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