Closing Time

As I start this post, the my watch reads 8:14 CST.  If this were a work-site day, we would already be well into the rhythm of our individual construction tasks.  Pretty crazy to think that we were able to maintain such an early schedule all week and that this morning I "slept in" till 7:00.

Yesterday was a great way to close it out though.  It was pretty muggy all day, which allegedly is the norm for New Orleans - so I guess we caught a week of sunshine and breezes...what a steal.  My day started where Friday ended, right back at the tree stump with Elissa.  After cutting through some roots and trying to extend the perimeter of digging, I disturbed a couple hundred red ants - needless to say, I relocated to the other side of the tree.  Elissa was chopping the roots as close to the tree as possible, while I poked at the dirt with my shovel, trying to look important =P.  Then John showed up to help us out - naturally he went right to the red ants were because he's not a wimp, and the three of us continued to dig while a few others finished the sheathing around the house.  Meanwhile, two of our three vans had gone to a new work-site with Andrew to work on a foundation.  They had poured the concrete foundation on Friday afternoon, and were now removing the wooden frame.

At around 10:30, we went to help them because our day was going to be ending at noon (serious parade traffic).  So all three vans were on the new site working on pulling out these wooden stakes that went about 4 feet into the ground.  It sucked.  It was worse than digging around the tree roots.  I managed to get one stake out, before going to help Meg with one that she had been unable to get out.  Several people had worked on it, but it was stuck in the clay (the layer of material below dirt in NOLA).  Everyone else was cleaning up, but there was no way I was leaving that stake in the ground.  Between myself, Andrew, and Pat, we finally got it out, with Pat striking the final blow.  We presented the steak to Megan, took our group picture and got out of there just in time to beat the rain.

Just like that, the week was in and out.  Later last night, groups from American University and UNC Chapel Hill arrived at the volunteer center.  That, along with working on the new foundation was a great representation of how we are turning the page, or passing the torch, to the next week down here.  It's been a blast - regrets are minimal and memories are countless.  I'll have one more post when I get back to the 'Burgh, to wrap everything up.  Thanks for following everyone, hope you enjoyed the ride.

Time to go.  We're packing the cars, and venturing out on the town today.  Flight leaves in the early evening.

Elissa got the "privilege" of riding with Ron & Pat to the new site.

Day 5 family photo.

I think we left the next group in pretty good shape.

Joyce!

I'm not quite sure whats going on here.  Pat was spanking Andrew with a broken stake and Elissa was supervising?

What Grows Up, Must Be Chopped Down

Haha, Friday was fun.

The day started kind of slow, just because it was raining and overcast - clearly we were a little spoiled with all the sunshine we'd been having.

So we were just going around filling in nails and it was a bit monotonous.  THEN, I noticed that Andrew was making preparations to cut a tree down that was near the house...count me in.  I went down to start helping, and then John came over and we were quite the tree-cutting tandem.  It was freaking awesome.  We dominated this tree with just a circ-saw and an ax.  It was so awesome to climb all the way up and shake the branches till we could leverage them off.  For the biggest ones, I climbed up with a rope, tied it, and threw it down to John, who pulled it the falling branches away from the house.  We were so manly.

We took the tree down in about 90 minutes.  And then the afternoon was spend digging around the stump to try and breakthrough the roots.  It was painfully slow.  There were too many stinkin' roots, making the dig very difficult.

It's 6:45, Saturday morning.  Today is our last day of work.  I've finally caught up with these posts.  Can't believe it's been a week.  Gotta go get ready to dig out that stump.  More to come later...

Our defeated opponent...poor tree, never had a chance.

Me & John - champions of tree demolition.

Welcome To Mardi Gras [Thursday Update]

What a day.

The job site was pretty standard today.  Everyone kept trucking along, and by the end of the day we had all walls up and studs reinforced.  As for me, I spent the bulk of my day re-aligning a wall beam.  One of the studs was bowed, and it was the front corner of the house, so obviously it needed to line up as a flush corner.  So as usual, after harassing Catfish & Elissa for constant consultation, I took out a bunch of nails, recruited John to help me out, we clamped the pieces of wood together, and hammered that baby in.  Sounds pretty simple, but it did take us all morning.

Then for our lunch break, we drove to another H4H site where there were Julliard students working.  The students had arranged for a lunchtime performance for all the H4H teams in the area.  So many volunteers gathered at this one site and watched for an hour while the students gave performances including drama, monologues, singing, and instrumental.  It was quite the show...a littttle long for my liking but still good - the ended with a group rendition of Lean On Me...fitting for the culture down here.

We then had a lite afternoon of work, as we had to end early to avoid parade traffic.  Yes, they started Thursday.  So Mardi Gras apparently starts the Thursday before.  They had three parades that night that went down St. Charles avenue (the home of our bead tree, if you remember).  They came highly recommended from Andrew, Elissa, John, and Mark, so of course we had to check them out.  We went there straight from the work site so that we could get parking, which worked out perfect.  The parades were awesome.  They came down the street one after the other, with only a few minutes of a pause in between parades.  The last one was called Muses which is the one everybody seemed to be talking about ahead of time.

These parades are so interesting.  They come down in these floats pulled by tractors, and everyone is decked out in costumes and they just throw stuff at you.  Predominantly beads, but also cups, toys, hats, and even shoes!  I actually got a pretty good view for some pictures, as I made a friend named Beth, who allowed me to use one of her ladders.  Oh yea, about the ladders - so whereas most of us prepare for a parade by bringing folding chairs...these people bring ladders.  Tons of ladders.  So anyway, I got to use one of Beth's many ladders to take some great pictures, and get tons of stuff thrown at me.  It was neat to meet her, as she told me how there are parades literally everyday from Thursday to Tuesday.  Each day has scheduled parades, except for Tuesday which just has parades all day long.  Also, these people in the parades belong to what's called "The Crew" and they pay dues throughout the year, just to have a chance to win the parade lottery and be on one of the many floats.  Such a wild tradition.

Getting home was crazy, between traffic, closed streets, and trash everywhere, it took us 2 hours to do a 25 minute drive.  Definitely worth it.

Me & Carol - she was also a first time Mardi Gras spectator.  We were ladder neighbors.

Day 3 family photo.

Fire!

One of the many floats during the parade, Knights of Chaos.

Julliard students performing a fight scene with levels.

The lead float for Muses.

Just two of the hundreds of ladders.

Wow. That's a lot of people.

We found our tree again.

Half-Time [Wednesday Update]

It was only our second day of work and we were plowin' through with no problems.  The floor was all done, and many wall frames were up - so we started putting in actual walls, as well as double layering the beams at the top of the walls.  It was pretty cool to be putting the walls into place because at my last H4H trip in Spring of '09, all we did was build walls and we never even saw the house that they went to.  So when we are putting up walls that were pre-made, it was a nice realization to know that some other group of volunteers had spent a week putting these walls together - it definitely made me appreciate what we did in '09 much more.

I also got to make a beam pocket as one of my little projects.  That was interesting to say the least.  After asking for clarification about 15 times and a couple of bad measurements, the beam pocket was complete.  It was pretty fun though, because I was working with Meg, Lindsey, and Ernesta, who had all never used the circular saw before.  They all got sawing lessons, as well as learning how to measure and what not.  It was a lot of fun working as a mini-team, especially when we finally had a completed product.

We had a pretty light agenda Wednesday night, which was nice.  I made some tomato sauce and we had pasta with garlic bread for dinner.  Followed by a group trip to Walgreens & Walmart. 

And oh yea, the weather has been perfect everyday.  Hanging around the low 70's, barely any humidity, and sunny.  Can't beat it.

Me & Ernesta - lots of laughs amongst this pairing.

In mockery of Ernesta after she told me to be careful on the ladder.

Meg's sawing lesson - good thing she's paying attention =P

Meg's first cut...sweet.

Day 2 family photo.

Gaby & Pat were the double-layer beam team, crawling all over the walls.

TGIF

Good morning everyone.

Pictures and posts are now updated through Tuesday, but I wanted to give a present-status update.

We went to three parades last night on St. Charles avenue and it was pretty awesome.  I'm hoping to get the pictures up soon and am sorry that I've been 2 days behind all week.  It is a good showcase of the limited time we have - uploading my pictures is literally the first thing I do when we get free time, but we've just been cruising from one thing to the next.

Can't believe it's Friday, it's been awesome so far, still 2 more full days and then a travel day Sunday...can't wait to see what is around the bend.  The only certainty heading into today is that stir fry is on the dinner menu...everything else should be exciting to see unravel.

Gotta run.

Whistle While You Work [Tuesday Update]

We arrived at our H4H site at 7:30am on Tuesday morning, where we met our project manager, Andrew (aka Catfish) and his assistant, Elissa.  Also on site that morning was a sweet woman with a stereotypical N'awlins accent, named Joyce, who will be the proud (we hope) owner of the house that we are building.  Rounding out the Habitat crew were John and Mark, who are two great guys that volunteer their time just because.  Mark is more of a 'veteran' if you will, but he is a pro with tools and knows how to teach you new things, but not before making you realize how dumb your original intentions were =P  John is a really nice guy too, he's a music professor at Tulane, and plays guitar in a band - it just goes to show the wide range of volunteers and great people there are out and about.  Meanwhile, we learned that Elissa is assigned to H4H through the Americorps program, which is also how Andrew initially got involved with H4H before they offered him a full-time spot as a project manager.

For this first day, we predominantly worked on the floor of the house, which is raised about four feet of the ground with cinder blocks...it seems to be the new anti-flood construction style.  Most of my day was spent with Mark, as we were installing floor beams for the front porch.  It really was a blast to get working on the house, especially because we got to work with Joyce and learn about her family.

When we got back that afternoon, our trip coordinator, Linda, had arranged for us to tour some of the less-seen parts of New Orleans with a local named John Wilkes Booth (yea, I don't believe that's his real name either).  Now, you want to talk about stereotypical N'awlins - this guy was it.  He was this little old man, wearing jeans and a dirty t-shirt with a twang like no other.  Also, I'm pretty sure that 98% of his sentences ended with "N'all" (translated as, 'and all').  He took us to see the levys and the Mississippi River, as well as the 9th ward where there was a lot of damage, that is still visible 6 years later.  It was quite the tour with some beautiful views and some intense ones.  What was most interesting to me is that prior to this week, I thought that a levy was some type of steel reinforced wall that was used to keep the bodies of water in check.  On the contrary, for those of you who don't know, a levy is pretty much a sand dune, just with rocks and dirt...almost like a beaver dam.  That being said, after Katrina occurred, they decided to put in steel beams that travel 70 feet into the ground to better support the levys.

Wild stuff.

Andrew's toolbelt - he's got more stuff than Batman.

The four men...ok, boys.

Day 1 family photo.

Levys in middle - 9th ward to left - lake to right.

NOLA H4H logo on Andrew's truck.

Progress after day 1.

John Wilkes Booth.

My porch. And then we had to flip the beams the following day...oops.

NOLA skyline on the Mississippi.

Marks made on houses to account for search efforts after Katrina.

Andrew (blue) & John after a hard day's work.

 

Reality Check [Update 3/4]

It's ironic how we often exaggerate our own problems and concerns to the point where they are blown way out of proportion.  Arguing about a difference of opinion, being overly concerned about money, getting a bad grade on a test, allowing petty social issues with your peers actually affect the energy of your spirit - these are all things that we tend to make a big deal about...working down here puts things into perspective.

Monday evening we were joined by the President of St. Bernard Parish, Craig.  He gave us an account of how the weather spiraled out of control, the levys broke, and their city was under water at a rate of one foot per minute.  Here are some stats he filled us in on:

> After Katrina, there were 26,900 homes that were uninhabitable.
> 5 of 6 homes did not have flood insurance (most were told they wouldn't need it).
> New Orleans provides 30% of the nation's oyster supply...commerce was greatly effected.
> In the last 6 years, over 300,000 people have volunteered in the New Orleans restoration movement
> Katrina occurred on 8.29.05 - the school superintendent guaranteed that school would be available whenever the first student showed up.  Someone showed up on 10.1.05...the school was ready and waiting.
> The city lost many public records and lots of people had to wait months for re-issuing of their birth certificates, passports, transcripts, etc... .

Here is a moving video that someone in the parish made...

Can't believe it's Thursday.  We're going to a parade this afternoon.  I'll keep trying to get caught up - need to tell you about Tuesday and Wednesday.  See ya.

You've Got To Be Kidding Me [Update 2/4]

Back in the day, I used to live this recurring nightmare.  Imagine this - you are lying in your bed on a Saturday morning, knowing that you have nothing to do but sleep in, eat food, and watch TV.  But then you hear it, "beep. beep. beep."  It's a truck in reverse?  Wait, but why?  It's Saturday.  You start to realize what's happening, but you're in denial.  And then the beeping continues, so you get out of bed and look out your window, and your worst fears are confirmed...Dad had mulch delivered.

So after spending years of my life hating mulch, and being thankful to no longer be home on mulch d-day each year; we show up to City Park to work with Beacon of Hope on Monday, and what are we doing?  Yup, you guessed it...mulching.  You've got to be kidding me.

I must admit that it turned out ok though - we went through the entire delivery and made the Park look great.  City Park is actually a family amusement park in the area, complete with rides, swings, slides, etc.  They don't open for a few weeks, but they are a big-time business despite seeming like a small-time park, bringing in more than 7 figures per year.

What was also cool about the park is that I learned a lot from the people we worked with.  Lisa, who helps manage the park, filled me in about Drew Brees.  Apparently, as many of us have heard, Brees went to New Orleans not just to win a Super Bowl, but to help rebuild the city of NOLA.  Turns out that he has several foundations down here - one of which helped fund the construction of two football stadiums that are used by the local high schools, since they don't have fields.  Lisa also mentioned that it is not uncommon to see Drew and his wife out and about doing work in the community.

We also worked with a girl name Ashley, who was our Beacon of Hope contact person, and she pointed us in the direction of a Po'Boy lunch stop at the end of our long morning.  So "Po'Boys" are the "hoagies" or "subs" of the bayou.  There were so many different options, and I wanted to make sure that I made the right choice.  So, after consulting with two waiters and soliciting a customer while we both washed our hands in the bathroom, I decided on the surf and turf, consisting of roast beef and shrimp.  Now my reasoning was that Tyrone and Harold (waiters) had talked up the shrimp, and my bathroom buddy said that this grill was rumored to have the best roast beef in the city...surf and turf was the only logical choice.  It did not disappoint.

Oh yea, we also drove around town afterward and stole some beads from a tree in the median.  Solid.

Later Monday night we met the President of St. Bernard Parish, who came to speak to us at ACC.  But that update will have to wait till morning.  I'm running out of steam here, but will try and get the rest up tomorrow morning.  Halfway through the updates...we'll be caught up soon.

Good night, people. 

Not bad for a day in the park.

Even the plastic flamingos are Saints fans.

Check out our victory stamp, left by the mulch pile that we dominated.

The owner said this ride literally cost $1 million to purchase, AND they had to build it themselves.

Surf N Turf - Roast Beef was ok, shrimp was BEST I've ever had.

My wise food consultants...and some lady who wants a piece of the action.

Carrie & Pat went souvenir shopping.

What a great quote to pass on the way home.  That's how they really act down here.

Our Digs [Update 1/4]

FINALLY, some time to update this junk.  I've got some time before I head to bed, so I'm going to try and knock out the four updates that I am slacking on here...

As mentioned, we are crashin' at Adullam Christian Center [ACC].  It was formerly a supermarket, and is now used as a place of worship, but also as a host site for volunteers.

When we first came in, we met Pastor Randy, who runs the center.  Wow, what a guy.  Before we unpacked or even saw where we were staying, Pastor Randy made a point to welcome us with what he called an "orientation" session.  He kept it lite and humorous, telling the girls "now ladies, if somebody calls you darlin, suga pie, sweet thing, baby, honey, sweetheart; you need not worry, because you are not being hit on.  For this week, you are all southern belles."  After all the laughs, and basic housekeeping issues, he then very solemnly said, "Imagine that you were staying in a hotel room in New Orleans, and you go to bed after hearing about how there is a hurricane warning - then you wake up the next morning, you look out your window, and you just see the city under water."  Pastor Randy went on to tell us the details of Katrina and how it severely impacted the region.  The ACC is located in what is called "St. Bernard Parish," which initially makes you think of a church parish, but down here in NOLA, a "Parish" is equivalent to a district or county.

Pastor Randy then took myself and the other two trip leaders on a tour of the building and filled us in on some important local info, as well as housekeeping rules...this is when you really got to see who this guy was.  At one point he asked if we could help set up our own dinner tables, because he would usually have members of his congregation do it, but they are a little busy...are you kidding me?? of course we will set up our own dinner tables!  Not to mention, this guy told us how he lost 98% of his congregation after Katrina...unbelievable.  Then as if you couldn't grow to respect the man anymore, he was showing us around the kitchen and had these industrial sized freezers.  I asked him what he used them for, and he opened them up to reveal frozen food that he described so naturally as, "oh that's for when I see homeless people walking outside on the road."  What an amazing man, an amazing story and an amazing spirit.

As for the rooms themselves, we have two sections of the building.  One for the ladies, of which there are 14 in our group; and then the gentlemen (all 4 of us) are on the other side of the building in bunk beds with some pretty grimy mattresses.  On the girls side of the building there are showers, but wow, they were nasty.  After the first night of showering; myself, Alec, Kat, and Gaby decided to go to town with Scrubbing Bubbles disinfectant and Clorox bleach.  After trying to clean meticulously, I just opened up the bleach and dumped it in the showers and on the tiles leading up to them (I know, so safe, right?)...this followed with heavy coughing and chest pains, but it hurt so good =P  It was definitely worth it to have it clean.  So now we have clean showers, I bought an elastic sheet for my mattress, and I officially took all the "roughing it" out of this trip.  I think I can live with that.

Our minivan fleet - the white KIA is my baby.

Pretty cool kitchen...could use a mop job though.

This is where I sleep, prior to my Wal-Mart combo of sheet/sleeping bag

Alec is in disgust after one wipe of the tiles outside the showers

Alec, Gaby, and me...after scrubbing my bleach bombing.

Bleach makes you do crazy things.

On The Run

Wow time is flying.  I owe updates on our living situation, and our day yesterday.  But we are leaving at 7am, on-the-dot, for H4H this morning.

I'll be back this afternoon with all updates...3 posts worth.

We cleaned showers last night.  They were sooo nasty, now they're clean.  Awesome.

The Eagle Has Landed

So we landed at about 8:30am (CST), yesterday morning in New Orleans.  After starting the day with a 3am shuttle trip to the Pittsburgh airport, we had finally arrived at our destination.  Our first flight to Atlanta is a little bit blurry at this point, I remember hearing the engines rev as we started to take-off, and then I was asleep before we got in the air.  That being said, after a light nap on the connecting flight from Atlanta to New Orleans, I caught a glimpse of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, which was pretty awesome.

We picked up our mini-vans from Budget rent-a-car and began our 30-minute drive to our new home, Adullam Christian Center.  We are actually about to head out for our first day of work.  Our time at Habitat For Humanity [H4H] will not start until tomorrow; whereas today we will be working with Beacon of Hope, on what we presume is some type of clean-up project.  I guess we'll find out when we get there.

Later today I'll be back with a update from Beacon Of Hope, as well as the low-down on our digs.

Tammy from our rent-a-car shuttle.  She told us she was a littttle hungover...haha, welcome to Mardi Gras.

Yooo, what's up downtown!?

Stick A Fork In Me

It.s 11:17pm, central time on Sunday...I've been up since 7:00am, eastern time on Saturday.  I'm going to bed.

We got here safe.  The place is nice.  The showers are nasty.  Bourbon Street is crazy.  Full update in the AM.

Send Me On My Way

So I was trying to decide what I wanted to title this kick-off post, and then sure enough, up on my Pandora (internet radio, for you old geezers out there) pops Send Me On My Way by Rusted Root.  I decided that it was a fitting jam/title for the intro of my trip to the Big Easy.

I will be "on my way" to New Orleans with Duquesne's Campus Ministry program for an alternative Spring Break opportunity.  Though I'm not sure how the last weekend of February constitutes as a break from "Spring," our trip begins this upcoming weekend.  We will get a full week out of our experience - leaving from Pittsburgh on Sunday, February 27th, and returning on Sunday, March 6th.

Our goal is to assist in the ongoing effort to restore the struggling areas of New Orleans to their pre-Katrina conditions.  Though it has been more than half of a decade since the horrific storm swept through the Gulf, there is still great need for extra hands down by the bayou.  Our main efforts will be through the well-known Habitat for Humanity organization, with whom we will build houses for families looking for a place to live.

This will be the second Habitat trip of my lifetime.  In March of 2009 I participated in Habitat's Collegiate Challenge in Hilton Head, SC with a group of fellow students from Christopher Newport University.  My Hilton Head experience was such a blast, that I was pumped to have the opportunity to go on another trip this year.  A service trip of this kind has multiple benefits - sure there is the service aspect of helping others, but there is also the unique feeling of making personal sacrifices and 'roughing it' for a week. I definitely use the terms "sacrifice" and "rough" lightly, knowing that there are people in this world who have sacrificed far more in much rougher conditions, than a couple of students building houses for a week.  That being said, it is truly a neat opportunity to live in a volunteer shelter, have early mornings, and build relationships with strangers, as we work collectively to build something bigger than any one of us.

As for our amenities, we will be crashin' in the City of Hope Volunteer Center, provided by Addulam Christian Fellowship.  Thanks to some help from 'googling' information about the center, I was able to contact a previous volunteer and get some info about our digs.  I was glad to hear that there are showers available at the center, a couple of group bedrooms, a kitchen area, AND wireless internet...awesome.  Though I'm sure we'll be busy, I'll be using our limited free time to blog about the trip and post daily photos, to keep any interested followers in the loop about the trip.

We land in Cajun Country on Sunday, so look for the first post sometime Sunday evening!  To those who've somehow stumbled upon this blog, I hope this can be entertaining/enlightening for you; and for those followers who I know, I love and miss you all and hope this can give you a snapshot into what I'm up to these days.  Please enjoy, and thanks for following!