(no subject)
SUNDAY, MARCH 9TH
My flight was going to be flying out of Buffalo, so Mom and I drove over to my grandparent's house in Cheektowaga (Buffalo suburb) to sleep there so we wouldn't have to get up so early. Meanwhile, in New Orleans, the rest of the group went on a "disaster tour," which toured the areas of New Orleans that had been affected the worst by Katrina. I'm a little annoyed I missed it, because for the rest of the trip, whenever someone said, "As you guys saw on the disaster tour, this area has been blah blah blah," I would say, "Gar!"
MONDAY, MARCH 10TH
We woke up at 4:30 AM to get to the airport early enough for my flight, which was at 6:30. I already had my boarding pass, so I checked my bag outside and got in the longest security line I've ever been in. It took me about 50 minutes to get to the front of the line, at which point I was pulled aside because I had forgotten that I had a small switchblade in my backpack. To put it shortly, I am probably now on Homeland Security's Terrorist Watch List or something. How fun! I got to my gate at 6:25 and somehow got an aisle seat (I was flying Southwest, so no assigned seats). After running full out to make the flight, it took off 40 minutes late. My layover in Baltimore was supposed to be, guess what, 40 minutes. We landed in Baltimore about 10 minutes before my connection was supposed to leave. Fortunately, they waited for me, and I was able to get on the flight...without having my luggage transferred to the flight. So when I got to New Orleans, I had to give Southwest my address and they give me a document that I needed to hand the delivery person certifying that I was the correct person. What this means, essentially, is that I had to wait at the Depot House for my luggage to get there and I couldn’t go to the volunteer site and help out the other kids on the trip as I had planned to do. They told me that the flight my bag was on would get in around 1:45, and it would take another half an hour to deliver. Not so bad, right? Suffice it to say, after many delays and a delivery woman who can’t follow directions, my bag got there around 6 PM. I totally bonded with the other kids over this, though. I barely knew them for 3 hours, but some of them were ready to attack the delivery woman on my behalf.
After a short program about prayer or something, we hit the town as a huge 17 person group. We walked straight to Bourbon Street, and due to the relative crappiness of my day, I required some alcohol. I had two whiskey sours, a Disaronno sour, a shot of Jack Daniels (at a bar that made me buy a drink if I wanted to listen to the jazz combo there), and a watered-down Hurricane. Live music pretty much everywhere and a mechanical bull at the last bar we stopped at made the night complete.
TUESDAY, MARCH 11TH
We woke up at 7 to get to the volunteer site by 8. The work was a little different than I had expected - the house seemed to be in relatively good shape. I was told by the rest of the group that it was full of junk the day before and they had spent the previous day just getting it to the point where we could start repairing it. The entire morning was spent scraping and brushing the walls and window panes in a mostly failed attempt to get the old paint off so we could repaint everything. After it was apparent that we didn’t have the right tools for this venture to be successful, we were told that it was “good enough.” In the afternoon, the owners of the house stopped by and expressed their gratitude. The guy from ACORN with us took the opportunity to ask Hilary, “You know, with $15,000, we could restore power, water and sewage to this house and make it completely livable again. We’re looking for three donors of $5,000 each. Would you [Kesher/URJ] be willing to be one of them?” to which I’m sure the response was something about how volunteering is what we came down to do in order to help out, not donate money. This spurred a conspiracy theory by one of the other kids that ACORN has groups of volunteers work on the same house every time by giving them meaningless tasks (like brushing the walls down for some unknown reason), and then asks them to donate a sum of money to “make the house livable again,” then pays some contractors to do the actual work. Pessimism aside, the afternoon was pretty fun. The guy who owned the house told us we could rip down the fence in the backyard, so we had fun doing that. About an hour before we had to leave, the priming coat of paint arrived so we started putting that on the outside of the house.
Getting back around 3, we all took showers, then headed over to Tulane for a presentation by a New Orleans newspaper reporter about Katrina - why the damage was so bad, how it was dealt (or not dealt) with during the aftermath, and what could be done to ensure that nothing this bad happens again. Most of us were pretty exhausted after that, so we didn’t go out, we just stayed at the Depot House for the evening, mostly just conversing and eating the middle school style junk food that Hilary had bought us for our lunches, you know, like Gushers and other gummy fruit things.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12TH
The work today started slow, since we only have four or five ladders and the only parts of the house left to prime for real paint are up pretty high. So, for most of the morning, almost all of us were sitting out front, waiting for ACORN to bring us the real paint, or more ladders, or come up for something else we could be doing. Around 11 AM they moved us to another house that had to be completely gutted in different section of the lower 9th ward (the part of the city that had been affected worst by Katrina). This house was in a neighborhood that seems to be much worse off than the first house - only one woman on the block had been able to move back in after more than two years since Katrina. She let us use her bathroom, and a couple of us had a nice chat with her about her experience. It was nice to see someone who was very appreciative of everything we were doing since it was due to volunteer work that she was back on her feet, mostly. The entire afternoon was spent gutting that house. It’s sort of indescribable, carrying what were surely family heirlooms out of a house that once belonged to someone else. I want to say it was sad or something, but there really is no word for it. Just imagining losing everything you own except your life and whatever you can fit into one suitcase, and I think you might understand.
After volunteer work, we returned to the Depot House for showers and prep time before we headed over to Congregation Gates of Prayer for a presentation by the former congregation president and his wife about a Women’s Shelter they have been funding for a while now to support women, mostly those with children, since there aren’t any other support shelters in the city that accept pregnant women. It was a really interesting presentation, and I’d actually consider going down to volunteer there for a month at the end of the summer, assuming I don’t get that fellowship I wanted through Vassar. I do need to make money this summer, though, so we’ll see.
After the presentation, we got dropped off in the French Quarter for dinner and fun. There were two different groups; one going to Bourbon Street again, and one going to another restaurant that had been recommended by Bob, a guy who was working with us through ACORN. I opted to go with the Bourbon Street group. After we ate dinner and explored around Frenchman Street a little bit, which had some classier clubs than Bourbon Street. I headed back to the Depot House earlier than everyone else alone since I had a stomachache. The walk back was 30 minutes long, but I made it back okay, so whatever.
THURSDAY, MARCH 13TH
On Monday, one of the other guys decided to write a haiku in the blog of our trip (found on www.keshercollege.org) and it stuck. We’ve been coming up with haikus non-stop, and apparently the people at the URJ offices in New York and DC love it. They are demanding fresh haikus to sink their teeth into. Go Japanese poetry!
Today we continued working on the same house as yesterday. When we finished gutting that, we moved onto the building next door - a bar named “Club Desire,” the “uptown bar with downtown attitude” or something like that. On the walls, there were paintings of silhouetted couples dancing. One of the guys had a large triangle sticking out of his crotchal region, hurrr. On the outside of the building someone had graffitied an acronym for FEMA - “Fix Everything My Ass.” We found some interesting stuff, including condoms and a box of ammunition for a handgun. We finished a little early today due to overall exhaustion. We parted from our ACORN comrades, Mr. Ben and Bob the Builder, for good. It was a tear-jerking moment, to be sure.
While people were still showering and stuff, Hilary told us about some of her experiences when she worked (last year) as the assistant to probably the biggest stage acting talent agent in New York City. She had Patrick Swayze cry to her over the phone, Tony Danza sent her flowers every month, Anna Paquin (who is apparently a huge bitch) made her cry, and she almost ralphed on Scarlett Johansson’s shoes when she had food poisoning. OH, and she went to a cocktail party as Joshua Jackson’s date. Craaaazy stuff. Oh, while I’m on the topic of celebrities, Jess told me that they’re cousins with J.D. Salinger. Of course, they don’t talk to him much, since he’s sort of a huge hermit, but I thought it was cool.
Once everyone was done showering, Hilary had a SWAG distribution party - mix CD, mug, t-shirt, you know, the usual. Then some cool guys from the New Orleans Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals (NOLA-YURP…which I still find amusing) came to the Depot House and gave a presentation encouraging us to seek out jobs in New Orleans after we graduate in order to help revitalize the area. To be completely honest, I really like that idea.
Afterward, everyone went out to dinner together, paid for by Kesher, at an awesome restaurant by the Mississippi. We were told to keep our orders under $30 - so me and two other guys (Zack, from Yale, and Nat, from Swarthmore) played around with our orders to try and experience as much of the menu as we could. I got fried calamari, the best hot wings I’ve EVER had, and a shrimp po’ boy (a New Orleans-style sandwich made with French bread. Everything was to die for, and it was easily the best meal I’ve had in the past year. Post dinner, everyone headed back to Frenchman Street to find a good live band and bar. We found a nice funk/jazz band and a bar that didn’t check ID. I tried to get a Manhattan, but the bartender didn’t know how to make one, so I got a whiskey sour, a Jack and coke, and a Disaronno sour. Oh, and one of the girls on the trip flirted for a free drink (Raspberry Absolut and Sprite) but the bartender made it with Coke the first time, so I drank the first one. I headed back to the Depot House with Kara a little earlier than everyone else so I could pack since I had to leave earlier than everyone else. All in all, a great evening.
FRIDAY, MARCH 14TH
Pi day! Nothing much happened. We had a moving parting of the ways in the morning because my flight was just early enough that I had to leave with Andy and Nat in the early airport drop-off. As a result, I didn't get a chance to go to Cafe du Monde with the rest of the group, and never got to try beignets. >:|
I already posted my conclusion first. Come to New Orleans. Just do it, dammit.
My flight was going to be flying out of Buffalo, so Mom and I drove over to my grandparent's house in Cheektowaga (Buffalo suburb) to sleep there so we wouldn't have to get up so early. Meanwhile, in New Orleans, the rest of the group went on a "disaster tour," which toured the areas of New Orleans that had been affected the worst by Katrina. I'm a little annoyed I missed it, because for the rest of the trip, whenever someone said, "As you guys saw on the disaster tour, this area has been blah blah blah," I would say, "Gar!"
MONDAY, MARCH 10TH
We woke up at 4:30 AM to get to the airport early enough for my flight, which was at 6:30. I already had my boarding pass, so I checked my bag outside and got in the longest security line I've ever been in. It took me about 50 minutes to get to the front of the line, at which point I was pulled aside because I had forgotten that I had a small switchblade in my backpack. To put it shortly, I am probably now on Homeland Security's Terrorist Watch List or something. How fun! I got to my gate at 6:25 and somehow got an aisle seat (I was flying Southwest, so no assigned seats). After running full out to make the flight, it took off 40 minutes late. My layover in Baltimore was supposed to be, guess what, 40 minutes. We landed in Baltimore about 10 minutes before my connection was supposed to leave. Fortunately, they waited for me, and I was able to get on the flight...without having my luggage transferred to the flight. So when I got to New Orleans, I had to give Southwest my address and they give me a document that I needed to hand the delivery person certifying that I was the correct person. What this means, essentially, is that I had to wait at the Depot House for my luggage to get there and I couldn’t go to the volunteer site and help out the other kids on the trip as I had planned to do. They told me that the flight my bag was on would get in around 1:45, and it would take another half an hour to deliver. Not so bad, right? Suffice it to say, after many delays and a delivery woman who can’t follow directions, my bag got there around 6 PM. I totally bonded with the other kids over this, though. I barely knew them for 3 hours, but some of them were ready to attack the delivery woman on my behalf.
After a short program about prayer or something, we hit the town as a huge 17 person group. We walked straight to Bourbon Street, and due to the relative crappiness of my day, I required some alcohol. I had two whiskey sours, a Disaronno sour, a shot of Jack Daniels (at a bar that made me buy a drink if I wanted to listen to the jazz combo there), and a watered-down Hurricane. Live music pretty much everywhere and a mechanical bull at the last bar we stopped at made the night complete.
TUESDAY, MARCH 11TH
We woke up at 7 to get to the volunteer site by 8. The work was a little different than I had expected - the house seemed to be in relatively good shape. I was told by the rest of the group that it was full of junk the day before and they had spent the previous day just getting it to the point where we could start repairing it. The entire morning was spent scraping and brushing the walls and window panes in a mostly failed attempt to get the old paint off so we could repaint everything. After it was apparent that we didn’t have the right tools for this venture to be successful, we were told that it was “good enough.” In the afternoon, the owners of the house stopped by and expressed their gratitude. The guy from ACORN with us took the opportunity to ask Hilary, “You know, with $15,000, we could restore power, water and sewage to this house and make it completely livable again. We’re looking for three donors of $5,000 each. Would you [Kesher/URJ] be willing to be one of them?” to which I’m sure the response was something about how volunteering is what we came down to do in order to help out, not donate money. This spurred a conspiracy theory by one of the other kids that ACORN has groups of volunteers work on the same house every time by giving them meaningless tasks (like brushing the walls down for some unknown reason), and then asks them to donate a sum of money to “make the house livable again,” then pays some contractors to do the actual work. Pessimism aside, the afternoon was pretty fun. The guy who owned the house told us we could rip down the fence in the backyard, so we had fun doing that. About an hour before we had to leave, the priming coat of paint arrived so we started putting that on the outside of the house.
Getting back around 3, we all took showers, then headed over to Tulane for a presentation by a New Orleans newspaper reporter about Katrina - why the damage was so bad, how it was dealt (or not dealt) with during the aftermath, and what could be done to ensure that nothing this bad happens again. Most of us were pretty exhausted after that, so we didn’t go out, we just stayed at the Depot House for the evening, mostly just conversing and eating the middle school style junk food that Hilary had bought us for our lunches, you know, like Gushers and other gummy fruit things.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12TH
The work today started slow, since we only have four or five ladders and the only parts of the house left to prime for real paint are up pretty high. So, for most of the morning, almost all of us were sitting out front, waiting for ACORN to bring us the real paint, or more ladders, or come up for something else we could be doing. Around 11 AM they moved us to another house that had to be completely gutted in different section of the lower 9th ward (the part of the city that had been affected worst by Katrina). This house was in a neighborhood that seems to be much worse off than the first house - only one woman on the block had been able to move back in after more than two years since Katrina. She let us use her bathroom, and a couple of us had a nice chat with her about her experience. It was nice to see someone who was very appreciative of everything we were doing since it was due to volunteer work that she was back on her feet, mostly. The entire afternoon was spent gutting that house. It’s sort of indescribable, carrying what were surely family heirlooms out of a house that once belonged to someone else. I want to say it was sad or something, but there really is no word for it. Just imagining losing everything you own except your life and whatever you can fit into one suitcase, and I think you might understand.
After volunteer work, we returned to the Depot House for showers and prep time before we headed over to Congregation Gates of Prayer for a presentation by the former congregation president and his wife about a Women’s Shelter they have been funding for a while now to support women, mostly those with children, since there aren’t any other support shelters in the city that accept pregnant women. It was a really interesting presentation, and I’d actually consider going down to volunteer there for a month at the end of the summer, assuming I don’t get that fellowship I wanted through Vassar. I do need to make money this summer, though, so we’ll see.
After the presentation, we got dropped off in the French Quarter for dinner and fun. There were two different groups; one going to Bourbon Street again, and one going to another restaurant that had been recommended by Bob, a guy who was working with us through ACORN. I opted to go with the Bourbon Street group. After we ate dinner and explored around Frenchman Street a little bit, which had some classier clubs than Bourbon Street. I headed back to the Depot House earlier than everyone else alone since I had a stomachache. The walk back was 30 minutes long, but I made it back okay, so whatever.
THURSDAY, MARCH 13TH
On Monday, one of the other guys decided to write a haiku in the blog of our trip (found on www.keshercollege.org) and it stuck. We’ve been coming up with haikus non-stop, and apparently the people at the URJ offices in New York and DC love it. They are demanding fresh haikus to sink their teeth into. Go Japanese poetry!
Today we continued working on the same house as yesterday. When we finished gutting that, we moved onto the building next door - a bar named “Club Desire,” the “uptown bar with downtown attitude” or something like that. On the walls, there were paintings of silhouetted couples dancing. One of the guys had a large triangle sticking out of his crotchal region, hurrr. On the outside of the building someone had graffitied an acronym for FEMA - “Fix Everything My Ass.” We found some interesting stuff, including condoms and a box of ammunition for a handgun. We finished a little early today due to overall exhaustion. We parted from our ACORN comrades, Mr. Ben and Bob the Builder, for good. It was a tear-jerking moment, to be sure.
While people were still showering and stuff, Hilary told us about some of her experiences when she worked (last year) as the assistant to probably the biggest stage acting talent agent in New York City. She had Patrick Swayze cry to her over the phone, Tony Danza sent her flowers every month, Anna Paquin (who is apparently a huge bitch) made her cry, and she almost ralphed on Scarlett Johansson’s shoes when she had food poisoning. OH, and she went to a cocktail party as Joshua Jackson’s date. Craaaazy stuff. Oh, while I’m on the topic of celebrities, Jess told me that they’re cousins with J.D. Salinger. Of course, they don’t talk to him much, since he’s sort of a huge hermit, but I thought it was cool.
Once everyone was done showering, Hilary had a SWAG distribution party - mix CD, mug, t-shirt, you know, the usual. Then some cool guys from the New Orleans Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals (NOLA-YURP…which I still find amusing) came to the Depot House and gave a presentation encouraging us to seek out jobs in New Orleans after we graduate in order to help revitalize the area. To be completely honest, I really like that idea.
Afterward, everyone went out to dinner together, paid for by Kesher, at an awesome restaurant by the Mississippi. We were told to keep our orders under $30 - so me and two other guys (Zack, from Yale, and Nat, from Swarthmore) played around with our orders to try and experience as much of the menu as we could. I got fried calamari, the best hot wings I’ve EVER had, and a shrimp po’ boy (a New Orleans-style sandwich made with French bread. Everything was to die for, and it was easily the best meal I’ve had in the past year. Post dinner, everyone headed back to Frenchman Street to find a good live band and bar. We found a nice funk/jazz band and a bar that didn’t check ID. I tried to get a Manhattan, but the bartender didn’t know how to make one, so I got a whiskey sour, a Jack and coke, and a Disaronno sour. Oh, and one of the girls on the trip flirted for a free drink (Raspberry Absolut and Sprite) but the bartender made it with Coke the first time, so I drank the first one. I headed back to the Depot House with Kara a little earlier than everyone else so I could pack since I had to leave earlier than everyone else. All in all, a great evening.
FRIDAY, MARCH 14TH
Pi day! Nothing much happened. We had a moving parting of the ways in the morning because my flight was just early enough that I had to leave with Andy and Nat in the early airport drop-off. As a result, I didn't get a chance to go to Cafe du Monde with the rest of the group, and never got to try beignets. >:|
I already posted my conclusion first. Come to New Orleans. Just do it, dammit.