Pictures from the trip are now posted in the gallery.

I’m going back and entering for the days I didn’t get a chance to get online, so this entry might be fuzzy…

On Wednesday the team that I had been working with got a new house, but I stayed at the original work site to help with the work being done in the kitchen. We were able to get a good deal of paneling installed, which is harder work then you might think. The work was complicated by the fact that the floor and ceiling weren’t parallel, so measuring and cutting became difficult. The folks working on the back deck got it almost complete, which was cool to see. They did a great job, considering that they were given little direction on how to build a deck. Once the back deck was done, we could start taking apart the front porch, which wasn’t being completely redone, but was just getting a new floor. The guys had a good time swinging crowbars to break it into pieces.

Thursday was spent putting the finishing touches on the back deck and installing the new floor on the front porch. The work went quickly and by 3:00 most people were free to head back to the church to clean up. We were only able to get three of the cabinents hung in the new kitchen, but it was nice to see that much progress achieved. There was some electrical and flooring work which needed to be done before we could hang any more, so we decided to call it a day, as well, around 3:30. That night we went to a local restaurant, Schmoopy’s, which had great seafood. Everyone had a good time and was looking forward to going home.

I’m going back and entering for the days I didn’t get a chance to get online, so this entry might be fuzzy…

I didn’t mention in the previous posts what other work was going on at our worksite. On Monday our team put a new plywood floor into our house. The owner didn’t have the funds to put anything on top of it, and was just intending to leave it as is, but our team leaders made the decision to use our funds to purchase her proper flooring. After speaking with the home owner, vinyl tile was purchased and laid down in the home. This was a good learning experience for a lot of the students, since most of them had never seen this type of flooring installed. I spent a lot of time working on the edges and tougher spots, and showing others how to do the same.

As we were getting ready to leave, guess what happened…one of the minivans wouldn’t start! We were quite taken aback and a little upset that a second van had died, but we had someone call AAA again and shuttled people back to the community center with the help of some of the other volunteers who had dropped in to check on our site. We were supposed to go to another orientation session and pot luck dinner with other volunteers, but John Miyahara said that there was no way we could go, being down two vehicles. In the long run, I think it was nice, since it gave everyone an unexpected chance to relax and have fun. I got to spend some time getting to know other people, Paula and Mira, the other “adults” on the trip, which was really nice.

Sunday turned into quite the adventure. After church we got in the vans to head to New Orleans for the day. A few miles down the road, the van I was in broke down. Basically, we lost all electrical power, and after looking at it, a few of us figured it was the alternator. I volunteered to wait with Paul Lee and John Miyahara for a tow truck, which ended up taking about two hours. Paul has a AAA membership, but they couldn’t find anyone open. We also tried calling the Ford road side assistance number, but since the car is out of warranty, they couldn’t really help us either. They did, however, give us the numbers for some local towing companies, and one was open, so we were able to get someone to get the car to the local Ford dealership.

Because of the waiting, I didn’t get to see the 9th ward again, which I was really looking forward to. I was able to find out that they had cleared a lot of debris from the last time we were there, so the area looked much cleaner. Some of the houses have also been demolished, so there are more clear spots than before.

Hanging out in the French Quarter was also fun, again, but I sort of missed the person that I hung out with last time. Dinner was an excellent sweet potato crusted catfish at a restuarant that I can’t remember the name of.

Today, Monday, we had our orientation in the morning, which lasted longer than we anticipated. They asked if anyone had any electrical and plumbing experience, and I raised my hand, along with one of the students, Ryan. John Paul, the coordinator here, was very happy with that, which I took as an ominous sign. After we were ready to go, we were told that there was a job here that we wanted us to look at. One of the workers at the site has a broken water heater and it needed a new thermostat. Ryan and I weren’t too sure that we could really do anything, but he just wanted us to try, so we took a look at it as best we could. We couldn’t get it working, but I think that we figured out that there’s something wrong with the gas line coming into the house, and not with the hot water heater itself.

Once we got to our work site I was told to look into an electrical problem in the kitchen: the light fixture wouldn’t turn on. I took a look at it and after checking with a multimeter to verify that power was getting to the switch, I decided that a new switch was in order. After replacing the switch (and receiving a nice shock in the process), the light wouldn’t turn off! I double checked and it turns out they bought a three way switch, which I guess won’t work by itself. I would put another one in, but there’s a gas leak in the kitchen, and John Paul doesn’t want any more electrical work done until that is taken care of, which I’m in agreement with.

The rest of the day was spent trying to find things to do. We had a very large crew for the amount of work that needed done, so some of us spent a lot of time just sitting around. It’s really quite a shame, but there’s little to be done about it, especially once you’re already at the site. My hope is that there are other jobs lined up for us later in the week, otherwise, I think that most of the students will get very discouraged by the experience.

I haven’t had a chance to upload any photos, yet. Maybe later this evening after dinner.

We left Carlisle at 4:30PM on Friday, on our way to Dulac, Louisiana. The convoy consisted of one large passenger van, three mini-vans and one truck with a trailer. Since the passenger van is a rental, it can only be driven by those over 25, of which there are four of us, so that pretty much set where I was going to be for most of the trip. It’s been nice getting to know some of the people on the trip on the way down. On the last trip, I took the first shift in the truck with Michael, which cut down on some of that interaction.

I drove from about 10:30 to 3:00 or so, which worked out pretty well for me. Since I don’t normally have caffeine anymore, I was able to get a cup of coffee to keep me going through that time. Of course that made me have to pee more, which led to an awkward “road side pit stop”.  All in all, though, the drive was largely uneventful, and we arrived in Dulac at 4:00PM, eastern time, so the trip took 23.5 hours.

We are staying at a community center which seems to have been hosting relief workers for some time, now. There are two rooms setup with bunk beds, and when we arrived there were sheets on each bed, although they are short on pillows (I, along with most others in our group, have my own). It’s a little weird, because there are other groups sharing the space with us. A church group from California arrived early last night, and there was some confusion because there weren’t enough beds for the women. The rooms are to be segregated, but that rule has apparently been broken for them. The rest of the community center includes a gymnasium and some other small rooms and kitchen. Our group will be making its own meals in the Church’s kitchen across the street.

Last night we all decompressed and hung out around the center. The trip leaders drove to the next big town, about half an hour away, to get supplies for dinner. The local grocery store was practically destroyed in the hurricane, and hasn’t re-opened yet. We had a nice spaghetti dinner and a brief meeting before going to bed.

Right now I’m using the Verizon internet access through my Blackberry, but apparently they do have wireless available, although I need to find the “station manager” to get the password. Hopefully I’ll be able to get that at church this morning and then upload some photos after we return from New Orleans tonight.

Well, it’s the last day, and we’re done working. In the end, we worked on three houses, plus did some chores around the church where we were staying. Our team was very pleased with our work on the house, and the owner was very grateful.

All in all, I’ll say that I really enjoyed the trip. It was a good experience and I got to know some of the students well, which I always enjoy. All that is left is to get ready and back on the road, after dropping off some “Thank You” posters that we prepared for the home owners. We should be back in Carlisle sometime Saturday afternoon.

We’ve spent the past two days performing construction on a local house. Most of the walls only had drywall on the upper half when we arrived, but we have almost all of them covered now. The work has been rewarding, especially when you see the look of excitement on the owners face as she realizes that she is going to have walls again. She has been living in a trailer in her front yard along with her young son.

I spent most of the first day putting up insulation with Ben, a Dickinson student. We had a pretty good time, all in all, but I was very tired at the end of the day. It got very hot, since we had to wear long sleaves and masks for most of the day. I’ll admit that I’m not used to being on my feet all day, and so by this afternoon they were definitely letting me know that they weren’t pleased. I’m toughing it out, though, and don’t think I’ll have any problems making it through the week. Today was much better than yesterday, since we only had a little bit of insulation to hang, and that meant we could wear short sleaves the rest of the day.

Not much else to say, really, so I guess I’ll sign off.

There’s really no other way to describe what we saw today. We drove through Golf Port and saw the vast swaths of destroyed lots that resulted from the hurricane. Some of the imagery was really incredible, and the things that stand out the most were the tattered flags I saw hanging. Some were hung properly on flag poles, but many were attached to a tree, which was one of the few remaining erect items on the propery. The most drastic image was of a badly torn and tattered “Old Glory” that had been ripped from its proper place and was swaying from several tree branches. The thoughts that it left me with were full of philosophical ramblings about the state of our Nation during this time.

After Gulf Port we drove to New Orleans where we met John Miyahara, from Dickinson, in the suburbs. We parked in a restaurant on the edges of a now defunct shopping center, complete with a closed Circuit City and Toys ‘R Us. Normally this area would have been teeming with folks out shopping, but the only commercial outlet available was a catering truck doing a good business of feeding the day laborers from the surrounding areas.

From here we moved on to the now infamous 9th Ward. Seeing pictures and video cannot prepare you for being there in person. There are very few houses standing, and those that are, certainly don’t look like they are habitable. In some cases it looked like the water washed the house completely out from under the roof, leaving just that laying on the ground. Taking pictures seemed almost like a disrespect to the area, and in no way could capture what had happened there. I found myself sighting something to capture, but then when I framed the shot in the small view finder, the object lost its significance when removed from the surrounding area.

Since it is spring now, there is grass growing, and some small wild flowers were even blooming here and there. I found myself hoping for a small flower bed from when people actually lived here, but couldn’t find anything where we were. Seeing a perenial flower sprouting from the ground and coming to bloom would have given one a sense of hope that is hard to come by when surrounded by such devastation.

I’ll try to come back to this topic later, after I’ve been able to digest it some more. I will post some pictures from today as well, once I have more time, even though they won’t do proper justice to the situation.

We departed Dickinson about 5:00PM on Friday and arrived in Pascagoula at about 1:30PM Saturday. The Church that we’re staying in is still undergoing some repairs of its own, but seems very nice so far. We quickly found the showers after the long drive and we’re getting ready for a quick tour of the areas most ravaged by the Hurricane. Everyone is pretty tired, yet there is almost an excitement in the air, probably because the long journey is over and we can finally get out of the vans and stretch for more than 15 minutes.

As it turns out, there’s an open access point here, so it looks like I’ll have some reliable fast access.