with some very amazing individuals. I talked to Paul Hoyt before posting this blog and it was awesome hearing his word. He said that these individuals appreciate what we are doing, and appreciate that we take pictures and pick up a hammer. This is so because we are showing them that we truely do care about them and we can share this with others. They us working hard and to them that is a sign of hope and that people do care about them. They are not in this world alone and people do care. That is why individuals like Melanie open up their trailers to us. Volunteers are building these communites and it is good to know that I am apart of that. This is becoming very personal and I feel like these individuals are shaping me and I do truly do care about them; even though I have never met them before this.

Ebelio

Weaving the Web Across the Country

Our group is fabulous AND I so enjoy meeting the volunteers who have come as an individual commitment. Last year we had Craig and his daughter Emily work with us at Beecher Memorial, and this year we have Ron and Marty, two talented and inspiring guys. Ron has been here since mid January and will likely last through April. The heat is getting to him (he’s from Wisconsin). Marty is a wonder with the floor installation. This morning he called each of us by name and said he practiced all last night! He’s actually joining us for dinner tonight. I really appreciate the way the organizations assign individuals to work with groups.
Shelly D.

It’s a Crime!

It’s a crime that almost every Katrina victim that I have encountered says that their only sign of hope are the volunteers! They see no hope from the local, state or federal government about promised funding, recovery programs and future planning. It took 18 months for NO to appoint and “Recovery Czar” and it turns out to be the former head of the Urban Planning Department at UC. Meanwhile the war goes on and the billions of dollars it costs each day. Let’s declare war on NO. It’s a crime!

Don S.

Four Days on the Job

It’s Thursday evening, and we on the dinner crew are back to St. Paul’s a bit early to get dinner going. Today we saw real progress. As we pulled up to 2106 Stander Place, caution orange road signs were out on the block “No Thru Traffic.” Down at the house we could see a big dump truck, and a front-loader cleaning up the huge pile of debris that had taken up the front yard. Then all morning and all day the outside paint went on, maroon trim, and tan outside walls – a bright spot of color for a street which can only get brighter and brighter. Later we saw a Bell South truck on the block. They were not there to disconnect anybody’s phone. They were there to install. This is how St. Bernard Parish is coming back. Four days on the job for Katrina Work Team 2007, and we’re good.

Randy S.

From Paul T

It’s a great scene from the passenger seat of one of the minivans, where I’m finally getting to my blog entry: four of our team are on the front porch of “our” house, rolling a coat of tan onto the wood siding or a second layer of burgundy trim onto the pillar. Jane [Stalhut] is making everyone laugh, and conversations cover a variety of topics, both serious and casual. A beautiful breeze tempers the heat and mild humidity. The weather has been beautiful on this trip.

I’m enjoying watching everyone learning about Southern culture, food and hospitality, and I’m learning a lot as well. Some of the team had to take pictures of the plates of food at the restaurant where we ate lunch today—plates of all-fried food, side orders of lasagna, and a trio of senior ladies, each of whom had four pieces of fried chicken on the side of whatever was on their main plate. One of our vegetarians managed to sneak in some baby carrots in a plastic baggie. I thought they were going to be confiscated and fried. The accents, which are stronger in this parish, are not like any Southern accents I’ve heard. Some sound like Boston transplants who have lived in the South for many years. And there were plenty of “God Bless You”s today from residents who aren’t too proud to let us know they sincerely appreciate our being here.

Midweek is a great part of the trip. At this point everyone is getting to know each other on a personal level, the work-site activities have gained momentum. [Olfactory note: someone just clapped and exclaimed, “I smell sewage!”] It’s great to hear from locals and community organizers that churches and volunteer groups are driving the recovery effort, and that the number of volunteer groups has been strong and steady. As it was last year, endless questions remain unanswered, but we try to focus on our service during the day and talk to each other about how to comprehend the situation here over an evening jog or coffee.

Thanks to everyone for participating with us by reading the blog and keeping our team and the Gulf Coast in your thoughts and prayers.

-Paul T

Observations on my second trip

Hi,

Paul T wanted me to relate a statement I made....

I had this impression durring my first trip, and not it is even more emphisized. I have never been more proud to be an American, and I have never been more ashamed of my government.

The outpouring of support from all over the United States is amazing. People continue to show up and do amazing work. But where is the government? The people here are desperate to get the funding needed to rebuild and get on with their life. Those with money often are taken advantage of by unscrupulous contractors that take the downpayment, then disapear.

Their is a federal program "the Road Home" but very few people have seen the money. Their is just a everlasting pile of red tape.

The four of us that were here last year made our own trip while the new people when on a tour. We visited Renetta's house, Beacher Church, and Jean's house. Their were a few more people around, and the roads were not filled with debris. Other than that, nothing has changed. It was a bit depressing.

We have had some trouble with internet access this trip. Their is none at the church. We have found a coffee shop with a hot spot a few blocks away. And the St Bernard Project office has been very helpfull with internet access.

Paul

The Trip So Far

Hi everyone,

We’re halfway through the week – what an experience. The first time I saw St. Bernard’s parish, the word that came to me was “heartbreak.” Seeing the houses first-hand is seeing them as homes, many of them damaged beyond repair, half-gutted and slumping off their foundations. At times, it’s hard not to cry. At the same time, people are returning to the neighborhoods where everyone looked out for each other and generations of families lived on the same block, some of them for a century or more. You ask the people why they come back and they say it’s the only home they know. It’s where their whole lives happened.
The restored houses are like little jewels. Forget the view and smell of the oil refinery three blocks away; people here, as in all the neighborhoods we’ve seen, truly care about their houses – their homes. And the land is compelling. Spring is here and the breeze is damp and soft, and along with the refinery smells and the occasional whiff of mildew comes the fragrance of clover and wild flowers and all the rest of the spring vegetation rampaging over the deserted lawns. Towering silver cumulous clouds wander through the sky.
So along with the heartbreak is hope. The neighborhoods have an eerie lonely feel – so many people can’t return, thanks to government greed and bungling on all levels. But Monday we passed a landscaping crew busy on a garden: stone walls and walkways and pink impatiens in front of a tiny, one-story bungalow. The head gardener told me (in a Cajun accent I would hardly make out) about rescuing people in his boat and losing everything in the flood, but now he had his business up and running.
We need to come back with all the statistics documenting the horrific failure of the government “at every level,” as the Pastor of Beecher Memorial Church puts it, but for now I need to get back to painting, sanding, mudding and all the rest. My co-workers are wonderful.
Love to you all,
Barbara

The Warmth

I feel like “The Warmth” by the Band Incubus for me captures the feeling that I get from the people down here in New Orleans. The song goes

I’d like to close my eyes and go numb
But there’s a cold wind coming from
The top of the highest high-rise today
It’s not a breeze cause’ it blows hard
Yes, and it wants me to discard the humanity I know
Watch the Warmth blow away

Do you think I should adhere to that pressing new frontier?
And leave in my wake a trail of fear?
Or should I hold my head up high
And throw a wrench and spokes by
Leaving the air behind me clear?

Don’t let the world bring you down
Not everyone here is that F***ed up and cold
Remember why you came
And while you’re alive
Experience the warmth before you grow old

Today we went to work on the house we worked on yesterday and we pretty much finished some parts of it and are moving on to the next part, which is caulking it and hopefully we finish that by tomorrow. The New England Revolution soccer team came by and Chelsea was just so excited. It was pretty cool. We finished early because we were going to go on a tour. We came back to the church and waited for this women Mary to come. She came and we went on a tour of the city. I was filming most of it and hopefully I did a decent job. I tried to show the difference between the nicer areas and places like the ninth ward and so on. We visited places like the ninth ward and areas that have been destroyed and have not been repaired. We heard these horrible stories of the mayor not wanted to allow for a volunteer village where volunteers can stay and help out. Instead the mayor laughed and said that that was not going to happen because it would not make sense. Mary also told us that some communities are being build by volunteers not the federal government or construction companies. So why not allow for a Volunteer village where volunteers can stay and be able to help out. Instead volunteers have to rely on churches and places like Camp Hope to be generous enough to house them. By the way, we hear that Camp hope houses right now about 300 people and last week it house about 900 people. We also witness first hand a woman complaining to Mary that electricians and contractors are hired, the people make a $1,000 down payment and they usually disappear. This has happens, according to Mary, many times and it is just horrible to think that people would do this. To them it is easy money and I guess this is human nature but still, that is a horrible act. Besides this, we saw the Ninth ward and another place and it was tough to see. Some places were completely wiped off of their foundations and other places still had not been gutted. We stopped at this one location near the levies, which from what Mary said, were repaired the same way, the same height and this whole flooding can happen again. We walked up to one home and it was horrible. Mandy found a bible that was just in a horrible condition. I took pictures and saw a Barney book and a refrigerator that was on its side. The place was swept from its foundation and was such a mess. Thus I believe that the song by Incubus applies because the people down here have gone through a lot and continue to go through a lot. But they remain hopeful and find their warmth in people like us who come to volunteer out time and hope out. We could be in other places but we are not. It makes it worth it when people tell us, “Thank you for helping us out and that communities are being built by volunteers”. We went to CC coffee and I got a vanilla latte and talked with the person who was making it. He told me that he came in January to New Orleans and does not want to visit the Ninth ward because it would be too much for him. Also, he wants to tell people that New Orleans is ok and it is not too bad. I think that is sad because he, and I’m sure others do not want to face reality.

Ebelio

First Day on the Job

Today was our first day at work. A little before 8:30 in the morning we were out the St. Bernard Project office, where we did our paperwork, an we got our orientation from the fantastic folks who started this project. We divided up into two groups working at two different houses in Chalmette. We painted, framed and hung doors, did taping and mudding, scraping, and sanding, and perhaps most important of all, met and talked with folks from the neighborhood whom Katrina has not been successful. The sight of the destruction is awful, but it is good to see the reconstruction work in the neighborhood.

Randy S.

End of the First Day

It’s 10pm and the end of our very first work day!!! It’s only 8pm in California but I am pooped and ready for bed! We’re staying at St. Paul’s in the Garden District, this terribly cute area of New Orleans. It’s a very safe neighborhood and our lodgings are quite comfortable. Shelly (our trip leader for those of you who don’t know) has also planned tasty meals and scheduled our trip to run very smoothly.

After a brief orientation this morning, my work group arrived at our work site in St. Bernard Parish (parish = county) and were assigned to scraping paint off the exterior and “mudding” the drywall of a house in the process of being rebuilt. Perhaps it was ignorant of me but I never realized before how much goes into building a house! For example, I didn’t know that the walls of a house are actually made up of many, many sheets of drywall, which means that someone(s) has to cover every single stud and all the seams with this caulk-like, plaster-like substance with the consistency of fudge frosting. I was one of those people today! By the end of the day, I had actually gotten the hang of it and was even comfortable operating an electric drill (to drill in studs that were sticking out before mudding over them) while balanced on a ladder, no less! Not too shabby, eh? Especially for rather clumsy, non-handy me!

Tomorrow, we’ll probably finish sanding the first coat of mud and apply a second coat. Then we can start priming and maybe even painting! The other work group already primed the house they were working on today and will paint and perhaps even start putting in flooring, cabinets, and doors by the end of this week! Apparently last year, most of the work consisted of gutting. Although there is still a LOT to be done, around 27,000 houses needing work done in St. Bernard Parish alone, it’s a nice feeling to help finish a house that someone will be able to move back into in a couple of weeks or less.

We haven’t gotten to see a lot of N’Orleans yet but will be going on a neighborhood tour tomorrow and will visit Camp Hope, a Habitat for Humanity-affiliated volunteer camp, on Wednesday. So far, it seems like an incredible city. One gets a different feeling from the architecture, the layout, the vegetation, the weather, and the people. In some parts, there little signs of Katrina but in others, it’s very clear where hurricane damage occurred. The message that we have been getting over and over again is that one of the most important things we can do as volunteers is to share the stories we hear when we go back home. Stories that aren’t covered in the national news but need to be told. I look forward to learning these stories.

Until next time,
Karen

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

We made it!

Today we landed in New Orleans and it was pretty cool experience coming to New Orleans. We hand to meet at the church parking lot at 4:00 am, and I only got 2 hours of sleep. On the planes, I attempted to sleep and I was somewhat successful. When we landed in New Orleans, we collected all the bags while Shelly, Don, Randy, Jane and Paul got the vans. What was weird was that Shelly’s bag got sent to Washington and so she has been trying to deal with that. Besides that, on the way to the church we are staying at, we had to see a lot of New Orleans. We got to the church, some what settled in, looked at the church. A bit later, myself, Don, Jane, Mandy and Paige went to Sav-A Market to get food supplies. It was fun and got a lot of food. We came back and I was apart of the cooking team and that was pretty fun as well. We made a salad, pasta, and baked some bread. Besides this, the neighborhood we are staying at is very beautiful and houses I have never seen before. There are some houses that are still being built on the block. We will see what happens tomorrow. I cannot wait. Also, there is this one café house that is pretty interesting looking. It is a house that is a café house. I will hopefully get to visit it some time this week.

- Ebelio

Editors note... The picture above was taken at about 5:30am a the Oakland Airport. Its amazing how awake every looks.