Week 14

Jacquie, me, Ashlyn, and Ruth - downtown.
Jacquie almost got beatup for wearing a Redskins jersey.

Sunday morning, and I’m so thankful for the quiet. I love every single member of my team dearly, but it can become a little wearing when you sleep, eat, work, and hangout with the same 10 people every single day of every single week. It’s difficult to find a moment to yourself, because no room goes unoccupied, and we’re not allowed to leave the house unless we have at least one buddy. Because I crave and cannot function without a little alone time each day, I’ve discovered that my best option is waking up earlier than need be. Our work days don’t begin until 9am and no one else wakes up before 8am, so if I’m up by 7am, I have an entire hour to myself to drink my coffee and read my book in peace. I guess the functionality of difficult living situations depends on adaptability.

My temporary home.

This is one of those weeks with no days off due to ISPs (Independent Service Projects), but I don’t really mind. Yesterday we worked with a non-profit called The Green Project. It’s a really neat program that recycles building materials. They take in and resell anything from wood to bathtubs, to paint. I spent most of the day in the “lumberyard” where I helped organize by moving hundreds of pounds of wood and metal from one rack to another. I’m sore as all get out today, but we got a lot accomplished, and it was such beautiful, cool weather yesterday, I was thrilled to be working outside.

I’m writing this later in the day, having just gotten back from the New Orleans Museum of Art Sculpture garden, where I worked picking up trash, weeding, and sweeping pathways. Another beautiful day here in NOLA, and working in the sculpture garden was a joy. We have to clean the house today, and then this evening we’re going to eat free vegan Indian food at Hare Krishna, so I’m looking forward to that.

One of the many doors I stripped and sanded.

Me and Jacquie on the "disaster tour." You can see a flood
wall in the background if you squint.

Things I did earlier in the week involve stripping and sanding old doors, peeling old wallpaper, priming walls and ceilings, de-nailing a bunch of boards, knocking in wire protection wall plates, reinforcing floors, and rebuilding large holes in wood floors with old floor boards. 




As you can see, I’m doing a little bit of everything here, and getting a good feel for how to rebuild old houses out of old parts. There’s not much money to go around, but what this organization lacks in funds it makes up for in creativity. That’s one of the cool things about NOLA in general. Reusing old things is more fashionable than buying new ones, so everything has a very creative feel to it.

On Friday, the director of PNOLA took us on a “Disaster Tour”, showing us how different parts of the city were affected by Katrina, and educating us on the city in general. It was very interesting, and I feel like I have a much better notion of why the culture is what it is down here.

That’s all for now.

Love from NOLA,

 k

Taylor, Sarah, Cain, Ashlyn, me, Jacquie,
and Ruth at the zoo in Jackson.