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*New Orleans Story* A real update this time. I swear.
So, Tuesday, December 13th. That is where I will start, because it is the beginning.
Dec. 13th: I woke up early, totally messed up my Spanish final and went back home to pack. Eventually, 11 rolled around and I went five blocks to the Christian Center, where I was to meet the people I was riding with. It was really rather funny to see me walking down the street with a backpack, duffel bag, sleeping bag, and many different papers and packages. I dropped off my application at the alumni house, deposited money at the bank, and I dropped my stuff off at the center after what seemed like the longest five blocks of my life. Then I gave Mary her secret sister Christmas present. Good times. After that, I went with Marie, Josh, and Tawny to Nashville. As soon as I got in the car, I had the biggest feeling of relief ever. We went to Jolly Pirate for coffee (or in my case, hot chocolate). PROWL is a group that thrives on one basic principal: Coffee is our life. It is hard to be a chocolate lover with that happening. The ride there was wonderufl though, quite calming, and I really got to know everyone better. We arrived in Nashville, got lost for a very long time, ate at a very TASTY local restaurant, and slept in what the church there called "the boy scout hut," which turned out to be a large house. I tried to get a hold of Erin to get to go see her, but I couldn't travel all the way to Murfreesboro, and her parents took away her car. DAMMIT. We will see each other again sometime. Thank God for mattresses. I saw a picture in the bathroom of scenes from the Ernest Goes To Camp movie. Turns out that the scout troop was in the food fight scene in that movie. Funny. You always have to wonder where these people come from. Then we went to sleep.
December 14: We wake up and start on our way to New Orleans. When we got there, I about shat myself. This place that I have always wanted to visit somehow turned into a shit fest. There was trash everywhere and you couldn't open your eyes without seeing something almost completely destroyed. There were homeless people everywhere and disaster relief workers and it was all very overwhelming. It looked like a war scene. I took a lot of pictures. There were also tell tale water marks on all of the houses. We lived in a house next to the church that was running the recovery program that we were with. The house was really nice and reminded me of a southern mansion... with fluorescent lights of course. Blech. There were two other groups there: some seminary students and a group from East Carolina U, who we got along with well. Laurel also forgot her birthday today. There was a man named Tyrone who worked for the church who had been displaced and now lives in the house we stayed in. He talked of all that he had seen, and how his daughter had been on Oprah because she was building a house for her. Oprah held his grandson. I seriously love Oprah now. *tear. Tyrone showed us some interesting scary pictures of devastation and then left. Good guy, though. There was a really big thunderstorm that kept me awake for most of the night, contently listening. I think storms are louder down there.
December 15: When we got to the work site (Elysian Fields/Ninth Ward Area) I was pretty much, well, the mood cannot be described. I felt such compassion for these people, and yet, I was really glad that I didn't live there. We worked on two houses that day: the father's house and the daughters house. The smell was UNBEARABLE. They had water go all the way to the ceiling, and almost everything was either covered in toxic mold, or about to be that way. I was based in the fathers house. The goal of the day was to get everything out of the house, including the carpets and things on the walls. We set to work and stopped for lunch. We were supposed to take regular breaks, but I found that if I did that I would start crying. So I didn't stop. It was really hard to eat lunch, because the contents of the refridgerator had spilled pretty much everywhere and it smelled like rotting people. The owner/father, Chris Quest, stopped by and we gave him the pictures that we had saved from the house and he started crying. I felt so bad for him. We all gave him hugs and listened to his story. Then we set back to work. We got everything out of the house by about 3:30. By the end, Dan had hit me in the face with a moldy pillow, Benton had saved me from the cockroach in the bathroom and I felt completely gross. The place was so weird, because you could tell that it was a thriving neighborhood at one point, but there was no one around. We were the only people in the neighborhood. It was like a ghost town. The scariest thing would be going by the houses that had markings that showed that people had died in that particular house. I got the last shower when we got back, so I was bathing in cold water. I was so gross that I didn't care though. We all joked about our forming toxic mold pimples.
December 16: Today we tore down drywall in the two houses we worked on yesterday. It was soooooo theraputic. Tawny called me her she-ro. haha. I didn't stop that day. I took all of my aggression out on the walls. And I was wielding a badass crowbar. I think that is my new weapon of choice. We were punching holes through the walls into other rooms with our fists and kicking the shit outta things and it was just glorious. Simply glorious. Chris Quest came again and thanked us for giving him hope to rebuild. Once they get all the wood treated in there, and replace the floor, they can begin again. We did it all for free, while other places in New Orleans charge by the square foot. We saved him a lot of money. He vowed to bring us doughnuts the next day at our new work site. As for me, I got one of the first showers that day. It was frickin glorious. So warm and good. That night we went to the Celebration of the Oaks. It is this annual thing they do in the park where there are a bunch of Christmas lights and running children. It actually reminded me that it was really close to Christmas. Odd.
December 17: Today was Saturday. Chris Quest arrived with doughnuts. He was so grateful to us. I love that man, and I hope to see him again someday. We spilt our group of about 20 people up in two groups: One at a church in the distribution center for clothing, and one in the church's mance cleaning up hurricane damage. I was in the second group. There was no flood damage, just hurricane damage. We mainly tore out walls and cleaned up ceiling tiles. Then we moved over to some apartments that the church owned. That is where I started feeling really shitty about the whole situation. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. This addict had lived one of the apts. we worked on, and there were needles everywhere. Grar. Then we were told to start knocking down walls. Then we were told we weren't supposed to do that. Then we were told to knock down the ceiling in another apartment. However, many different wild animals lived there (frogs, cockroaches, a bunny, and many rats), and it smelled, and it was cramped space. I got frustrated and left. Later I heard they were told to stop knocking down the ceiling over there too, so they left. I, however, was in the distribution center at this point. The center was a lot more fun. We got to organize clothes, which was a nice change. We went to dinner at Frankie and Johnnies, the local hole in the wall. It was nice. Great even. I ordered cheese fries and a meatball po' boy. Sooo good. Other things that I sampled that night included alligator soup and seafood gumbo. Holy crap. Alligator actually tastes pretty good. After that, all of the older people went out to a pub while the rest of us stayed and played loaded questions. It was really fun to get to know everyone, and at one point, we got really hyper. It was... interesting. Somehow, everyone figued out that I think Tobey Mcguire is quite.... fuckable. Yes. Campus Christian Organization trip, I know. I am still human dammit.
December 18: Today Lindsey, Laurel, and I took care of the nursery in the church. I kinda wanted to go to church, since they were singing Christmas songs with the Phil Harmonic, or at least parts of it, but I heard some of it outside with the kids. I was in charge of the crazy five year olds. Gawd. Insane. Then we left and at lunch at Reginelli's. My cousin manages it, but he wasn't there, which pissed me off, because I tried hard all week to get in touch with people, and they never answered. The phones were still wacky though, so that might have been it. Plus, most of them were displaced. Anyways, I wish there was a Reginellis in Huntington. The salad was great and the pizza divine. Sigh. After that we went on a hardcore tour of New Orleans to all of the key places. First we went to the ninth ward. There, instead of the spray paint indications of house checks being on the door, they were on the rooftops. Insane. The way the spray paint worked was there would be a big X. It included the date and the initials of the group that checked. The main part was the bottom part which included the number of dead found. Sad, yes, but in this section of NOLA, it was just depressing. They are STILL finding people. Holy crap guys. A lot of the houses were in the middle of the street or off their foundations or just totally in disrepair. I have a feeling that many will not come back, just because they can't afford to fix it. We saw where the levee breached and we saw a really depressing Joe's Crab Shack. A lot of the boats were still scattered to and fro. After being thoroughly depressed, we went to Canal St. and saw all the looted places and finally got to the French Quarter. It was glorious, yet kinda creepy. It was darker and less populated than it should have been, but it had all the drunkards and strip joints anyone could ask for! I got hit on a lot, which was weird. I had a beignet (yum), visited all the key places and visited a candlelight carol sing at Jackson Square. I even asked a giant grenade if I could have a picture with him. That is the first time I have even been turned down by an angry grenade. Probably not the last. And yes, the hookers have come back to New Orleans. While we took Rue Bienville to escape Bourbon, this random guy started following the group of five girls that I was with. It was scary. He wasn't just like six feet behind us, but actually walking RIGHT THERE. We switched sides of the street many times, but he remained. Finally, when we got back to Decatur, he rushed ahead of us, saw a group of cops, and turned around toward us. Thankfully he walked past us, but I had my mace out and the other girls had knives and other assorted weapons. No one fucks with us.... beyotch. After the goodness that the French Quarter had to offer, we saw the famous looted Wal-Mart. haha. It was a good day.
December 19th: We started working on our sixth cleaning/demolition site. At first it was like "OMG we are never going to get done." Although the water hadn't gone all the way to the ceiling, it was still a shithole. There was one of those Time Magazine picturesque moments, too. There was a soggy Times-Picayune paper on the couch with the headline "Katrina Takes Aim" on it. Wow. Seriously. This neighborhood was not as well-off financially as the others were. We talked to a guy that said that a man had been killed on the corner of the street a week before the hurricane. That was sobering. There were a lot of houses that dead people had once inhabited. But anyways, this house had baby clothes all over it and college applications, which made it sadder. We also found a dead canary (cry cry cry) and some dead fish (cry cry cry). Wow. It only took us two hours to clean that place out. We had become experts. Some of us walked down the street to talk to random people that were there. No one seemed bitter. Everyone was hopeful. We met some really hot construction workers from Houston that were working on a roof. It was nice to be flirted with, even though I looked nasty that day. Yummy. I have no problem with the roofin' men. Ha! Anyways, we got a nice picture in front of a trashpile and left for showerville. After I accidentally spilled Josh out of his wheelchair, and after dinner, we left for Meridian, Mississippi. We slept in the loudest gym ever. Every 20 minutes, there was LOUD clanking in the ceiling. Haunted gym! Shana, Lindsey, Laurel, and I slept by the Christmas tree in the gym. It was nice. Then the next day, I slept pretty much the whole way home. Thank you haunted gym!
This is lame, but I think that this was pretty much the most meaningful Christmas that I have ever had. This Christmas I hardly ever thought about myself or what presents to buy. I was completely selfless and it felt great. I hope PROWL goes back. I sure as hell know I am going back, no matter what.
*New Orleans Story* A real update this time. I swear.
So, Tuesday, December 13th. That is where I will start, because it is the beginning.
Dec. 13th: I woke up early, totally messed up my Spanish final and went back home to pack. Eventually, 11 rolled around and I went five blocks to the Christian Center, where I was to meet the people I was riding with. It was really rather funny to see me walking down the street with a backpack, duffel bag, sleeping bag, and many different papers and packages. I dropped off my application at the alumni house, deposited money at the bank, and I dropped my stuff off at the center after what seemed like the longest five blocks of my life. Then I gave Mary her secret sister Christmas present. Good times. After that, I went with Marie, Josh, and Tawny to Nashville. As soon as I got in the car, I had the biggest feeling of relief ever. We went to Jolly Pirate for coffee (or in my case, hot chocolate). PROWL is a group that thrives on one basic principal: Coffee is our life. It is hard to be a chocolate lover with that happening. The ride there was wonderufl though, quite calming, and I really got to know everyone better. We arrived in Nashville, got lost for a very long time, ate at a very TASTY local restaurant, and slept in what the church there called "the boy scout hut," which turned out to be a large house. I tried to get a hold of Erin to get to go see her, but I couldn't travel all the way to Murfreesboro, and her parents took away her car. DAMMIT. We will see each other again sometime. Thank God for mattresses. I saw a picture in the bathroom of scenes from the Ernest Goes To Camp movie. Turns out that the scout troop was in the food fight scene in that movie. Funny. You always have to wonder where these people come from. Then we went to sleep.
December 14: We wake up and start on our way to New Orleans. When we got there, I about shat myself. This place that I have always wanted to visit somehow turned into a shit fest. There was trash everywhere and you couldn't open your eyes without seeing something almost completely destroyed. There were homeless people everywhere and disaster relief workers and it was all very overwhelming. It looked like a war scene. I took a lot of pictures. There were also tell tale water marks on all of the houses. We lived in a house next to the church that was running the recovery program that we were with. The house was really nice and reminded me of a southern mansion... with fluorescent lights of course. Blech. There were two other groups there: some seminary students and a group from East Carolina U, who we got along with well. Laurel also forgot her birthday today. There was a man named Tyrone who worked for the church who had been displaced and now lives in the house we stayed in. He talked of all that he had seen, and how his daughter had been on Oprah because she was building a house for her. Oprah held his grandson. I seriously love Oprah now. *tear. Tyrone showed us some interesting scary pictures of devastation and then left. Good guy, though. There was a really big thunderstorm that kept me awake for most of the night, contently listening. I think storms are louder down there.
December 15: When we got to the work site (Elysian Fields/Ninth Ward Area) I was pretty much, well, the mood cannot be described. I felt such compassion for these people, and yet, I was really glad that I didn't live there. We worked on two houses that day: the father's house and the daughters house. The smell was UNBEARABLE. They had water go all the way to the ceiling, and almost everything was either covered in toxic mold, or about to be that way. I was based in the fathers house. The goal of the day was to get everything out of the house, including the carpets and things on the walls. We set to work and stopped for lunch. We were supposed to take regular breaks, but I found that if I did that I would start crying. So I didn't stop. It was really hard to eat lunch, because the contents of the refridgerator had spilled pretty much everywhere and it smelled like rotting people. The owner/father, Chris Quest, stopped by and we gave him the pictures that we had saved from the house and he started crying. I felt so bad for him. We all gave him hugs and listened to his story. Then we set back to work. We got everything out of the house by about 3:30. By the end, Dan had hit me in the face with a moldy pillow, Benton had saved me from the cockroach in the bathroom and I felt completely gross. The place was so weird, because you could tell that it was a thriving neighborhood at one point, but there was no one around. We were the only people in the neighborhood. It was like a ghost town. The scariest thing would be going by the houses that had markings that showed that people had died in that particular house. I got the last shower when we got back, so I was bathing in cold water. I was so gross that I didn't care though. We all joked about our forming toxic mold pimples.
December 16: Today we tore down drywall in the two houses we worked on yesterday. It was soooooo theraputic. Tawny called me her she-ro. haha. I didn't stop that day. I took all of my aggression out on the walls. And I was wielding a badass crowbar. I think that is my new weapon of choice. We were punching holes through the walls into other rooms with our fists and kicking the shit outta things and it was just glorious. Simply glorious. Chris Quest came again and thanked us for giving him hope to rebuild. Once they get all the wood treated in there, and replace the floor, they can begin again. We did it all for free, while other places in New Orleans charge by the square foot. We saved him a lot of money. He vowed to bring us doughnuts the next day at our new work site. As for me, I got one of the first showers that day. It was frickin glorious. So warm and good. That night we went to the Celebration of the Oaks. It is this annual thing they do in the park where there are a bunch of Christmas lights and running children. It actually reminded me that it was really close to Christmas. Odd.
December 17: Today was Saturday. Chris Quest arrived with doughnuts. He was so grateful to us. I love that man, and I hope to see him again someday. We spilt our group of about 20 people up in two groups: One at a church in the distribution center for clothing, and one in the church's mance cleaning up hurricane damage. I was in the second group. There was no flood damage, just hurricane damage. We mainly tore out walls and cleaned up ceiling tiles. Then we moved over to some apartments that the church owned. That is where I started feeling really shitty about the whole situation. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. This addict had lived one of the apts. we worked on, and there were needles everywhere. Grar. Then we were told to start knocking down walls. Then we were told we weren't supposed to do that. Then we were told to knock down the ceiling in another apartment. However, many different wild animals lived there (frogs, cockroaches, a bunny, and many rats), and it smelled, and it was cramped space. I got frustrated and left. Later I heard they were told to stop knocking down the ceiling over there too, so they left. I, however, was in the distribution center at this point. The center was a lot more fun. We got to organize clothes, which was a nice change. We went to dinner at Frankie and Johnnies, the local hole in the wall. It was nice. Great even. I ordered cheese fries and a meatball po' boy. Sooo good. Other things that I sampled that night included alligator soup and seafood gumbo. Holy crap. Alligator actually tastes pretty good. After that, all of the older people went out to a pub while the rest of us stayed and played loaded questions. It was really fun to get to know everyone, and at one point, we got really hyper. It was... interesting. Somehow, everyone figued out that I think Tobey Mcguire is quite.... fuckable. Yes. Campus Christian Organization trip, I know. I am still human dammit.
December 18: Today Lindsey, Laurel, and I took care of the nursery in the church. I kinda wanted to go to church, since they were singing Christmas songs with the Phil Harmonic, or at least parts of it, but I heard some of it outside with the kids. I was in charge of the crazy five year olds. Gawd. Insane. Then we left and at lunch at Reginelli's. My cousin manages it, but he wasn't there, which pissed me off, because I tried hard all week to get in touch with people, and they never answered. The phones were still wacky though, so that might have been it. Plus, most of them were displaced. Anyways, I wish there was a Reginellis in Huntington. The salad was great and the pizza divine. Sigh. After that we went on a hardcore tour of New Orleans to all of the key places. First we went to the ninth ward. There, instead of the spray paint indications of house checks being on the door, they were on the rooftops. Insane. The way the spray paint worked was there would be a big X. It included the date and the initials of the group that checked. The main part was the bottom part which included the number of dead found. Sad, yes, but in this section of NOLA, it was just depressing. They are STILL finding people. Holy crap guys. A lot of the houses were in the middle of the street or off their foundations or just totally in disrepair. I have a feeling that many will not come back, just because they can't afford to fix it. We saw where the levee breached and we saw a really depressing Joe's Crab Shack. A lot of the boats were still scattered to and fro. After being thoroughly depressed, we went to Canal St. and saw all the looted places and finally got to the French Quarter. It was glorious, yet kinda creepy. It was darker and less populated than it should have been, but it had all the drunkards and strip joints anyone could ask for! I got hit on a lot, which was weird. I had a beignet (yum), visited all the key places and visited a candlelight carol sing at Jackson Square. I even asked a giant grenade if I could have a picture with him. That is the first time I have even been turned down by an angry grenade. Probably not the last. And yes, the hookers have come back to New Orleans. While we took Rue Bienville to escape Bourbon, this random guy started following the group of five girls that I was with. It was scary. He wasn't just like six feet behind us, but actually walking RIGHT THERE. We switched sides of the street many times, but he remained. Finally, when we got back to Decatur, he rushed ahead of us, saw a group of cops, and turned around toward us. Thankfully he walked past us, but I had my mace out and the other girls had knives and other assorted weapons. No one fucks with us.... beyotch. After the goodness that the French Quarter had to offer, we saw the famous looted Wal-Mart. haha. It was a good day.
December 19th: We started working on our sixth cleaning/demolition site. At first it was like "OMG we are never going to get done." Although the water hadn't gone all the way to the ceiling, it was still a shithole. There was one of those Time Magazine picturesque moments, too. There was a soggy Times-Picayune paper on the couch with the headline "Katrina Takes Aim" on it. Wow. Seriously. This neighborhood was not as well-off financially as the others were. We talked to a guy that said that a man had been killed on the corner of the street a week before the hurricane. That was sobering. There were a lot of houses that dead people had once inhabited. But anyways, this house had baby clothes all over it and college applications, which made it sadder. We also found a dead canary (cry cry cry) and some dead fish (cry cry cry). Wow. It only took us two hours to clean that place out. We had become experts. Some of us walked down the street to talk to random people that were there. No one seemed bitter. Everyone was hopeful. We met some really hot construction workers from Houston that were working on a roof. It was nice to be flirted with, even though I looked nasty that day. Yummy. I have no problem with the roofin' men. Ha! Anyways, we got a nice picture in front of a trashpile and left for showerville. After I accidentally spilled Josh out of his wheelchair, and after dinner, we left for Meridian, Mississippi. We slept in the loudest gym ever. Every 20 minutes, there was LOUD clanking in the ceiling. Haunted gym! Shana, Lindsey, Laurel, and I slept by the Christmas tree in the gym. It was nice. Then the next day, I slept pretty much the whole way home. Thank you haunted gym!
This is lame, but I think that this was pretty much the most meaningful Christmas that I have ever had. This Christmas I hardly ever thought about myself or what presents to buy. I was completely selfless and it felt great. I hope PROWL goes back. I sure as hell know I am going back, no matter what.