New Orleans Day 2: "Bondage"

Second day of the trip—pretty chill (chill as in the weather and in the degree of workload compared to yesterday's). We started off with a good night sleep (woke up at 7:30 instead of 5:30) and ate our breakfast in a cup. Immediately after that, we had some intimate bonding time—Dave likes to call it "bondage" time. That guy got jokes.

First, we drove to Walgreens, the warehouse, and loaded the truck with carpet (and paradise Fiji water for ourselves) to be delivered to a home. After we dropped off the carpet, we went back to the warehouse to pick up a barely workable lawnmower, weed whackers, rakes, hoes, and other gardening tools. Yep, basically all of that was kind of blurry to me—Sam drove a lot, we carried around carpet a lot, we picked up and dropped things a lot, I slept a lot (to conserve energy, of course), and we waited for a drawbridge to come down. For the rest of the day, we worked on the house's front and back lawn. Mostly we hacked and shoveled and pulled out overgrown weeds (others got bitten by fire ants). And, I operated the lawn mower and cut the lawn for the very first time. It was pretty wicked (: Oh yeah, we went back to the nursing home to pick up tools and karate-chopped drywall.

S6301277

That was pretty much it. Yes, the neighborhood we were in wasn't as shabby as the day before. And yes, the destructive effects of Katrina weren't as obvious (we didn't see or touch any eerie newspapers from 2005 and personal belongings of people). Perhaps today's work was not as grandiose as yesterday's, but it goes to show that the effects of the hurricane are pervasive. I will leave the deep reflections to Rosalie.

IMG_8710

We ended the day by stuffing ourselves with super delicious pizza at the Italian Pie and fresh beignets drenched in powder sugar from Café du Monde. I know we're ready to roll tomorrow!

Peace out and good night,
Angela Z.

For the past couple of days, driving through New Orleans has been pretty overwhelming. Even 2 and a half years after Katrina, there is still so much left to do. Just driving down I-10 revealed a plethora of houses who remained untouched since Katrina. For the first time in 2 and a half years, it actually hit me that Hurricane Katrina really happened. I had always seen the damage on tv but it never really seemed real to me. Seeing all the houses and schools and businesses that still had the dreaded X on them reminded me that this city was so far from being rebuilt. It finally occurred to me that so many people had still not returned and that many more would not be returning any time soon because of what Katrina had done to their city.

S6301326

As we were pulling weeds out of the yard of what used to be a fairly decent middle class house, we were a little upset that we weren't able to go back to the nursing home, though none of us really let it show. We wondered why we weren't helping those who really really need our help. Well after we finished doing the yardwork, we learned that this house belonged to a family who was once really involved in their church. Pre-Katrina, the dad was even a deacon in the church. Now, the family has nearly fallen apart and has pretty much stopped going to church. This family needed the help just as much as in any family in the ninth ward. God doesn't pick and choose who needs help and neither should we.

S6301310

Injury report:
Dave Kalloor -
1. fire ant bite: caused by fire ants involved with yardwork
2. cut inside flap between left thumb and pointer finger: caused by demolition in the nursing home.

Please continue to pray for us and the city of New Orleans

- Rosalie