The Promised Post
Okay, so this is the story of my trip:
Got up at 7 Saturday morning, hauled my suitcase and sleeping bag to the meeting point, and spent the next 16 hours in a stuffed-to-the-gills minivan. We stayed the night in Birmingham, Alabama, with 14 people in two hotel rooms. The next day we made the last five hours of the drive to New Orleans.
The organization we were working with is called H.O.P.E. (Helping Other People in Everyway), a splinter group from Common Ground (which has gained a reputation since the hurricane for being the most involved non-profit org). Everyone was very crunchy-granola hippy types, and we slept on cots in a gutted church.
Sunday night we went out to Mardi Gras, and ended up walking the length of Bourbon Street. I was very lucky that I did not vomit from the smell of urine, stale beer, and God-knows-what else.
Monday we went out, fitted with high-tech respirators, work gloves, googles, and Tyvek suits, to work on clearing rubble at two houses and gutting a third. I learned that day that house-gutting does absolutely nothing for me--the work made me feel very, very dead inside. The back of my neck got sunburned to an utter crisp, and it's still painful and peeling a week later.
Monday night we went to stay at the house of one of our group leaders, who is actually from New Orleans but whose neighborhood escaped serious damage from Katrina. (In stark contrast to St. Bernard's Parish, where we were working: all the houses there had been under at least 8 feet of flood water, and the insides were caked with mud, mold, and ruined household goods. The Lower 9th Ward, within the city limits, was even worse. What was left no longer looked like houses, but like random piles of rubble.)
The rest of the group went out to a parade that night, but I opted to stay at the house and sleep. Tuesday we all got dressed up a bit and went to the Zulu parade, which was historically the first African-American Mardi Gras krewe. It was much more family-oriented than the night-time activities, and I found it much more enjoyable.
We returned to the church that evening, and on Wednesday I chose to do distribution work at the site rather than go with the house-gutting crew. Distribution involved mostly hauling boxes of relief supplies, handing them out to the locals who came looking for help, and washing pots for the H.O.P.E. kitchen staff. It was much more fulfilling work than the house-gutting.
Thursday I went out with the gutting crew in the morning, and did distribution work in the afternoon.
Friday we did a gutting project in the morning, and then went out for a final touring of the devastated areas. In the 9th Ward we saw a gaggle of protesters and reporters following a group of congressional representatives who were also surveying the damage.
Saturday we left in the early morning, and drove (in a slightly less crammed but still not spacious minivan) 14 hours to Dayton, Ohio, stayed once again in two rooms, and then returned to Ann Arbor around noon on Sunday.
If anyone would like to know more, feel free to ask. Our site leaders kept forcing us to talk as a group about our experiences to the point where I'm not really bursting with the need to tell my story, but I've no objection to answering questions.
Got up at 7 Saturday morning, hauled my suitcase and sleeping bag to the meeting point, and spent the next 16 hours in a stuffed-to-the-gills minivan. We stayed the night in Birmingham, Alabama, with 14 people in two hotel rooms. The next day we made the last five hours of the drive to New Orleans.
The organization we were working with is called H.O.P.E. (Helping Other People in Everyway), a splinter group from Common Ground (which has gained a reputation since the hurricane for being the most involved non-profit org). Everyone was very crunchy-granola hippy types, and we slept on cots in a gutted church.
Sunday night we went out to Mardi Gras, and ended up walking the length of Bourbon Street. I was very lucky that I did not vomit from the smell of urine, stale beer, and God-knows-what else.
Monday we went out, fitted with high-tech respirators, work gloves, googles, and Tyvek suits, to work on clearing rubble at two houses and gutting a third. I learned that day that house-gutting does absolutely nothing for me--the work made me feel very, very dead inside. The back of my neck got sunburned to an utter crisp, and it's still painful and peeling a week later.
Monday night we went to stay at the house of one of our group leaders, who is actually from New Orleans but whose neighborhood escaped serious damage from Katrina. (In stark contrast to St. Bernard's Parish, where we were working: all the houses there had been under at least 8 feet of flood water, and the insides were caked with mud, mold, and ruined household goods. The Lower 9th Ward, within the city limits, was even worse. What was left no longer looked like houses, but like random piles of rubble.)
The rest of the group went out to a parade that night, but I opted to stay at the house and sleep. Tuesday we all got dressed up a bit and went to the Zulu parade, which was historically the first African-American Mardi Gras krewe. It was much more family-oriented than the night-time activities, and I found it much more enjoyable.
We returned to the church that evening, and on Wednesday I chose to do distribution work at the site rather than go with the house-gutting crew. Distribution involved mostly hauling boxes of relief supplies, handing them out to the locals who came looking for help, and washing pots for the H.O.P.E. kitchen staff. It was much more fulfilling work than the house-gutting.
Thursday I went out with the gutting crew in the morning, and did distribution work in the afternoon.
Friday we did a gutting project in the morning, and then went out for a final touring of the devastated areas. In the 9th Ward we saw a gaggle of protesters and reporters following a group of congressional representatives who were also surveying the damage.
Saturday we left in the early morning, and drove (in a slightly less crammed but still not spacious minivan) 14 hours to Dayton, Ohio, stayed once again in two rooms, and then returned to Ann Arbor around noon on Sunday.
If anyone would like to know more, feel free to ask. Our site leaders kept forcing us to talk as a group about our experiences to the point where I'm not really bursting with the need to tell my story, but I've no objection to answering questions.