A life-changing experience

Our trip to New Orleans was profoundly moving to me on many levels. In a few words...a life-changing experience. I remember when we first met as a group and were asked "What are you expecting to get out of this trip?" This was my reply: "I have no expectations. I want to witness the destruction with my own eyes and to help people in any way that I can." All of us, adults and teens, did help in so many ways. People who know me know that I can sometimes speak and write in paragraphs not in mere sentences. But, rather than writing about my experiences for hours I wanted to share a few moments of when I was moved almost beyond words. For me, this is a humbling experience that doesn't happen often.

Surveying. This job didn't seem that exciting on the face of it. Get some maps, hit the streets with digital cameras and clipboards, take a few photos, complete a checklist...you're done! But, what was so amazing and palpable was making personal connections with complete strangers. When I canvassed one day with Alex we were talking about what seemed to be a brand-new home and a shed out back with a caved-in roof and blown-out windows. As we were talking a ~70'sish-year-old man (I can't remember his name) came down the driveway and said "Mornin'...what are you boys up to?" The tone of his voice was friendly, warm, and welcoming. He told us his story...growing up in the neighborhood two streets away, moving to and buying his home, raising a family, having his home wiped out by the storm, rebuilt by one of his contractor sons & his friends. We listened attentively and just let him speak. I felt blessed that he would allow himself to share. his life story on the street...stranger to stranger...the minutes sped by. "What happened to the shed?" I asked. "Oh, that got beat up in the storm too. I'm not going to touch it. It's a dang 'ole thing just like me. I told my boy not to touch it. He listen to me." Damn straight. I wouldn't touch it either. No need.

Vendredi Gras. We were invited to a reform shul for Kabbalat Shabbat, a potluck, and parades. After a wonderful service and dinner (featuring the best brisket and BBQ sauce I've ever eaten), we went outside. To our delight, three parades were ending up on St. Charles Street, the front door of the shul. At the start, the CDT and HBT adults mostly stayed behind a chain link fence. The floats that went by were AMAZING! I've walked in or attended Gay Pride in Boston, NYC, and San Francisco but these floats blew them away! The colors, artistry, and humor were UNBELIEVABLE! But I couldn't stay fenced in...I hit the street. Just a few feet away I felt the excitement and energy immediately. We screamed, yelled, and pleaded with krewe members to throw us beads, or the big prizes: doubloons, medallions, and stuffed animals. At one point an unofficial float went by...the members had no masks. A 30's-ish woman was in the back, dressed all in black. I caught her eye and pointed to some white beads sitting across my forehead. She smiled, winked, and pointed to her forehead. She'd clearly seen me. She reached down to get something. I started to run after the truck. She handed me a stuffed Easter Bunny. I felt an immediate rush of adrenaline. The connection to this woman was electric; I felt it throughout my entire body. I can't imagine what my face and body must have looked like, possessed I'm sure. I ran back to the CDT crowd to share the spoils. I threw myself at Gina, my crazed partner in all this revelry. We laughed, high-fived, and hugged each other.

So, what happens now? I've made a new commitment to myself for service. I've been a witness and feel like an evangelist telling people what we saw and did, the people we met. While I ride in the PMC every year, our trip to NOLA helped me to understand bigger things and to dedicate myself even more to helping others in real and palpable ways. I'm going to get involved in regular service activities and events, and also try to form long-term connections with TCC.

Tim

Drywalling After the Flood

The signs of lagging reconstruction in Holly Grove are more subtle by now. Many houses are in good shape, freshly painted, lawns mowed, streets clean. Other houses are neatly boarded up or leaning to one side at a comfortable angle as if they had outlived their usefulness. Sometimes only the faint outline of a marked X adorned with letters and numbers is visible on the side of a house facing the street. It takes an effort of perspective to see not shabby decline but rather the slow climb out of catastrophe. A group of us travelled to a well-kept house on Pear Street wondering what if any work was required at all. Bit by bit, matter of factly, the family's story came out as we looked over the piles of ruined possessions and debris still arranged in the backyard. Eight feet of water submerging the first floor, boat rescuing family and neighbors. Coming home again to find possessions gone from the house and a favorite houseplant suspiciously in residence at a nearby house, but deciding to keep eyes on the bigger picture.
Half of the first floor had already been renovated, but the other half had only been gutted of moldy walls and rotted wood, leaving a neat forest of often wobbly studs. We cleared out various possessions and supplies which were stored there and uncovered the three-foot stack of sheetrock panels waiting to become the home's new skin. A small space, really, 5-6 rooms. A good drywaller in new house could have knocked off this much before lunch. For us, though, progress was almost incidental to learning, solving problems, and wrestling with aging tools. We filled out the strapping - wood to which the drywall is fastened - and reconnected beams made rootless by rot and termite, then fitted in bats of fiberglass insulation. Cut panels to size, and cut again and again to fit the never quite square, never entirely even walls. Finally zipped home dozens and dozens of screws to turn the flimsy panels into solid walls and give us at least a sense of the space being restored to life.

The family members worked along with us, spent time with us telling their stories, seeing if we needed anything. A collaboration which gave all of them and us something of real value - well as new walls. Later in the week when someone admonished us not to think of our actions as charity, I realized that the thought had never even crossed my mind.

Reflection

I’m wary of the self-fulfillment stories that typically follow a service trip. I was bolstered in that opinion by George Clooney’s recent comments about his visit to the refugee camps in Chad. “I don’t think people should be going there and coming back and saying how it affected them,” Clooney said. “I think we should all know that these people are hanging on by the skin of their teeth.” The story I want to tell is about disaster relief, and what happens to a community after the initial flood (pardon the pun) of response dies down.

In conversations with survivors of the hurricane, what comes across is a sense of resilience and anger. Psychologists might characterize these victims as traumatized, and indeed they seem to view the world through a unique filter that thankfully most of us will never know. Many residents feel twice victimized, once by Nature and then by Humankind. I can only imagine how they feel watching Bobby Jindal proudly talk about Louisiana’s response to the Hurricane, while defending his decision to reject spending targeted for his state.

After the photographers leave, after the journalists start chasing other stories, the people of New Orleans remain hopeful and in need. Their houses are shuttered, the residents scattered to states near and far. The politics of poverty are evident everywhere. You have to see it to believe it.

In the end, of course, I did come away with my own story of personal change. But that’s not for this piece. I’ll leave with a story that someone else experienced. A homeowner, observing a member of our group taking pictures of his devastated house, asked her to come back after he had a chance to mow the lawn. I left New Orleans thinking about the humanity of that moment, and the people of Hollygrove, proud and resilient folks who, with a bit more help will surely rise again.

Heidi Brown

Judy, On Avodah

In addition to our day jobs, we’ve had several thought-provoking discussions with people working locally. A few nights ago 3 young recent college grads from AVODAH, a Jewish service group with similarities to Americorps told us about the projects they’re working with during their year-long assignments. One is focusing on environmental issues, another is working with Rebuilding Together, and the third is coordinating community services in a health clinic. I was struck by their positive energy and commitment to their work. A group of 9 are living communally, sharing meals, supporting each other at the end of their sometimes overwhelming workdays, and exploring how they want to incorporate Judaism into their new adult selves. I was so impressed with what they are accomplishing, and how happy they are to be living in community.

Gina, on Surveying

I have spent every day walking the blocks of Hollygrove, the neighborhood where we are living and working. The city of New Orleans has not conducted any census since Katrina, so TCC is surveying hundreds of blocks on its own, in an effort to create a database that will show how many houses are still standing, how many have been renovated, how many are gutted, blighted, etc. We set out with a clipboard, a map showing each city block and its street addresses, a questionnaire to be filled out about each property, and a digital camera.
When we get to a property we take four pictures and fill out the questionnaire that identifies the type and size of the house, its current condition, whether a resident is present, and any other salient information. We don’t knock on doors. But not a single block goes by without someone coming out to share a story. After a day or two I learned that one resident on a block can tell you about most of the houses on that block. So what I had originally recorded as just an empty, gutted property, I now know is a house whose owner died, and that the son of the owner lives out of state and hasn’t come home to claim his family’s house. When I visited another house, a woman came out, pulled a chair onto her porch, sat down, and said, “So, what’s going on?” ready to spend a moment or an afternoon.

I came here thinking that I would spend a day surveying and then most of the week building, which I find very satisfying. But I can’t stop surveying. Every morning I think about who’s out there with a story to share, ready to teach me something about this city and the power of the human spirit.

Amy, Painting an Experimental Home

Last December, my family and I spent our winter break Louisiana helping to rebuild after Hurricane Rita tore through the area, and returning to NOLA, this time to Hurricane Katrina territory has been both discouraging and inspiring. So much progress has been made, and yet there is so much more to do. What is most inspiring is meeting the people who live in areas that need so much work and hearing their stories. On my first day here I volunteered to go and paint a house, not really knowing whose house it was or what the job entailed. After arriving and getting instructions from our Americorps leader Dave-o, we got to work painting trusses and columns. Over the hours that we stood on ladders with our arms painting above our heads, we learned that the house belonged to Rev, a local reverend who had lost his house to a fire years ago and had rebuilt just in time for Katrina to blow by and destroy his house again.

This new experimental house is part of a student project from Clemson University in South Carolina. Three design students wanted to give back to the storm victims in New Orleans by working with residents to design and build new homes. Vinny, Rev’s archtect who established this project, moved down to New Orleans after graduating and has spent his entire life’s saving working on homes down here. Speaking to both Rev and Vinny has been inspiring. Rev comes by to check on his house every afternoon and is always smiling appreciatively. Vinny has so much passion for the work he is doing, moving from his hometown in New Hampshire to NOLA and speningd his days building homes for other people. The optimism of those who live here helps to encourage me whenever I feel like the work left is insurmountable. If people who see reminders of destruction everyday can look to the future, the least I can do is continue to return to New Orleans and build up all of our hopes.

Building a Shed

Today marked the fourth day of working on the shed. Now before you readers scowl at the minor word “shed,” understand that this is done by Clifford Goldsmith, maven of the art of working with inexperienced builders. This “shed” will have two stories and room for a pickup truck to park. As in any creation story, the beginning started with destruction. I was a surgeon with the mallet, knocking away the wood that originally held in the concrete foundation, the foundation that would cause much agony (explanation later). After the fun part, many volunteers, especially myself, realized that hammering a nail was not as easy as it looked whether because of the multiple direction of bends that we could create in one attempted swing, or the paralyzing pain in our forearms that would develop, deeming multiple Capri Sun breaks necessary. Yet life continued and experience came as well, and the walls for the first floor all went up with the help of our good friends from Americorps. Little did we know that the foundation that we put these walls on wasn’t level, so at least three hours were spent working on getting the building level with a quick-built lever and shims. Ostensibly, barely any work was done, but day two was probably the most grueling. Progress has been steady and I haven’t switched activities yet since I treat the shed as my child. I want to see it grow, even though I hit it with heavy metal objects. However, even though Clifford might be able to rally the troops next to that of the homilies of Henry V (a Shakespeare reference… hardy har har), in all likelihood we won’t finish the extravaganza that is the shed, but our fight continues…

Zach Miller