day 18: sunday, january 22
Our morning began with a wonderful treat: king cakes from the neighbors of our camp. The treat is wonderful not only because we love king cakes, but also because there is absolutely NO reason for our neighbors to give us a gift of any kind. We have invaded their world with every intention of being non-intrusive, but, c'mon... there are 24 college students in a very small lot. It's not a quiet place when we are at "home." Thus, our neighbor's gift (and her expressions of thanks for all that we have done for the city of New Orleans) touched us very deeply.
We proceeded out in the misty rain to Metairie, where we met Courtney's cousin Gail Howard at her flooded-out apartment. Gail's landlord had been hounding her to move out all of her stuff, so it was great that we were available to help her when the pressure was really on. Metairie is immediately west of the Seventeenth Street Canal, the levee break that we visited last week after our work at Mt. Carmel Academy. The entire area was pretty messed up, and when we entered Gail's apartment complex we realized that this was going to be a tougher job than usual both because it was a two-story place and because of the tight spaces through which we needed to maneuver the large items we were moving. Gail's place had quite a few tight corners, and even a big wrought iron banister that we had to get around with mattresses, dressers, and other items. Fortunately, one bedroom window basically overlooks the front door, so we reduced the loads to manageable amounts and then just dropped them out of the front window into waiting wheelbarrows. Someone would guide the load, with instructions from above, like "heavy one!" or "bounceable!" or "WET!"
Gail had already salvaged a lot of the items that she wanted, so there wasn't much left for us to do but clear the space. We managed to find a few intact items, though, including a nearly-dry photo of Courtney and her sisters. Something about finding that evidence of their family bonds was very striking to us, especially to Courtney. She found herself understandably overwhelmed by the experience of working directly with a family member in this way. We were all glad to help, and found it to be a rather easy job, except for the extreme humidity that made us sweat inside our filter masks. Gail brought us more king cakes (THREE more!), which we had no trouble wiping out before we got back into the bus.
We headed back to Lakeview again, this time to work on a house owned by Joan Doyle, one of our associates at Parkway Partners. Joan used to live in that house, but it was occupied by renters during the storm. It showed us an entirely new phenomenon: an intact second floor resting on top of a thoroughly ruined first floor. We could walk up the staircase and see exactly where the destruction stopped. It was incredibly odd to go from one step to the next and then enter a space that looked like a normal home. The upstairs bedroom looked like someone was just off on vacation, and the bathroom was in perfect shape. The floors were beautiful, as was the paint job on the walls and their coordinating trim. We haven't seen a sight like that inside a home since we arrived. But then, when we turned back around, the swirling mass of mold and decay was right in front of us. In our typical fashion, we just dove right into the messy part, and conquered it faster than even we thought was possible.
Strangely though, this relatively typical job became atypical, largely because of an odd encounter that we had with a neighbor. As mentioned in an earlier post, we rarely see neighbors in the areas where we work, as entire neighborhoods are just plain wiped out. Here, though, we quickly became aware that the across-the-street neighbors were at home. Unfortunately, we discovered this information as one of them lodged loud and angry complaints against the presence of our bus in the street. We have met no resistance to our presence in any of the work we have done so far, so we were not equipped to deal with this experience when it happened. We tried to explain who we were and why we were there, but we realized quickly that we needed to move our bus to calm this neighbor's nerves. After this odd introduction, they asked if we could help them clear their house too. We knew that we did not have time to do the whole job, but we offered to get their large appliances out for them, as we know how terrible that part of the job can be. Once we saw inside, though, it became clear that we could not get anywhere near their large items without clearing whole rooms first. We expressed regret that we did not have time to fit them into our schedule. They said that they understood, and even thanked us for coming to New Orleans at all. Later, they offered us some clean t-shirts to use however we wanted (many of us needed a clean piece of clothing to wear immediately so they were GREATly appreciated). Everything seemed fine until we got ready to leave.
Most of us had washed off, removed our shoes, wrapped ourselves in plastic, and loaded onto the bus. As we were doing so, Leo warmed up the (diesel) engine. Suddenly the neighbor turned unfriendly again, actually hitting the bus repeatedly with a piece of debris. A completely inexplicable confrontation occurred from there, with the neighbors accusing us of choosing the wrong people's houses as our worksites, charging us with invasion of their community, and calling us insensitive to the needs of evacuee/returnees. We were stunned. We struggled hard to understand the state of mind that would lead a perfect stranger into violent acts against a bus full of volunteer relief workers.
We apologized profusely to the offended neighbor, but we clearly made no difference in his state of mind. It was an important reminder to us that we are not necessarily welcomed as temporary community members in all cases. We have been bathed in such warmth and goodwill through most of our jobs here that we almost forgot that it is possible for help to be seen as burdensome and for our presence to be unwelcome to the residents around us. We suffered over this exchange, and we processed it for a long, long, long, long time. We wanted (and expected and hoped?) to be seen differently. But we can't control how things will go... Now we are ready for anything.
Fortunately, our readiness was unnecessary at our next stop in Chalmette. Chalmette is in St. Bernard Parish, on the other side of the hard-hit Lower Ninth Ward. It is decimated. Lisa Trigo was our connection to Rosie in the Upper Ninth. She was also our connection to her aunt and uncle in Chalmette, Connie and Jerry LeRouge. We adore them. When we arrived at their house, Jerry was crying. He was SO beaten down, and SO at a loss about what should happen next, that he was broken down by our arrival. Lisa had warned us that they had been through this ordeal too many times. We were ready, and our strategies for dealing with blown-out houses were so exact that we could just barrel forward, no matter how devastating the experience was for the homeowners. Of course, this stance can be good or bad. We chose to see it as a positive approach to a devastated/devastating situation.
We went into Connie's house and realized that it was the worst and biggest house we have ever done. In their house, the water was above their roof. They had a travel agency operating out of their garage, which means that they had tons and tons of travel brochures stacked and piled in what we might have called a shed. As we have mentioned before, these piles of paper are often the nastiest piles we face. Connie told us, though, that there was one thing she hoped to find in the swirling mass: the rosary with which she had been confirmed. She knew that it was in the back of that shed, but she could not recall what kind of box or container it was in. Thus, we had to sort through everything out there quite meticulously to be sure that we didn't let that all-important item get away. We didn't hesitate.
Even though we knew we were looking for a needle in a haystack, we threw in full force. We wanted to find that rosary, like we had found the swan at Sandy Conrad's house. We will save you the agony now, and let you know that we found it. But we will also let you know that it took a long, long, long, long, time.
Once it had been unearthed, Justin, Feke, Chris, and Shane became a shoveling locomotive. They yelled, "Everybody out of the way!" and started scooping piles of debris so quickly that we called them "The Shovelators." They were filling wheelbarrows, trashcans and other containers at an inhuman pace, and the rest of us were running as fast as we could down the block to dump them (the pile stretched WAY past Connie and Jerry's specific lot) just to keep them from losing momentum. As darkness began to fall, we were finished. We climbed up on top of the debris pile and waved at the camera; it's one of our favorite pictures of all.
We came into a house that, according to Jerry, left him "full of tears." We left with him "full of smiles."
That's why we came.
We think that Connie and Jerry will join us for gumbo with Rosie on Tuesday night. Aren't we lucky?
| Our first job of the day was to clean Courtney's cousin's apartment out in Metairie. | |
| Courtney recovered a picture of her sisters and herself in the remnants of Gail's house. We saved only about four items there, so it's very odd that a picture of one of us is one of the things that surfaced. |
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| At Gail's house, Shawny took on the second floor bedroom with a new method of debris removal. |
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| Here's the method: Shawny decided to bypass the stairs and toss things right out the second-story window into a waiting wheelbarrow. Elijah helps to assist the items to the ground. |
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| The LeRouge residence marked the end of our house gutting experience here in New Orleans. Connie and Jerry LeRouge accompanied by their daughter and niece sit and watch as everything from their "starter" home (they celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary this February) was taken out to the street. |
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| Connie is ecstatic after we found her number one priority: her rosary from her confirmation. |
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| This statue of St. Francis was one of many religious items to survive the storm. |
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| House before. |
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| House after. |
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| Room before. |
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| Room after. |
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| After a hard day's work (reference Elijah's sweaty shirt), Team JAMBE still smiles for a group photo after their last gutting experience in New Orleans. |
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| Team Hi-Viz posed for a quick shapshot after a long day of house gutting. |
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| At the end of the day, we celebrate finishing Connie and Jerry's house, our last gutting job. |
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| Back to the Hippie camp we marched for dinner. Papa Hoot came by to chat with Shawny and share his love with the group. |
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| Group Hard Core poses for their daily group/family photo. Another Christmas card photo to add to the collection. |
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