Half Way Mark

So the past 7 weeks have been CRAZY. We have had many ups and downs, but overall I have enjoyed my time in New Orleans. I am certainly ready for a break from the work and am looking forward to a little relaxation time at home. I need a little normal, real life environment, surrounded by people who know me best and love me for who I am. That has been the toughest part of the last couple months. Our team has struggled to overcome the drastic differences between us. There have been numerous fights and disagreements. We always work through them, but it's tough when you are living in such close quarters and we are from such different backgrounds.

So this project has been A LOT of grunt work/punch out. Rebuilding Together is still trying to finish the 50 homes that were part of the 5 year anniversary of Katrina event. For the past 7 weeks we have painted, built fences, completed lead cleaning, and done various other small, at times mundane tasks. It was frustrating sometimes to feel as if we were not making much of a difference. To add to it, we often moved from site to site on a daily basis, and we unable to track the progress we made from day to day. One thing that was helpful was that our sponsor gave us a giant list of the progress we made over the last few weeks, to show us that we actually were doing work and it was meaningful. Overall, everyone at RTNO is really great. Almost all of our supervisors are about my age, so we were able to chat about similar experiences from college and other things.

One of my supervisors actually went to Waldorf School, which is so GREAT! She and I bonded about our similar childhoods and our experiences at different Waldorf schools in New England. Another one of my supervisors is from Bridgewater, MA and went to UMass Amherst. He and I talked for over 8 hours about Boston and Western MA. It was so comforting to have 2 people understand New England, the culture, weather, etc. I miss that and can’t wait to be home and share my stories from here with the people who I’m vulnerable with.

This past week we volunteered at an architecture exhibit hosted by AIA (American Institute of Architecture), which was spread across the city. There were 14 artists that had pieces based on New Orleans, in various buildings in the downtown area. The exhibit was called DesCours and ranged from backyard patios to empty warehouse buildings, to rooftops, to funeral homes. It was really interesting to see the different pieces as well as the spaces they were housed in.

So our next round project is in northern Mississippi work for the United Way and Natchez Trace Parkway. We will be doing renovation and beautification for the United Way, close to campus, for the first couple weeks and then will travel to northern MS to do PRESCRIBED BURNS in the national parks. I am excited for the opportunity to use the training we received last round, but am a little disappointed because we did not receive our first choice of project. The other fire team will be traveling around North Carolina, doing small burns in various parks around the state. I was really excited to camp and travel to a different part of the south, not to mention the possibility of seeing the Chenier family in NC. Unfortunately we were not granted this project, and must stay in MS.