gone

Howdy!

I miss you blog friends! I am at camp for a month, and can't really post or read too much. I'll try to catch up on everything with everyone this weekend.

Don't worry - chapter two is coming soon! ;)

xoxo

why

Sorry this is so big...

Okay, the only way I can think of to actually portray my trip is in chapters. Presuming I'm interesting enough (or that the story is) to compell you to read all this, of course.

Chapter One

I guess the best way to start is to talk about why I did this, and why people need to continue to do this. I did it because people need help. I knew that Habitat for Humanity actually helps people - helps them build homes for themselves, own homes themselves, and helps build community. Every morning, we recited,"Habitat is not a hand out, but a hand up," and that's why I did it.

I'm not trying to exploit damage or destruction or tragedy. But I know I had no idea what had really happened in New Orleans before I went, and I know now that what I saw just scratches the surface. Behind every smashed house, there's a family. Behind every picture, there's a story of someone's profound loss. We only went to one neighborhood, and from the safety of our warm, dry cars, saw one little part of a huge, unimaginable disaster. We made a promise to each other to come back and tell people what we saw, and to try to communicate to people how much there is to be done. I don't know, of course, where the people are, or how they are doing. But I do know that there aren't many people who can afford to pay a mortage on a house they can't be in, at the same time as they're paying rent. They may not have jobs, they may not have cars, they have lost so much. And as far as I can tell, there are not a lot of people helping them. And even the people who are can only do so much because our government is clearly doing nothing.

We didn't go to the Nineth Ward because there wasn't time - we went into New Orleans only once and only for a few hours. One of the people on the trip had been there before, and said that the houses are leveled. I don't want to think about what has happened to the people who lived there. I don't even want to think about the people who lived in the houses we saw. But how can you not?

I don't know how to make the pictures so you can click them and make them larger, so I hope you can see them well enough...

There are a lot more pictures. If you want to see all of them, email me and I'll send them to you. I promise the next "chapter" (so ridiculous) will be up soon, and will be more uplifting...

I don't know what to do with this, but here it is. Ten months later.

Above: I found this one particularly disturbing. Interesting what hits us, really. If you look closely, you can see the clothes hanging in the closet (on the left).

The hole on the roof was kicked out by the people inside so they could escape when the water came.

In case you can't read it, the sign says, "Allstate paid $10,113.34 on this house for storm damage."

One of the few signs of hope. There are a couple (out of hundreds) of houses that have been fixed (on the outside, at least), and have people living in them, but imagine what's in their water and air...

The spray paint there says "Michael where are you" and there's a phone number.

We saw a few people working on their homes. One man was sitting on a wall with his head in his hands. We saw a woman I can only describe as stately, probably in her sixties, standing outside her lovely brick home, right along the levee wall. She was in the driveway, dressed in nice clothes you'd expect someone to wear to church. Her house had big boards on the windows and doors, and had serious, visible damage. She was alone in the driveway, hosing it off. As if she couldn't manage to deal with the enormity of the situation, and was taking control of the one thing she could manage.

i'm ba-ack!

I had an absolutely amazing time in Louisiana! We worked really hard, putting in floors (that's what I did most of the time), painting, putting siding on houses, framing houses, etc. The group was amazing and the soon-to-be homeowners were inspiring! I'll tell you all about it later on, but for now, here's a photo of me helping to put up the frame of a new house!

And here's one of the whole group. I'll call the people who were in my group "team members" because I feel funny putting all their names here for some reason I don't quite understand. It was great that people from all over the country (and a guy from Canada) were there.

Starting in the front row, on the right, you have - one of the home owners, team member from OK, team member from CT, team member from PA, team member from OR, team member from MN, Danny from OK (1st team member's dad), team member from IL, team member from NY, and Mary Jane a homeowner.

2nd row - two care-a-vanners (they travel to Habitat sites in RVs), Delvin (the guy with his arm around the lady) the site construction supervisor, 3 more a care-a-vanners, team member from CA, me!, Miss Ida our favorite homeowner, team member from CA, team member from Canada, team member from PA, and team member from Washington DC.

3rd row - (starting with the guy in the yellow hat) a care-a-vanner, team member from TN, team member from NY, a homeowner, team member from IA, team member from TX (with the hat), team member from WI, team member from TX, team member from WI, team member from MD, and team member from PA.