Leslie Across the USA

So overwhelmed...

(Photo one is the FINISHED room that you saw in the previous post. Photo two is the team on a water break, and photo three is Jacques-Imo's.)
Well, I had envisioned writing an entry for the blog everyday. Turns out, after ripping muck and insulation and drywall out of a house, you're pretty tired! Still, I wanted to chronicle the past few days because my time in St. Bernards Parish is running out!
Our first night at Camp Premier, we met our team (called "Gold 3"). Here is our team:
Harrison, age 19 - Team Leader
Ben, age 20 - Tool Leader
Team members:
Mel, age unknown (maybe mid-thirties?)
Kelly, age 20
James, age 17
Sara, age 32
Mark, age 38
Melissa, age 29
Leslie, age 29
John, age 70
According to James, we all looked 25 (except for John, who he calls "Crazy John" or "Pops.")
We totally lucked out and got a great team.
Our first day of work had us finishing a house that another team had started. We were totally spoiled by this because we did not have to move any heavy furniture or appliances that were filled with rancid food and flood water. It took us nearly the entire day to finish the house, which means you remove everything that is removable from the home and bring it right down to the studs. About an hour before quitting time, we moved on to a new house.
This house had also been started by another team, so we were again spared from doing mucky work. However, this time, there were several rooms still filled with junk. For some reason, I felt the need to tackle the bathroom. It was completely disgusting and filled about two feet deep with junk. I found the computers in there, and I also discovered that the drawers in the countertop were filled with rancid water. I got one of the big strong boys (and John) to take the water-filled drawers out.
As I was cleaning out the bathroom, I heard Melissa call out, "Oh there really is a snake!!!!" There was one coiled up on top of the toilet in the bathroom where she was working. (They had warned us about snakes in the training.) She ran out, and I ran in to see it. Then Ben walked into the bathroom, grabbed the snake by the head, and took it out to the front yard to show Melissa that it was an extremely dangerous, venomous, lethal.....fake snake! He and James had found it cleaning out the back bedroom and set up the trick during an early water break. It was just the beginning of day filled with wildlife!
Later in the afternoon, I made the trek to the portapotties for a break. On my way there, I heard a woman scream and the word "rat." I felt glad that our house had already been divested of the old food and stuff, and I kept walking. On my way back, I met up with Melissa who told me that I was lucky because I missed the rat. She was the one who had screamed. Mark was taking out some insulation and a rat ran out and up his leg. He had been working in the very room I had been in before taking a break! Harrison had requested that we kill all vermin we encounter, but they told me that the rat had not been killed. Hmmm...I was not happy, but I got back to work anyway. Shortly, Mark was again buried deep in the master bedroom closet tackling more insulation and drywall, when he began to scream like a girl. (Now we call him Dr. McScreamy. Hee hee.) Another rat! I made a mad dash for the street because I obviously hate rats!!!!!!!! Thankfully, I didn't see the rat, and after a few minutes my heart palpitations died down. Also, thanks to the fast action of Ben, Harrison, and James the rat was now dead, so that helped me calm down. I went back in the house and decided to help finish it. I got a little obsessed with sweeping out every crumb of drywall and dust. I used a little broom and just went to town on the place. I took a water break and met the deputy fire chief of St. Bernard's Parish. He looked kind of like Dick Cheney but friendly. He told some crazy stories. He and his wife have been living in a FEMA trailer on their property. They're just waiting for permission from FEMA to rebuild. Something compelled me to return to finishing the house, even though the chief was still telling some great stories. You kind of get into a zone when you're working, and it feels so good to get a room finished and all clean. I envision the family returning to the house and being really sad at how little is left of their stuff, but then having a big huge party in their empty house, the kids rolling around on rollerskates, a barbecue out back, and people sitting around designing the new version of their old home.
Thanks to my "zoning out," I have now been dubbed "The Finisher." It sounds like the name of a comic book character. Maybe one of my students will chronicle my story!
We didn't get the house finished on this day, but we knew we would return in the morning. We'd be a little more tired and a little more sore, but we'd be back.
When we got back to camp, we showered and made a plan to go into New Orleans for dinner. We had some recommendations from a former resident, and we decided to check out Jacques-Imo's (we found out later it was pronounced Jacomo's). We convinced Sara (our teammate and tentmate) to join us for dinner. We couldn't take the Mini because it was still filled with our stuff, so we took her huge rental car. It was called a Jeep Commander, and it was certainly a commanding presence on the tiny, narrow roads of New Orleans. We had taken her car into the city the night before, and Sara had had an interesting time parking it in the world's most bizarre parking garage. This time, we took the scenic route to the restaurant and almost missed it. From the outside, Jacques-Imo's is quite modest, but inside it was a New Orleans wonderland. The food was expensive, but it was sooooooooooooooooooooooo good. I had freshly baked cornbread with garlic butter and parsley to start. It was defnitely the best cornbread I'd ever had. I had seconds. Then I shared some fried green tomatoes with Melissa. They were tender and spicy and perfectly cooked. YUM! For dinner, I had the fried chicken plate. It should have been called the fried chicken platter to serve 10. It was huge. No room for dessert! It was so delicious, and I took my leftover chicken back to the camp for the guards. We walked around for a little bit and explored one very weird and kind of smelly and also fascinating coffee shop. We also went into another coffee shop that was in an old bank. They let us look in the vault, and Sara was excited because she is studying historic preservation. The vault smelled just like the vault at my grandmother's house, which also used to be a bank. We went back to camp and immediately went to bed. Each night, it gets easier and easier to sleep on the cots in the tent because you are just so incredibly tired. Like right now. So tired. More tomorrow. I MUST tell you about day three. We finally started a new house from the beginning. Heartbreaking, stinky, fascinating, and gross all at the same time.

posted by Leslie @ 9:41 PM 0 comments

Road Trip Part Deux...New Orleans!

So, welcome back to my blog! It's been nearly a year since I started this one, and I kind of abandoned it when I got home from my last big road trip. I thought I'd continue this blog with my latest trip in JUDSMNI. This time, I'm with my cousin Melissa, and we headed down to New Orleans for Spring Break to do relief work for Hurricane Katrina. Yes, there is still a lot of work to be done down here on the Gulf Coast, even though the hurricane hit over seven months ago.
Not too long ago, Melissa decided to sign up with Habitat for Humanity to come to New Orleans and volunteer. She invited me to join her, and I accepted! We decided to drive down to New Orleans after school on Friday, April 7. We made it as far as Dublin, VA, which is in southwest Virginia. I was pretty surprised to discover just how big Virginia is. It's huge. It was gorgeous driving through the rest of Virginia and Tennessee the next day. It reminded me of England's or Ireland's countryside. Plus, it had rained buckets the day before, and everything was so lush and green. There were these intensely beautiful purplish-pinkish trees that lined the road. They are called redbuds (thanks, Juppy!), and they are so striking. I just love spring. We stopped for lunch in Knoxville, Tennessee, just in time to attend their annual Rossini Opera Festival! It was fun to walk around and see the booths and eat some food. We had "curly chips" which were not quite Italian, but they were yummy. There were lots of very hip people at the festival, so it left me with a nice impression of Knoxville. I hadn't really known much before about Tennessee besides Elvis, Country Music, and my friend Tafanie.
The next day as we headed to Birmingham, Alabama, we stopped in Scottsboro, Alabama, to see if we could find a marker or memorial referencing the famous trials of the Scottsboro Boys. After initially being disappointed that we didn't see anything about the trial, we finally found it. I decided we should check behind the courthouse, and sure enough, the historical marker was around back. As we headed out of town, we stumbled upon a store called Unclaimed Baggage. We were so curious that we checked it out. Melissa thought it was a store where you purchase suitcases that were never claimed, and what you get is whatever is in the bag. I thought it had something to do with unclaimed baggage (duh), but I thought this was kind of creepy, so then I thought it was just a clever name. But, we were both sort of right. The greeter inside the store told us that it is a company that bids on the contents of unclaimed baggage and cargo from airports and then sells it. They had everything from clothes to books to jewelry to large things like couches and TVs. There was even a little cafe in there. Clearly people make a day of going to Unclaimed Baggage. It was weird. I decided my mom would like this store, but the prices at Goodwill/Salvation Army are way better. Anyway, you can learn more about it here: www.unclaimedbaggage.com. As we headed down to Birmingham, we were cruising along at a good pace (I was driving) and in the distance, I saw another car. We were on a back road in Alabama, and I could not tell what kind of car it was. Sure enough, its blue lights on the roof lit right up, and I was like, "Shoot! Not again!" I have already gotten TWO tickets in the Mini this year. I slammed on the brakes. But, surprisingly, the police officer did not pull me over. He apparently was just giving me a friendly heads-up that 75 miles per hour was too fast for a back road (hey, it was kind of deserted...). I love southern hospitality!
We stayed the night with Melissa's friend Mary in Birmingham, Alabama. She is quite a world-traveler, and they met on Melissa's trip to Egypt last summer. She was super gracious, and she had a lovely Basset Hound named Millie. It was fun to sit around and listen to stories about their time in Egypt and all the other places Mary had traveled. We got up early the next day to make the drive to Camp Premier in St. Bernards Parish, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans. We had gained an hour by switching to Central time, so that helped. We got to drive through Alabama and Mississippi, and while it was not as picturesque as Virginia and Tennessee, I was excited to check those states off my list.
Once we came within 20 miles or so of New Orleans, we started to see the effects of the hurricane. Trees lining the road were bent and broken. As we got closer and closer to the city, we saw more effects. Lots of stores were closed; even Six Flags was closed. There were lots of billboards and advertisements for building materials or services. There were also lots of billboards that referenced the hurricane. We found the camp very easily, and it was as we were driving to camp that we saw the most visibly graphic signs of a disaster. Very few stores and restaurants were open, and most of them didn't look like they were anywhere near opening soon. As soon as we arrived at the camp, a guard asked me about the Mini. IT was just another example of the friendliness we have experienced so much on our trip so far. It seems the the farther south we go, the friendlier people are. So far, living at Camp Premier is interesting to say the least. It is very similar to being in the military (as far as I know!), and as I write this, I am sitting on my FEMA-issued cot in my climate-controlled FEMA-issued tent. We had our first day of work today after a long orientation session yesterday. I'm too pooped to write about it now, but I will tomorrow, I promise. I will just say this: The damage is much worse than you can imagine. It feels unreal. It feels like an apocalypse has occurred. I have taken lots of photos, but they won't do it justice. Volunteers AND tourists are still needed, so you just may have to come and see for yourself.
(The photos are of our camp's entrance and the house we are currently working on clearning. The house has been untouched since the flood. More on that tomorrow!)

posted by Leslie @ 9:17 PM 0 comments