Unfortunately, we only have one laptop with us on the trip and I have only blogged once since coming to New Orleans. Luckily, I am among the few who have not blogged in NO yet. Nonetheless, I will update you since my last blog.

Day 5 update

Thursday was a fun day! We actually switched our Thursday and Friday on our itinerary for special circumstances. Thursday we went on our disaster tour which was extremely informative. One of the founders of PNOLA, Jim, gave us the official tour. We went to 17th street and passed through the Lakeview neighborhood. Seventeenth street was where the first levee failed. Little did I know before this miniterm that more than one levee failed. The seventeenth street canal failed due to the way that it was constructed. During the storm, the levee completely broke off at two ends and the fell. The second levee that we went to was at the Industrial Canal in the Lower Ninth Ward. This area of New Orleans got the most coverage because of its devastation and poverty. From the levee you could see that there were no trees within 200 ft of the levee because the impact of the water uprooted ALL of those trees. The Lower Ninth Ward is still not in good shape. It still has lots of empty lots. With all do respect, the Lower Ninth (five years later) looked like a community graveyard. Despite the realistic tour, we had a BBQ with PNOLA, had Po’ Boys at a hip 50’s looking restaurant and bowled to zydeco music at Mid-City Rock and Bowl. The zydeco music was most definitely the high light of the entire trip!

Day 6 update

Friday was our last day with PNOLA. This day was particularly special. You see, the house that we were working  at was being funded by a player from The Saints (Roman Harper).  We were told that Roman would be coming to help us sheet rock and what not. So, we waited ALL day and he finally came just as we were leaving. In reality, he just came to take pictures and take a tour of the house. He himself even said that he didn’t realize the bad condition of the neighborhood and that it was “messed up”. I think he was referring to the fact that is was messed up that the wealthier parts of New Orleans have been rebuilt, but the Upper Ninth Ward had not been.

There is a reoccuring theme in this mini-term. Things are messed up. As a player in The Saints football team, how did he not know that these neighborhoods were suffering. This area is practically in his backyard, yet he is too consumed with his life to notice. Even though he donated money to rebuild the house, I am still skeptical. I believe that money was just donated for publicity. Considering the fact that

-he didn’t come help us build

-he only stayed for 20 min to sign autographs and such

-and the film crew was at our work site 3 hours before he was makes me believe that this whole ordeal was just for show.

Day 7 update

Saturday was our last full day in New Orleans. I wish I had more time to explore the srtistic and musical culture that New Orleans has to offer. On Saturday, we went to the Blair grocery project to help out on the urban farm in the Lower Ninth Ward. It was an interesting experience. I didn’t mind the wood chips, the decaying compost or the manure at all. Nonetheless, I was really surprised with the man who started the organization. I came here expecting to get a talk about urban farming and how it is good to be sustainable, but our talk was more about community service and how it is temporary. The people in the world who are not very fortunate need help in understadning how to improve. Most of the time community service makes us feel good, but we just do the work for them. In similar ways, the Peace Corps is an organization that puts people in a developing country for 2 years to create connections and imrpove lifestyles for many generations to come. That is why the man who owned the organization has made this project his life goal. I hold a lot of respect for him. He was a great teacher in one of the best schools in NYC and he gave it all away. He has basically been sacrificing his material life (clothes, a house, a car, a partner) to improve the life of others because no one else has even tried.

Day 8 (theoretically today…ignore the date on this post…I started it on Sunday and have not completed it until now!)

Sunday was a nice day. We all cleaned up the church and headed south to Dulac. Unfortunatley, I do not have cell phone service here (T-mobile is the worst) and there aren’t many things to do. However, I think that this will be the best part of the trip because we will be forced to grow together during our last week here without any distractions 🙂