Thoughts from Christa

So! For me, there are only a few days left until I have to leave New Orleans for my sister's graduation at home in L.A. I have to sincerely say that I am really bummed out about it-- I mean, of course, I'm excited to see my sister graduate, but I am so sad to leave such a fantastic trip. I LOVE the people that I have met so far: the Berkeley kids that are part of the Magnolia Project, some of the community that I have met through the organizations that we've been working with. Anyway, it has been extremely busy here, since our group six has joined forces with People Organizing Committee/Survivors' Council, which are locally organized groups working to improve the quality of life for the New Orleans community by helping residents gut their homes post-Katrina, reaching out and discussing with everyone the big issues, concerns, and problems.

Gutting and rebuilding homes has been an extremely physically strenuous challenge. We have to wear respirators to defend against inhaling mold and mildew; goggles to protect our eyes when we are tearing off the sheet rock (wall and ceiling plaster), white suits, construction gloves, and athletic shoes or steel toed boots. From what we wear alone, you can tell that gutting is intense! We have been working on a house in east New Orleans, by Slidell, that is two stories. It was pretty torn up by Katrina, as the master bedroom's ceiling is collapsing in on itself; everything, including everyone's clothing, toys, photos are still in the house too, which makes gutting even more difficult. It's not like tearing down a completely anonymous building-- because I see all the former residents' faces in the pictures and the clothes that they have worn, the toys they gave their kids, etc, the house is given a personality, and I kind of feel like an intruder. But I also get that there is still so much to be done for the house. There are roaches, mosquitoes, and frogs all over the place. I think especially because the house is in front of a bayou of sorts, there are definitely a lot more insects. This also, I think, made the house more likely to get the brunt of the wind and rain, and the busted levees. I will try to post photos of the house, and let everyone know. Anyway, the master bedroom is by far the worst off. I can hardly be in there for five minutes straight-- it is so bad.. or at least compared to what I have experienced and seen. The smell of mold, mildew, rotting wood, rotten clothes, etc. is overwhelming, and the floor, which has beared Katrina, consistent rain, and virtually two years of abandonment, is caving in, and it is pretty scary to walk on it, for fear that it will collapse with you standing on it. In addition, one of the rooms downstairs had a dead animal in it... it was already decomposed sort of, but you could still see the fur/hair, spinal cord, and skull. It's half intriguing, half sad. In general, this house was in pretty bad shape when we got there. We've been working a couple days, though, and I'm really impressed with how much work we have gotten done. We have torn off virtually all the sheet rock, picked up a lot of the possessions that they had to leave, and removed carpeting. Everyone has been working really well as a team, so I'm really happy about that.

In the afternoons, we go out to do community outreach, and invite people to get involved with POC/Survivor Council and do something about the problems in the community post-katrina. I've met some really amazing residents, such as a little old lady with a great sense of humor and a strong opinion named Mona Lisa, to a man named Lou who is quite bitter about the state of mind of residents even pre-Katrina. It seems like the prevalent problems include increased crime rates, misallocation of police forces (about half spend the majority of their work days on traffic violations, a job for only a few officers-- while their time could be better spent on preventing intraracial violence); other concerns include exorbitant utility bills, corrupt politicians, and the witholding of federal dollars from the people who need it most. I also heard from one of the community members that I talked to that celebrities that are trying to help are being misdirected by the mayor to help rebuild houses for citizens who really don't need the help. Hence "poor black folk" are being overlooked. The racial tension here has been greatly magnified; when we attended a meeting last Saturday by a group called Eracism, we got a better look at the interracial problems around here. I have never dealt with so much concern for racism and social justice work in my life-- so generally it has been an amazing experience. The problems that the residents we talked to mentioned were also brought up at the Survivor Council meeting that we had been publicizing. It was good to see that some residents came out to voice what everybody is thinking, but were either too bitter, had lost hope, or apathetic to do something.

Oh! Joshua, one of the leaders of POC, took us on a tour of the levees in New Orleans on our first day working with his organization. The worst levee by far is in the ninth ward, where the Old Pathway church, the POC meeting place-- the only protection the citizens of the ninth ward had was a solid concrete wall, and in terms of engineering, it was, and still is, extremely inefficient. There was no way people were going to survive there. The houses directly beside the levee were completely washed away-- where they used to be, you can still see the foundations. Compared to the levees placed for higher-income communities, the state of the ninth ward levees is appalling and shocking.

So... I should probably be ending soon because there are a lot of people waiting for the computer.. haha.. but I want to end with some funny things about what's happened, mostly for my own amusement: the POC groups altogether lifted one of our minivans out of a ditch (yeah teamwork!!); one of the group six members is TERRIFIED of cockroaches and her reaction to even the slightest hint of the presence of a roach is hilarious; doing laundry at the local laundromat and seeing the radio station reverend with a wooden arm from Eracism there and eating low fat yogurt with fresh strawberries at Cherry on Top... doing puzzles in the foyer and stressing over Passion Flower Angel; long long reflection talks about our experiences that turn into amazing conversations about life and who we really are and why; battling hairballs and hair monsters in the six showers for about fifty to sixty girls; stinky cars that have absorbed our sweat, blood, and bug bite juice; bonding with great people; practicing and singing Stand By Me and harmonizing "Ebelio!"; going out for ice cream post-dinner and not quite understanding the significance of the SnoBall; the marvelous contributions of the PoBoy to Southern culture; the beauty and horse poop in French Quarter! Fourteen hour workdays, six hours of sleep, a week gutting and outreaching that I hope I'll never forget! This is probably my last blog since I'm leaving on Tuesday, about a week before everyone else (sad!!!)... so that is a short recount of everything that is fabulous about NOLA. I hope I will get to work on the Magnolia Project again, or at least get a chance to come back down here to help perhaps next summer. Make levees, not war!!

Recap

Hello,
I will say that right now I am very tired because working with POC is pretty tough. Yesterday myself and 6 other individuals went to start gutting a this one house located in New Orleans East. One group went to go paint a church and two groups went to finish gutting a house that was started last week. I will say Gutting a home is very tough work. I just takes a toll on one's body, both physically and at times emotionally. Just seeing all the stuff that is in these homes and just thinking that someone actually lived there is just a disturbing thought. Almost every single picture I find, I put it up on the door. Doing this and actually seeing whose home I am gutting and what it means to actually work one someone home, really does motivate me. I look at those pictures and just think that I have to give this my all because I have individuals who are relying on me to help them out. For me, it just has become something kind of personal. Just to add something more, the neighbors came by and said thank you for helping out but asked us to bag some of the stuff because she has children and does not want them to be exposed to all of the mold and whatever is on the stuff. Today we went back to the location and had more people and I believe we got stuff done. We started to taking down the drywall and what was kind of disturbing was that the homes only had a layer of drywall between their homes, so the neighbors can and probably still are being exposed to all of the junk from the homes that have not been touched. There is this one room on the second floor of the home, that is located in the back and that room is just haunting. As one of my friends from the trip stated, it is the most dead room in the home but at the same time it is the room that is most full of life because everything is in that room. There are pictures, magazines, clothes, stuff animals, beds, a drawer, and other stuff. It is pretty bad and it smells horrible. We have masks one with filters but that is still not enough because that smell is just so strong. For the most part it is somewhat better but it is still pretty bad. Also, there is this one closet in that room that just has this huge whole in the roof.

After we finish this, we go back to the location we are staying at, get something to eat and debrief. During debriefing we just talk about what we experienced,what we thought and so on. After we finish there, we go out to the community and talk to the locals. During this we talk about this meeting that is happening this saturday called the Survivals Council, where locals talk about the problems the face and they look for solutions to those problems. Such problems consist of education, housing, public housing, rent, employment and so on. So we try to promote this. The whole idea of this is to try to organize bottom up or let the locals decide what they want, what are their needs, and trying to fulfill those needs. We try to promote this but the most important thing is to try to just talk to the locals and just hear their stories. Just hear how they are, what they went through and just let them know that there are people out there trying to help them. There are some stories that are just so horrible and I will never forget them. So locals do not talk about their experience with the flood because they just do not want to think about it anymore. One local told me and my friend Krystine "Please do not make me talk about that horrible experience, I beg you". This individual main issue was her landlady, who has not fixed the home she is living in. The land lady hires this one guy who charges cheap but does not know what he is doing. Also, the land lady kept all of the money that was supposed to go to her tenants and she had made her millions already. What is insane is that some homes are abandoned, others, individuals are living there but are suffering, some homes were individuals worked on themselves and are nice, and some home are just so nice and the owners of those home immediately got their money to rebuild their homes. These individuals cannot relate to those who are having trouble because they got taken care of. There was this one woman who told us that she used to work for the Univerisity of New Orleans but her father got sick and had to tend to her father. The flood came, her house ruined and she had to take care of her father. She has become ill herself and has been working on cleaning up her own her and that is very dangerous because she is ill and there is a lot of stuff in the air that is harmful. She also told us that she has a 6th grade granddaughter how is in texas getting counsellings because of everything she went through.

Today we had a guest speaker called Jane who talked us about the education in New Orleans. Pretty much New Orleans is trying to experimenting with Charter schools. So it will have the most charter schools in the US. Joshua told us that Charter schools are not a bad thing but there just be some form of Public education. Jane told us that children from New Orleans were two grades behind other student in the US. If these students tried to go to another school, they would be arrested because that was not permitted. She is working with middle school students to try to get them to think about what they want in their schools since they have seen what other schools in other states look like and how they function. So she is working to prompt that. There is more to that but right now it is not coming to mind. She also told us that she meet a student that went to high school in one of the public schools and told us that that student never carried a backpack because that student was never assigned a textbook. I wonder how is a student supposed to learn and do homework with out textbooks. She also told us before the floods, there were some schools that were very good schools, which for the most part were only white. These schools allowed for students to go to good colleges and had computers in biology labs that allowed student to bisect an animal using a laptop. To get accepted to these high schools, individuals had to pass a test and how are poor black students supposed to get to this school if they are two years behind. What got me was when Jane told us that she just seeing how New Orleans students were doing in these schools in other states and a teacher told her, with tears in her eyes, "how can you do this to these poor New Orleans students?". That just think that that is powerful because a teacher just broke down and cried for the New Orleans students who are not given a chance to make something of themselves because their education in New Orleans was just so bad. Anyways, I better go to bed. Until next time.

Ebelio

POC

Today we switched groups and this week my group along with 3 other groups will be working with POC or People's Organizing Committee. We went to the location, which was a church in the lower ninth ward. There we talked with Joshua and some two other individuals. We talked and then went on a levee tour. The first levee we visited was the on at the Lower ninth ward. That levee was just made of concrete and is flat. The rumors that are going around was that an unknown Barge was not entirely tied and it banged against the levee and that caused the breach in the levee, which lead to the flooding. Joshua told us that locals said that they heard explosions and thus believe that the levees were blown up again. In addition, he told us that investors are constantly driving through the lower ninth ward, looking to see what they can do with the property and who loved in that property. When the find out who lives on the property, the investors tell the landowners that the property is not worth it and that they should sell the land to them. Many of those individuals do not have much, are in a deep depression and need money. Most likely, they are so disparate that they would accept that offer. In addition, we were told that the lower ninth ward was the first areas that allowed freed slaves to purchase and own homes. Thus it had the largest black homeowner ship in the US. He also told us that plans for that party was to make it into some sort of casino place or a place were people can go walk their dogs. As we drove to the next location, we saw how there levee before the floods looked like and that was very low to be a levee.

The next location was the levee at the Holy Cross district and that was a much better levee. It was a not made of concrete but a large mound of sold with grass and at the top, people can run on top. It also has at the bottom of it some rocks that break the waves and slows down the water. Next we visited the levee at New Orleans University and that was insane. I had stair that were 30 feet in the water. It had a park near it and on top of that it had another barrier, or levee to stop the water. As you can imagine, this is near were the wealthy reside. On top of that there were these poles or stands that Joshua stated that cost $1500 each. These were used to help the trees get back into place and there were many of them.

Next we visited the Housing Projects or public housing near the French Quarter. Joshua stated that HANO have wanted that property for a very long time and have been looking for excuses to take that valuable property. Well, the flooding of New Orleans was a golden opportunity for them. Joshua told us that when the flood happen, people were calling their relatives who lived in the public housing if they can stay with them because they were the safest buildings during the flood. This is so because they are made of brick and they are raised 3 feet high. When the flood happened, some water entered the building but when the water settled, it did not harm those buildings. However, HANO are claiming that they are unsafe and that there is a lot of damage. They put huge steel gates on the doors and windows of these buildings to not allow the individuals who lived there to return. They have been sued but we were told that Hano will try to drag it out in court until the locals run out of money or give up. Many of these individuals are not being listened to and are not wanted back in New Orleans. Most likely, this property will be turned into a mixed income neighborhood. What was interesting was that a police officer from HANO came by and asked us what we were doing and that we could not enter those buildings. How can we if they are boarded up with steel? We were also told that they plan to demolish those public houses in early June.

After that we went to have lunch, and went back to the POC headquarters. There we were informed about what we will be doing for the rest of the days we work with POC. We will be talking with the locals and just try to invite them to come to the Survivors committee meets that are held on Saturdays from 11 to when ever. The Survivors Committee is made up of locals and they fight for the issues that are important to them. This committee is mode up of 5 or six other organizations. What was interesting was that we were told that POC has been the grassroots organization that is the most vilified for with it does. The reason why is because they get the job done and are challenging the structure or system. They have worked on gutting a school that was supposed to be demolished but is now going to be turned into a charter school because of them. Anyways, good night and I will talk tomorrow about my first day on actually working with POC. Until tomorrow.

Ebelio

Last Day with Just the right Attitude

Hello again,
Today was our last day with the organization Just the Right Attitude. I will say, for the most part, I enjoyed my time with them. They were very welcoming, open, and just down to earth. I am just happy I got to work in such a great environment. It is our last day with them and another group from the many groups we have, will be working with them this week. This week, we will be working with POC or People's Organizing Committee. This week will be intense because through POC, we will be gutting homes, which will be interesting. The team captain's meet and traded information and so we found out that we will be working on the roof of a church if I am not mistaken.
One things that come up was this idea that if one is a true New Orleansian is not racist because they have relatives that look completely different than them. It was stated that one can be black and have white skinned relatives and that family reunions are very diverse. The person who told us this told us that his mother is fluent in French or Creole as it is called, but has never visited france or anything. Also, New Orleans is a very diverse city and a lot is accepted. They have gay parades, native American parades and this yesterday, there was Super Sunday, which is a huge celebration. He also said, New Orleans has a lot of history. It was made up of Pirates, prostitutes and so on. Of course a lot of New Orleans culture is being lost because many individuals have left the city and I do not know if they will be returning. It was just incredible to see just how much this individual loves this city. Also, New Orleans has the largest catholic Black population in the US. Which is pretty interesting.
One last thing, today we had reflection. Today, the three groups that worked with just the right attitude got together and we just talked about our experience there, what we thought about it, and so on. Before that we played a game called Chicken and Weasel, in which the objective was to try to communicate with one another. It was fun because people were just getting very confused and people were trying to stay involved but could not because information was coming from both sides. The objective was to show how communication is very important when working with other because a lot of things will be going on and there must be communication. Over all the conversation of the JTRA was very deep conversation and I just enjoyed it. After that, we continued the Eracism conversation and that was very powerful and meaningful. Anyways until next time, take care.

Ebelio Mondragon

Past Couple of days

The past couple of days have been pretty busy around the church. Yesterday, my group and 2 other groups went to a meeting that is on Racism. The organization, I believe they are an organization, is called Eracism. The topic for the meeting was I New Orleans a Racist City? It was very interesting just hearing what people had to say. There was this one individuals who talked about how Africans feel like they are better than Blacks or African Americans. This individual also talked about how she has to always has to be second guessing her actions and how she would for at least one day, be white, particularly a while male. In just hearing these things I could see things that I was learning in my social theory course come into play. W.E.B DuBois talks about this idea that blacks have this double consciousness to them and alway have to be second guessing their actions. They have to try to think about if others are looking at them or treat them they way they do because they are black or because of something else. In addition, Fanon's idea of White masks/ Black skin comes into play as well in the sense that Africans have the need to try to conform to the American dream, or rather what is acceptable in the society they are trying to be apart of. In this case, they try to adopt the values and norms of the white society, even though they are still black. In doing so, they feel they are superior to the "African Americans" and put them out. After that meeting/discussion, we came back to the church and to clean up the church. That was pretty interesting because there was a wedding that took place in the church, so we could not use half of the church. We had to wait until the ceremony was finished to complete our task. I ended up taking out the trash and cleaning the trash containers with two friends that I have made Nerman (who is a female) and Danial. That was a pretty interesting experience because we could not find a hose, so we got water from the showers and when I came back Nerman found a hose. We cleaned the trash containers and we discovered that the hose was connected to a white hose and we tried to put them back together but we unsuccessful. Lets just say I got another shower that day. Finally, we put our Berkeley brains into gear and bended the hose, put the two hoses back together and solved the problem. After my group gathered to go to the Bayou Bigalloo (That is probably spelled wrong). It was pretty cool event. They all a lot of food stands and a huge stage. The musicians were awesome. We just hung out there, just enjoying each others presence. We left and tried to catch Pirates 3, but we could not because of curfew. I ended up watching the first Pirates movie, which was my present to a friend of mine.
Today was our free day and we visited the French Quarters. We walked around and ate lunch there. I got to eat alligator again and I will say, it was much chewier than the first time I ate it. After that we walked around for a bit and then went to the Famous Cafe Du Monde and had Beniers (that is probably spelled wrong as well). We got that and there was some confusion after that because we switched people because some of use wanted to go to the Parade and others wanted to go see Pirates. We went to go see pirates and as we waited in the theater, some went to get popcorn and drinks. As they waited, they saw the Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nigan. They got to take a picture with him and came back. The film was pretty good. Anyways, I have to get up early tomorrow. Until Next time.

Ebelio Mondragon