Back home

It feels a little funny sitting in this clean home, everything in its place. I also feel really lazy.... I guess by now in New Orleans we would have had a few piles out on the side walk. Although, it is nice not to have to scrub wildly at my skin while showering. All in all I think i'd rather be back there.

Here are a few more photos from the trip:


Annie took this picture in lakeview-- the richest area that was flooded after Katrina.

example of a house in the lower 9th ward.



Our team at Cafe du Monde

Day 4. Back to Shirley's.

Home. Is it still home if there's nothing left of it but the wood in the walls and the boards on the floor? Is it still home if everything inside the house floats to new places, mildews, and becomes unidentifiable? Is it still home if other people invade it and cart out everything and hastily throw it on the curbside?

Will New Orleans ever be home again? Is all the gutting, cleaning, demolishing, rebuilding worth the effort to rebuild this place into a home? What about for Ms. Shirley? Will she ever be at home in the city? Will she ever return to her house and call it home?

When we returned to Ms. Shirley’s house in the Lower Ninth Ward today, we resumed the gutting process. We continued shoveling out the dry wall and taking out many small items and clothes as well as the fridge and other appliances. I found today’s work difficult, and the combination of the looming sense of futility in my mind and physical exhaustion made me want 3:00 to arrive quickly. I don’t like to wish time away, but I found it almost impossible to find a hint of joy in scraping up the rubble of someone else’s life. Only it wasn’t just a someone, it was Shirley.

She didn’t come to the house today, but searching through her things, and all of her children’s and grandchildren’s things, still seemed improper. In fact, I think it may have been better for her that she wasn’t there, because watching each of her possessions turn into one of three categories of waste—either electronics, haz-mats, and contents—would have been unbearable. Electronics are items with any electrical capacity, haz-mats are hazardous materials such as medicines and household cleaners, and contents are everything else.

We tried to salvage what we could, especially irreplaceable things—photographs, certificates, jewelry, and other memorabilia. Our leader at the Episcopal mission told us earlier that families in New Orleans often live near each other, an idea that seems sweet but obsolete in our modern world. Unfortunately, this tradition backfired, as not only one member of the family lost pictures, but all of the family members lost their pictures. Many people’s wedding pictures, even Shirley’s, were ruined in the storm, and all other copies are gone.

With all the wreckage that still remains from the storm, and all the damage to houses, buildings, and spirits, it’s understandable that many New Orleanians don’t want to return to the city. Others, especially those from the ninth ward, simply don’t have the resources to rebuild. Some people, though, long to return to their city, their home. To outsiders, rebuilding damaged house and restoring the city to its earlier life may seem futile and a complete waste of effort; but to those who live, or lived, in the city and love it, restoration and rebuilding WILL be the next phase of their lives.

As for Shirley, she’ll keep on living in her city, whether or not she can ever return to a real home or just the framework of a house. Her determined spirit will lead her, her family, and all those she helps to make New Orleans home forever.


P.S. Ms. Meng, Sarah wanted me to correct her appreciation of the pasta from “delicious,” to “delish,” which is, in fact, a far greater compliment. We all appreciated your peanut butter cookies today as well. They, too, are “delish”!

Pictures!

Below is an image of Ms. Shirley's house--- we've almost finished removing contents.

Below is a picture of Ms. Shirley and her grandkids Michael, KJ, Quantis, and Malik with us truly!

Here's our team a mother a daughter from Boston and a group of stranger from all over who read an internet plea and decided to come down together.

Ms. Shirley and the Gang

Today we got to work in the lower 9th ward, which is just on the other side of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet(lovingly referred to as Mr. Go.). In this area they just got their water turned back on three weeks ago and you can see holes in roofs where people had hacked through from their attics to get to higher ground.

Before getting into the house we met Ms. Shirley, a sixty year old woman who owned the house, and 4 of her 8 grandchildren. Four rambunctious yet polite boys-- two of whom had lived in the house. We fitted them for gloves and masks and began looking for a way to get into the house, which had been boarded up. We broke into the back door and stepped into a mess of insulation, ceiling, furniture, electronics, trophies.... so we carried and hauled the contents of their house to the street, breaking apart sofas and piling up insulation.

Ms. Shirley said there was a time when she was set on never coming back to that house. She said she was always planning on coming back to New Orleans, but didn't think she had the strength to come back to the house. When she did decide to come back she started having dreams of how the house would look, thinking about the additions she had always wanted to do. Ms. Shirley told us stories of all the family, friends, and strangers who she had welcomed into her home before she had to leave. Saying she was worthy of help is an understatement. She has such a heart for community and it brings hope to me to know that someday she will be living on that corner again. Inviting strangers to come and sleep in her rooms.

Later I'll upload a picture of the five of us with the 4 boys and Ms.Shirley. This was the only picutre I took because the Episcopal ministry here asks the volunteers not to take pictures because the people of New Orleans already feel like they are living in a zoo. I didn't quite understand what they meant, after all I am just trying to pass along people's stories. But today we saw a van full of tourists who had paid 35$ dollars a ride to take pictures of the destroyed and deserted lower 9th ward. None of that money will go to the people they are exploiting, the people who need it.

Day 3

"We drove the chevy to the levee but the levee was gone . . ."

According to the Episcopalians (who are in charge of us), that's one of the more humorous of the sayings about the failure of the city of New Orleans to weather the storm.

Early this morning, we met at an Episcopal parish house, where a soon-to-be-deacon oriented us to the city in "time and space." She talked to us and several other groups of the history of New Orleans, from its founding in 1718 through its cultural expansion, its peak in population in the 1950's, and its experience with hurricanes Katrina and Rita. She provided us with a detailed account of the days leading up to Katrina and gave us an idea of the scope of the storm's damage on the gulf coast. Some communities just east and north of the city no longer exist because of the storm. In Slidell, Pass Christian, and Long Beach, Mississippi, about 80% of the structures were severely or completely destroyed. We drove through some of those communities on our way into the city, and I had a tough time imagining that houses and other buildings even existed there pre-Katrina. As for the city itself, the population of Orleans parish shrunk from 450,000 to only 200,000 as a result of the storm.

The woman continued, noting that, despite the suffering and utter destruction of the city, some heroes did emerge. She mentioned that fishermen and others with boats entered the city to rescue people from houses and rooftops. They had to avoid the many gas fires in the city, and many perished in their rescue attempts. For their courage, the people of New Orleans dubbed them the "Cajun Navy."

After our orientation, we met up with a group from Vermont and Emily, our leader for the day. At first, we thought they were all from Vermont, but we discovered, while talking to them at the site, that they are from several places around the country and got together because of their now-leader's internet plea for people to help out in New Orleans. One of them actually lives in Winston-Salem and is a Chemistry Ph.D. student at Wake Forest.

Soon after we arrived at the house, located in the lower 9th ward, the homeowner, Shirley Medina, arrived with four of her grandchildren. Throughout the day, we talked to her about her past in New Orleans, her family, her time in Baltimore in the year after the storm, and her neighborhood. She hopes, someday, to rebuild and move back into her house. She didn't always think it would be possible to return, but one of her nursing students (she teaches at a nursing college) told her how the Episcopalians had helped someone she knew. This student also convinced Shirley to return to her home rather than starting over in a new place. Shirley expressed her gratitude to us over and over, and she told us that she was so thankful that God had blessed her. She even told us that she plans to tell her church this Sunday about our help. She seemed to have a positive attitude about the destruction and the possibility of rebuilding, but she told us she didn't always feel this way. For a while, she said, she lost some of her faith and fell into a depression. While she lived in Baltimore, she exhausted all of her savings from her nursing career and now relies on her children for support. She just found out she'll have a teaching job at a nursing college, but she doesn't know when it will start.

Once we got in the house, we began to bring out large pieces of furniture, insulation, sheet rock, and other unidentifiable objects. We formed an assembly line to pick up the items, transfer them to wheelbarrows, and roll them to the curb. Shirley’s grandsons were eager to help, begging us to let them steer the wheelbarrows and running around inside the house. When they discovered some of their old sports trophies, they quickly grasped them, hugged them, and took them out of the house, with relieved smiles on their faces. The boys commented on almost everything that came out of the house, especially special items such as the “Thanksgiving Table” and favorite Lion King sheets. They didn’t seem to grasp the reality and permanence of the devastation, but the oldest boy did worry about his grandmother and followed her around to make sure she was holding up.
The boys soon grew tired of hauling and digging, and they began playing football in the yard next door. Meanwhile, our team and the “Vermont” team continued to remove the contents of the house, digging through insulation that fell from the ceiling and layers of dust and mold. We stopped periodically to talk to Shirley, both because we wanted to hear her story and because Katie, the woman in charge of the volunteers, had told us that talking to homeowners was just as important as gutting the house itself. She told us at a meeting later this afternoon that the Episcopal Church, in contrast to other organizations, focuses on the homeowners rather than on the house. At first, I was surprised that the Episcopalians didn’t require homeowners to commit to rebuilding in order for volunteers to gut their houses; soon though, I realized that Katie’s logic made sense—that the people, and their mental health and emotions, count for far more than the structure of the house. By the end of her talk, I was glad that we were working for the Episcopalians, because I was convinced that their feelings of closure about their houses and old lives, whether or not they will ever rebuild, matters so much. As Katie told us, Shirley will sleep better tonight knowing that her house has been gutted, and that kind of progress is the most important kind.

Shirley dreams of reconstructing her house, remodeling it, and expanding her bedroom. She doesn’t know now whether that is a possibility, but she told me that she will not let go of it. “It’s home,” she says, “it’s home.” She won’t go back to Baltimore, and she’ll continue living on the West Bank of New Orleans until she can move back into the lower 9th ward. She told us she had to have dreams, that the Bible says that “without dreams you perish.” I felt assured that Shirley impacts a lot of people, whether in her nursing, her care for her grandchildren, or her interactions with people at church. She used to let other people, even some she didn’t know, stay temporarily in her house just to be kind; she wants to return the kindness that her boss showed her by putting a down payment on her house. “Kindness,” she told us, “doesn’t take effort; but being mean takes a lot of work!”



P.S. Thanks, Ms. Meng, for the pasta! Sarah told me to write that it was delicious, and it was a great dinner. We appreciate it!

door locking

we have effectively locked all doors that enter into our home-away-from-home. We even locked ourselves out this afternoon. Luckily the house coordinator lives only a few minutes away. We now have a key and will continue to maintain the safety of locked doors.

sincerely,

the Big Easy 5

Day 2--before and afters

Today we worked on one side of a duplex. The house was seperated from the levee by a street and a row of houses. Usually you can see the spray paint from rescue teams on the side of the houses, but in this part of the neighborhood there was no paint because the houses had been completely underwater. We worked with two sophomore girls in college who are EXPERTS at gutting as well as a group of two women with 3 younger girls. Total: 12 women and 1 man.

Group photo at the end of the day. Why am I the only one that looks like a Mess?


This is the before picture of the kid's bedroom that was in the front left of the house.


After picture of the kid's bedroom


The master bedroom in the back was very wet and dark, which made it hard to work in there.


We didn't get a chance to start on the walls in the master bedroom, but we did take down all the trim.

One of the coolest parts of the day was when we were all sitting down for a lunch break and this car drove by and an older woman leaned out of the car and waved and blew us a kiss!!

New Year's Eve in the Big Easy!!

Julia and Whitney say thumbs up to 2007.

Day 2.

When I glanced at the packing list and saw N-95 masks, it didn't occur to me that we would actually need them - that the air would actually make us sick if we inhaled it. I just imagined that these masks would be one more extra safety precaution, but today, as soon as I walked into the house we were going to gut, I realized just how necessary they were.

As we took a first walk-through in the house, I was immediately overwhelmed by the mud, slime, and seemingly toxic stench of the mess. Our leader had told us that the water moved everything around, and that the lightest items in the house rose to the top when the water flooded the rooms. In this house, the water had knocked the refrigerator over and ripped the other large pieces of furniture apart. A thin layer of sludge coated the floor and made not only walking, but breathing, difficult. The rooms in the back of the house had little light, and it became easy for me to understand why many homeowners cannot handle the task of gutting their houses.

Even though these people may never return due to financial constraints, emotional pain, or other reasons, the houses still need to be cleaned and gutted. As I type this, Amanda and Whitney are discussing the seeming futility of working on these houses but they recognize that the cleaning is a necessary task, and that someday, people WILL return to New Orleans. So, for those people who may live here someday, and for those who lived here before the storm, gutting is a necessary task. It's the first step for restoring hope both for those who have left and for the entire neighborhood. Our leader had explained that gutting seems too daunting a task for homeowners to do themselves and that our gutting work relieves them of a huge burden.

After working on this one house, a small duplex, I just began to understand the enormous task New Orleans faces. Many houses remain untouched, and it's shocking that 16 months after Katrina, so much of New Orleans seems dead, almost as if it were a ghost town. I can't imagine working here full time, much less living here. Because I had no idea of the current state of New Orleans, I wish so many more people could learn about the personal side of the destruction-the people, their damaged possesions, their lost memories, their stories-and the horrendous stench inside the houses and the complete destruction and the overwhelming feeling of depression in the city and all the other consequences of Katrina that can't be explained with words.

Gutting: Day One

We set out this morning at 7:45 sharp (well, not quite so sharp, but we still got to St. Andrew's Episcopal Church down Canal Street with a few minutes to spare) to meet to find out where we would be working. As it turned out, we were assigned a house in Lakeview - just a couple miles from St. Paul's, where we are staying and just a street over from the levee. We worked with two women (one from Seattle and the other from somewhere in California) and their daughters as well as our team leader, Anna, and a couple other college students.

This time we really got down and dirty, removing the contents of a house while looking for valuables and then stripping the house of door frames, window frames, baseboards, dry wall, etc - in about an inch of water that the humidity would not let escape. I would like to have said that we worked along side the lady who owned the house, but the Episcopal diocese chooses families that generally lack the resources to do the task themselves.

One thing that generally amazed me was that a few of the college students have been here for a few week/months and they are still touched by every house and every story. I guess they would have left here by now if they weren't. Also, while everyone here is very grateful for our work, they are definitely encouraging us to drive around the city and get to know the city, especially the places that are up and running. The people of New Orleans know that their city has a lot of history and "Katrina" does not say it all.

This afternoon, we were shoveling dirt and raking the sidewalks near St. Paul's Homecoming Center, when a woman pulled up in her car to ask where we were from. When I told her we were from Atlanta, she thanked us for being here and cleaning up. She told us that her husband grew up just about a block away from where we were working. She had lived there with him just after they married. She now works at a college in Louisville, Kentucky, and was bringing her daughter and two granchildren down to see the house.

After our brief exchange, she pulled up to the house, looked around, and walked back to us a few minutes later. With a miniature statue of a knight in hand, she asked us to take a picture with him. The knight, the mascot from the college, goes with the employees of the college when they travel, and they're planning on compiling a book of all the pictures. Before the knight came to New Orleans, he was in Hawaii.

As we posed for the picture with the knight, she asked us where we went to school and told us how much it meant to her that we were working here. She made it clear to us that we were doing more than just shoveling dirt. To me, shoveling the dirt along the sidewalk to allow the water to drain seemed like a mundane task, even bordering on futile. (I kept wondering if people are actually going to return to their homes, and if it will ever even matter if the water drains.) But to her, we were bringing life back to the city. She told us that even though she had moved away from the city many years ago, it's still a special place for her.

She continued talking to us, eager to tell us the story of the house and all the people in her family who have lived there over the years. Her aunt, who was living in the house when Katrina hit, has moved to Houston and refuses to come back because she can't bear the pain of living in such destruction and doesn't have the energy to rebuild her house. This woman's husband, too, won't ever return to New Orleans with her to see the house because the thought of seeing the wreckage seems too daunting to him. She, however, told us that she needed to come back, walk through the house, and salvage some of her aunt's sewing materials, to experience some sense of closure. By bringing her daughter and granddaughter with her, she hopes to share her memories and the vibrant life of both her past and New Orleans with them. Thanks to her encouragment and personal story, I felt that the work we were doing held much more meaning, and I continued to shovel, but with an uplifted spirit. Even if everyone doesn't return to their neighborhood, I can imagine that those who do will be glad the dirt is gone from their gutters. And that's enough to keep me shoveling.

Day 1 Pictures

While we were out siteseeing I got a call from Connie saying she had a work project we could do. So we turned the car around and headed back to the house. We cleand storm drains that were FULL of mudd. We had to I mean got to wear these lovely neon vests.

The whole top floor of our house is for volunteers to stay in. There are two sides with beds and bathrooms on either side of the stairs. And our side has a kitchen.

Group photo on Julia's bed!

We took a drive down canal street and through the French Quarter to do a little bit of site seeing while we had time today.

our very own kitchen(we kind of have the place to ourselves)

Get Ready

so it's the day before the day before we leave.

i'm sitting here smelling the sweet smell of the oatmeal date cookies my mom just made for the trip....if you aren't already--- get excited!