Updates from New Orleans

Dont' have time to post photos right now, but if you have facebook, some of my teammates are uploading photos there and i'm tagged in a few. check those out for now until i can get some on here...

As usual, I am absolutely exhausted. I want to write so much more, all about the amazing stuff happening here, but I've only got a few minutes.

Before I forget, the previous address I posted for New Orleans is correct, you can send stuff here if you like!

So we arrived early evening on Sunday at Camp Hope in Saint Bernard Parish, on the outskirts of the 9th ward. Saint Bernard parish was deemed 100% unlivable after Hurricane Katrina. There is a lot of work to do! Much of the county was sitting under 15+ feet of salty, polluted water for 2 weeks, so there's lots of mold and flora and fauna dead and not growing back, and all kinds of problems. My project, which we are running by ourselves, is called Serve Green. We are building communal spaces, beautifying the area, and basically making this place a community that homeowners will want to be a part of once again.

Monday we jumped right in and planted hundreds of trees in a swampy area where the Battle of New Orleans took place. I saw two otters while I was there!!!!

Today a couple team members and I led a group of 17 volunteers doing mold remediation. All construction jobs must pass a mold test before they're allowed to build, and with all that nasty water sitting around 5 years ago, any houses left standing need major mold removal...

(ps keep in mind that yes, it's been 5 years, but you wouldn't believe how much stuff looks just like it did 5 years ago. there's just so much work and more damage than you realize. the salt water and pollution killed everything, so that we have to do soil tests and mold tests and all kinds of research before any project can begin)

I also applied for a composite team. It's a team for the Saint Bernard Project (an organization) and they solely build homes here. This team was open to anyone from the Perry Point campus, so it was kind of competitive. I got a spot on the team! What this means is that I and 8 other people will leave our current teams for 1 month and work for Saint Bernard Project, then go back to our teams. So essentially I am joining a new team for a short time. There are many pros and cons with this. The cons are that I will definitely miss my team, and our team project is already so incredibly awesome and I will miss a lot of the planning and some of the projects for it. The positives are that this is solely construction, which is what I most wanted to learn. It's also a wonderful program, a new and exciting experience, and I will be only a few minutes away from my old team! (Other people on the composite team are traveling from many states away) So I can still sometimes see them and hang out with them (I won't be living in the same place).

Anyway, both projects are amazing. I'm doing serious work, learning so much, and influencing hundreds of volunteers at the same time. It's kind of like we're site supervisors...

As a media rep, we already have a couple things that were just handed to us:
1. The current Serve Green has a weekly column in a local newspaper, which we will take over. That's aMAZing!
2. One of my volunteers today said she has her own radio show at Long Island University and she will talk about the Americorps program on her show.

I took a quick tour of the ninth ward today, saw the absolute devastation...I have photos, but no time to post right now.

I'm sorry my thoughts are so scrambled right now. I'm completely covered in crusted mud from yesterday and paint from today, and I have to be up at 6am tomorrow. Hopefully within the next week I'll actually have the time and energy to go into the city itself and have a meal or something along those lines.

Again, I'm exhausted every day, but this job is so incredibly rewarding. I'm so happy I'm here! Please pray for me and my team(s).

More later!....