First Week in NOLA

I arrived in New Orleans Thursday morning after a two day bus ride from Portland. Border Patrol greeted our bus and started hassling all the Hispanics piling off, including me (until I assured them I was a US citizen with my Yankee accent). I took a cab to the Upper Ninth Ward, and checked in at the five-star St. Mary of the Angels. St. Mary's was a Catholic elementary school before Katrina, and as the tallest building in the neighborhood it provided refuge to several hundred people during the flood. Commonground Relief took it over and has used it as an operations center for the past thirteen months. I live on the third floor in a classroom with a dozen other volunteers. We don't have a lot of privacy here, but the volunteer community is friendly and we are privileged to be offered accomodations right here in the Ninth where we are working.

I came here to gut houses, and that is what I do every day. The vast majority of homes in the Ninth, a black neighborhood, are still uninhabitable. In the days after the levees broke the residents of this area were bussed all over the country. Families were broken apart, mothers separated from their children, and many folks don't have the resources to return, much less rebuild. The city wants to bulldoze all the houses that haven't been gutted and seize the property for redevelopment. They have been thwarted by legal and political manuevering for the time being, but there is great impetus to get the Ninth Ward completely gutted.

Gutting a flooded house is hard, nasty work. First the house has to be cleared of furniture, belongings and debris. It all smells terrible--one of my colleagues, an Aussie, actually puked in his respirator when we moved the fridge. It is also heartbreaking to see all the worldly possessions of a family destroyed and getting thrown out into the street. Shoes, books, photographs, garbage and keepsakes are all mixed up together, all ruined.

Yesterday I finished my first house, a double shotgun. The word in the hallways of St. Mary's is that over 100 volunteers will be coming down to gut next week as it is the fall break for many colleges. Well, I already have my cot...though I don't look forward to waiting in line for the shower after a hard day gutting in a toxic environment.

I want you all to know that I am well and very happy to have come here. Also know that the door of St. Mary's is open to all those who want to volunteer. I'll be here until mid-December, and you can come gut on my crew.

I send my love and blessings out to all of you.