(no subject)
So, I'm chillin in New Orleans right now. GG, Kalen and Danny are passed out as usual. It's been really cool here, there's a lot of work but it's definitely also fun and the people here are really cool even though they're all way older than us. Hah we're kinda babies.
What we've been doing mostly is gutting houses. This is basically tearing houses apart using whatever means we have (crowbars, hammers, etc). We have to tear down the walls, take up tiles, get all of the nails out of the walls and floor (which can get a little irritating), take out any furniture and other things that may have been left behind, and remove mold from the houses. We get to meet most of the owners of these houses and hear their stories about their experiences which is really interesting to see how they experienced this event opposed to how the media portrayed it. One man was casually talking about how about 15 of his neighbors "drowned", and how he learns about more drowning everyday. All the houses are marked with an X and in each little triangle created by the X are some numbers representing information about the house and how it was searched, etc. The bottom little triangle represents the number of bodies found in the house after the hurricane and it's almost kind of haunting to be walking or driving past houses with the number 1 in that bottom triangle. Houses are spray painted all over which is pretty strange to see and they're basically all spray painted with "TFW" which is an abbreviation for "Toxic Flood Water". Lots of houses also have things like "1 dog found" written on them which is nice to know that animals were taken care of as well. Volunteering down here is a really rewarding experience and it makes me want to do more of this kind of stuff in the future especially when I'm older so I won't be feeling like such a kid. We've been here for a week and there's still a week to go which I think I'll really enjoy.
What we've been doing mostly is gutting houses. This is basically tearing houses apart using whatever means we have (crowbars, hammers, etc). We have to tear down the walls, take up tiles, get all of the nails out of the walls and floor (which can get a little irritating), take out any furniture and other things that may have been left behind, and remove mold from the houses. We get to meet most of the owners of these houses and hear their stories about their experiences which is really interesting to see how they experienced this event opposed to how the media portrayed it. One man was casually talking about how about 15 of his neighbors "drowned", and how he learns about more drowning everyday. All the houses are marked with an X and in each little triangle created by the X are some numbers representing information about the house and how it was searched, etc. The bottom little triangle represents the number of bodies found in the house after the hurricane and it's almost kind of haunting to be walking or driving past houses with the number 1 in that bottom triangle. Houses are spray painted all over which is pretty strange to see and they're basically all spray painted with "TFW" which is an abbreviation for "Toxic Flood Water". Lots of houses also have things like "1 dog found" written on them which is nice to know that animals were taken care of as well. Volunteering down here is a really rewarding experience and it makes me want to do more of this kind of stuff in the future especially when I'm older so I won't be feeling like such a kid. We've been here for a week and there's still a week to go which I think I'll really enjoy.