Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Day 2 (for me)
Today at breakfast we were greeted with the steretypical food of the south grits! The owner of the inn said she was loosing it on thursday which is a sad but helpless situation. I wish there was more time to raise money but it seems like its too late. The interesting thing about her story is that people wouldn't expect people who are currently living in nice houses in nice parts of town to be suffering as much as those that were in the 9th ward. It seems funny that our goverment cannot make exeptions in times of disaster. The next part of the day was working on habitat. The progress that habitat has made is inspiring exspecially the cheerfulness of the colorful andy warhol like scene of the mass produced (thankfully) houses. I wish there was more orginzation so that we could of helped more but at least we got out there. Lunch also was a good example of New orleans with the traditional dishes and friendly waiters who loved the phrase "hey baby." I think the best part of the day was seeing people back in their homes on their porches watching construction being made by habitat. This is exactly what the people of New Orleans need to see, help actually coming, change being made. It is important for these people to know people care, and that there is hope. Another thing I found interesting is that the people who are back in their homes kept up the spray paint on their houses. I wonder if this morbid scar is a reminder to themselves, the rest of the world, or those that didn't have bodies in their homes as a sign of gratitude.
more photos
This is how high the water was in the upper ninth ward.
This shows that powdered sugar is not just for eating!
Brian Round 2.
Well the whole bad trip thing has continued, but in different ways then I expected. Nothing too bad, and on a whole it is still a really good time, but a few minor complications still seem to rear their ugly heads. But first lets continue right where we left off last night:
After the arrival of Adrianna and finishing up some personal finanace stuff we got back into our van and headed down to an old steel works. Here we dined on some fine pizza and beer, before watching a presentation that is being used for the state archives. The presentation was amazing and the man doing it was very knowledgeable about it as well as opinionated. The real thing I got from this presentation was a realization that yes it was a terrible event and a lot of people suffered and are still suffering, but people suffer like this every day through out the world. You may not agree with this view, but I find it to be very true, yet they are not as well documented, because they are not so close to home.
Another problem I have is that they are rebuilding the city, yet they haven't done anything to improve their systems and are pretty much just replacing the ones they had in place. What the hell is the point in that if in a couple years we could have another storm and the same consequences, or worse. Why would you start rebuilding before you know that you have a system that will not fail? I know that some people might not have any other place to go, but something needs to be done about it.
After watching this presentation we continued on to a coffee shop and ate some of the local cuisine once again in the form of beignets, which as you well know by now are squares of fried dough sprinkled with lots of powdered sugar. We munched these down and then Xander and I couldn't resist but to throw the sugar at each other looking like we had just been in a huge battle with a small fortune worth of cocaine. After this we headed home and I retired to my oh so lovely pull out bed which I am very sure Xander will be delighted to sleep on tonight.
Now things were great again until early this morning. I had set my alarm for 7 am to be at breakfast by 7:30, but somehow I didn't hear it or even when Jean called me to find out where the heck we were. I don't know how I didn't hear it because my phone is pretty loud, but 8:10 rolled around and we got a little wake up knock on our door. So we threw on our clothes and headed out with the rest of them. We loaded up into our van once again and headed out to the Habitat for Humanity project site. When we got there people were already working on the houses and there were so many that it is amazing that they are able to organize it and get anything done. The thing is we found out that the organization did leave something to be desired, but in the end they seem to get things done.
When we arrived we finally got directions on what we were supposed to be doing and our task for the day was to tress a house. The first thing we had to do was remove boards from the top of the frame that were there for dry wall. So Pat and Bear were up top prying up the boards and dropping them down for us to remove the nails from so that no one would accidently step on one. That was my one job at the time, remove nails so people did not step on them, well of course guess who ends up stepping on a board with his full weight, right on top of a nail facing up. Yeah, you guessed it. The thing was is it really didn't hurt too much at first cause I was kind of in shock and thought oh well maybe it didn't go that deep and I'll be able to shrug it off and keep going. As I went to remove my foot there was a slight problem and that was that the board was now nailed into my foot and I had to do some pulling to get unattached from the board. So I pull the board off my foot and try to see if it hurts now. I was hoping still that I would be able to just continue on like nothing happened but after just a couple of steps I realized that I probably should do something and that it was indeed bleeding quite a bit. At this point no one had known what had happened, so I proceed down a ladder to the back of the house where everyone else is carrying the tresses to be placed upon the house, I sit down and begin to remove my show and look at the damage. As I get my shoe off I was right and it was bleeding quite a bit, but nothing hospital worthy at all. So I finally show people and they get their on site "medic" who also happened to be a first responder for the Red Cross. Oh was Catherine excited...... Anyways he put some Neosporin on it and then bandaged it up and sent me on my merry way, because honestly what the hell else can you do for that kind of injury.
At this point I wasn't sure how hard to walk it would be, but Jean being always prepared had plenty of Advil with so I popped some of those down and it didn't hurt to bad after that. So we continue with our work and begin to carry the trusses up to the roof. We had got 3 up there when we kind of looked at them and realized they didn't reach all the way to the ends of the house and were too small. We got this confirmed and then had to bring the trusses back down and restack them. Luckily we hadn't got to far because a couple houses down they had the wrong tresses on also, but they had them nailed in and all set up. Now we had no tresses to put up so our task was to build a tress walk to make the job easier for when it was finally actually going to happen. We completed this and after that it was pretty much lunch time.
We dined at a restaurant, I have no idea what it was called, but some one must have known, with some very southern things on the menu. It was delicious, and I am sure just so good for you, but really the fact of the matter was that it was really good. After that we headed back to our bread and breakfast and got to learn what the hell Pat actually does as well as work on our own financial plans with him. Now it is time for me to go use my shath and prepare for dinner, good day.
After the arrival of Adrianna and finishing up some personal finanace stuff we got back into our van and headed down to an old steel works. Here we dined on some fine pizza and beer, before watching a presentation that is being used for the state archives. The presentation was amazing and the man doing it was very knowledgeable about it as well as opinionated. The real thing I got from this presentation was a realization that yes it was a terrible event and a lot of people suffered and are still suffering, but people suffer like this every day through out the world. You may not agree with this view, but I find it to be very true, yet they are not as well documented, because they are not so close to home.
Another problem I have is that they are rebuilding the city, yet they haven't done anything to improve their systems and are pretty much just replacing the ones they had in place. What the hell is the point in that if in a couple years we could have another storm and the same consequences, or worse. Why would you start rebuilding before you know that you have a system that will not fail? I know that some people might not have any other place to go, but something needs to be done about it.
After watching this presentation we continued on to a coffee shop and ate some of the local cuisine once again in the form of beignets, which as you well know by now are squares of fried dough sprinkled with lots of powdered sugar. We munched these down and then Xander and I couldn't resist but to throw the sugar at each other looking like we had just been in a huge battle with a small fortune worth of cocaine. After this we headed home and I retired to my oh so lovely pull out bed which I am very sure Xander will be delighted to sleep on tonight.
Now things were great again until early this morning. I had set my alarm for 7 am to be at breakfast by 7:30, but somehow I didn't hear it or even when Jean called me to find out where the heck we were. I don't know how I didn't hear it because my phone is pretty loud, but 8:10 rolled around and we got a little wake up knock on our door. So we threw on our clothes and headed out with the rest of them. We loaded up into our van once again and headed out to the Habitat for Humanity project site. When we got there people were already working on the houses and there were so many that it is amazing that they are able to organize it and get anything done. The thing is we found out that the organization did leave something to be desired, but in the end they seem to get things done.
When we arrived we finally got directions on what we were supposed to be doing and our task for the day was to tress a house. The first thing we had to do was remove boards from the top of the frame that were there for dry wall. So Pat and Bear were up top prying up the boards and dropping them down for us to remove the nails from so that no one would accidently step on one. That was my one job at the time, remove nails so people did not step on them, well of course guess who ends up stepping on a board with his full weight, right on top of a nail facing up. Yeah, you guessed it. The thing was is it really didn't hurt too much at first cause I was kind of in shock and thought oh well maybe it didn't go that deep and I'll be able to shrug it off and keep going. As I went to remove my foot there was a slight problem and that was that the board was now nailed into my foot and I had to do some pulling to get unattached from the board. So I pull the board off my foot and try to see if it hurts now. I was hoping still that I would be able to just continue on like nothing happened but after just a couple of steps I realized that I probably should do something and that it was indeed bleeding quite a bit. At this point no one had known what had happened, so I proceed down a ladder to the back of the house where everyone else is carrying the tresses to be placed upon the house, I sit down and begin to remove my show and look at the damage. As I get my shoe off I was right and it was bleeding quite a bit, but nothing hospital worthy at all. So I finally show people and they get their on site "medic" who also happened to be a first responder for the Red Cross. Oh was Catherine excited...... Anyways he put some Neosporin on it and then bandaged it up and sent me on my merry way, because honestly what the hell else can you do for that kind of injury.
At this point I wasn't sure how hard to walk it would be, but Jean being always prepared had plenty of Advil with so I popped some of those down and it didn't hurt to bad after that. So we continue with our work and begin to carry the trusses up to the roof. We had got 3 up there when we kind of looked at them and realized they didn't reach all the way to the ends of the house and were too small. We got this confirmed and then had to bring the trusses back down and restack them. Luckily we hadn't got to far because a couple houses down they had the wrong tresses on also, but they had them nailed in and all set up. Now we had no tresses to put up so our task was to build a tress walk to make the job easier for when it was finally actually going to happen. We completed this and after that it was pretty much lunch time.
We dined at a restaurant, I have no idea what it was called, but some one must have known, with some very southern things on the menu. It was delicious, and I am sure just so good for you, but really the fact of the matter was that it was really good. After that we headed back to our bread and breakfast and got to learn what the hell Pat actually does as well as work on our own financial plans with him. Now it is time for me to go use my shath and prepare for dinner, good day.
in habitat we truss...
ok last night; so after last nights blog we went to dinner and had pizza n beer, simple yet most bodacious dude. we also were treated to a slide show of pictures taken by don(?) young which were all during and after the katrina incident. the presentation was cool bc it was all local photographers and music that were very good. the only thing was that this guy would NOT STOP. it was a great presentation but dangit we were drinkin beers and all had to pee. so ya, after, on the way back, pat/"ted" got us to stop at a bengat(??) place where we ate square donuts with more powdered sugar than a columbian would know what to do with, which meant we all wound up wearing some. and after that we went to sleep, though bonzi and i couldnt so we just watched south park. then i got woken up by randy at 810 saying we were late....our alarms had not gone off. and for all you haters out there, YES WE HAD ONE SET! (and were only 10 min late so ya. so we woke up quickly and jumped in the van and got to the habitat village for musicians. we didnt really do much except for carrying truss's which are the main support for the roofs. and after randy and i finished our never ending ferrying of 24' truss's it turned out that we needed 26' truss's.....this is about when we learned that this place has poor organization, the most likely cause being that it was on such a large scale, ie a whole dang neighborhood. so when we were let out an hour early we went to lunch at a nice lil diner/cafe that had some good home style sountern food. i had fried chicken an taters. it was a nice place but they did not seem to want to give me a dang drink, i ordered 3 different drinks thinking that they didnt think i should have any of my previous order attempts of soda/tea so i eventually jus got schmertz to grab me a coke....stupid waitress. but ya it rained and we came back and had a meeting where pat/"ted" told us what he does and then met with us each so that we could figure out ways to make personal budgets. and now i have to do stupid hmwk and then shower bc we are going somewhere, i dunno, for dinner and then apparentl a ghost tour that starts where ever dinner is so i think that shall also be interesting.
Happy Tuesday
Hi from Jeano -
Today has been hot & sticky and very sandy! Let's see, I haven't told you about last night...
Patrick E. Trimble arrived about 5:30 and we all got changed for dinner. Bear picked us up at 6:30 and we headed to an old ironworks building that had been restored by Diana's parents (Bear's girlfriend!). It was a very cool old building - the perfect place to have a party. We had a very delicious salad and then pizza. Diana picked the pizza up and she got one that was vegie - super yummy with tomatoes, basil, spinach and yucko mushrooms that were easy to pick off as Xander and I proved to Brian! After dinner we were very lucky to view a presentation by a famous photographer named Don Young. Don lost everything in katrina including almost 1 million photos. He lost pictures he had taken of Ray Charles, Fats Domino, etc. For the past two years he has been living in different neighborhoods in tents or trailers and documentating the clean up. This is one man with an opinion, and I don't blame him. He is very passionate and I am very glad that we made the decision to come to New Orleans. It is very obvious that this community needs lots of help!!!
After we left there, we drove through the French Quarter. Saw lots of working women! Pat had us stop for some kind of French doughnuts, I can't remember the name and no one is around to ask. Pam, Cristy and I all split an order. There was powered suger everywhere. (I have photos that I will try and upload later) Anyway, after that we had a leftover bag and as we were walking to the van, Pat gave the leftovers to Ramone. A very hungry homeless man going through the garbage to find food. This was one man that did not want money or booze, he was just hungry.
This morning we were up early and had breakfast by Anna. Another delicious offering. First course, strawberries, yogurt & granola (this should have been it!) Then egg souffle, grits & ham. My momma will be so proud of me as I actually at the grits and liked them!
After breakfast it was off to build houses. We moved tresses from one pile to the back of the house the we were working on and then started to bring them up the ladder to the top of the house. We had three up there when someone realized that they were the wrong size. I, however, had already mentioned that I didn't think they were long enough and even bet Bear. He now owes me a Snowball (like a snowcone). Randy also didn't think they were long enough as they did not have an overhang. Anyway, we then had to move them off the house and then do some other building until we could find the right size. WOW, was it hot and sweaty!
Afterwards we headed to lunch at Lil' Dizzy's. Good ole southern food - gumbo, fried chicken, grits, okra, etc. Oh and sweet tea! My momma would be loving it! I am actually drinking some right now.
It stormed this afternoon and we all got a little wet, but we have been in meetings all afternoon, so that's ok that it is raining. However, it has now stopped and if that sun comes out, it is going to be steaming!
Tonight we have eatting at a cajun place in the French Quarter and then off on the ghost tour. I am very excited about this! Although I may be the one jumping in bed with Cat & Lisa later!!
Rumer has it that another Beer might be on the way. Cross your fingers!
Love,
Jean
Today has been hot & sticky and very sandy! Let's see, I haven't told you about last night...
Patrick E. Trimble arrived about 5:30 and we all got changed for dinner. Bear picked us up at 6:30 and we headed to an old ironworks building that had been restored by Diana's parents (Bear's girlfriend!). It was a very cool old building - the perfect place to have a party. We had a very delicious salad and then pizza. Diana picked the pizza up and she got one that was vegie - super yummy with tomatoes, basil, spinach and yucko mushrooms that were easy to pick off as Xander and I proved to Brian! After dinner we were very lucky to view a presentation by a famous photographer named Don Young. Don lost everything in katrina including almost 1 million photos. He lost pictures he had taken of Ray Charles, Fats Domino, etc. For the past two years he has been living in different neighborhoods in tents or trailers and documentating the clean up. This is one man with an opinion, and I don't blame him. He is very passionate and I am very glad that we made the decision to come to New Orleans. It is very obvious that this community needs lots of help!!!
After we left there, we drove through the French Quarter. Saw lots of working women! Pat had us stop for some kind of French doughnuts, I can't remember the name and no one is around to ask. Pam, Cristy and I all split an order. There was powered suger everywhere. (I have photos that I will try and upload later) Anyway, after that we had a leftover bag and as we were walking to the van, Pat gave the leftovers to Ramone. A very hungry homeless man going through the garbage to find food. This was one man that did not want money or booze, he was just hungry.
This morning we were up early and had breakfast by Anna. Another delicious offering. First course, strawberries, yogurt & granola (this should have been it!) Then egg souffle, grits & ham. My momma will be so proud of me as I actually at the grits and liked them!
After breakfast it was off to build houses. We moved tresses from one pile to the back of the house the we were working on and then started to bring them up the ladder to the top of the house. We had three up there when someone realized that they were the wrong size. I, however, had already mentioned that I didn't think they were long enough and even bet Bear. He now owes me a Snowball (like a snowcone). Randy also didn't think they were long enough as they did not have an overhang. Anyway, we then had to move them off the house and then do some other building until we could find the right size. WOW, was it hot and sweaty!
Afterwards we headed to lunch at Lil' Dizzy's. Good ole southern food - gumbo, fried chicken, grits, okra, etc. Oh and sweet tea! My momma would be loving it! I am actually drinking some right now.
It stormed this afternoon and we all got a little wet, but we have been in meetings all afternoon, so that's ok that it is raining. However, it has now stopped and if that sun comes out, it is going to be steaming!
Tonight we have eatting at a cajun place in the French Quarter and then off on the ghost tour. I am very excited about this! Although I may be the one jumping in bed with Cat & Lisa later!!
Rumer has it that another Beer might be on the way. Cross your fingers!
Love,
Jean
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