Over the past couple days, a lot has happened. While working on our housing projects, building an entire playground in one day, and feeling more comfortable in New Orleans, I think that I have kind of opened up and enabled myself to ineract with some of the local residents. Yesterday we built a playground with Kaboom in the Gentilly Terrance. This was an amazing experience. Not only did I meet a lot of great people, but the teamwork and overall effort was awesome. While working on painting some four square courts, I worked with this one local women who shared a lot with me. Her name is Doran and she lived a couple blocks away from the school. She has been living in the area for 10 years, including Katrina. Besides the water damage that her house suffered, she shed light on some other interesting topics. One that I found very interesting and true was that she was saying how the people here are so cool. That is exactly how she described it. She said that even though there could be a hurricane next week, yet everyone still stays here. The people here really take life for what it is and they are very appreciative of it. I think that this is a great quality and is very interesting. In terms of the storm, her house suffered mostly water damage, being 8 feet under water inside the house. While being so overwhlemed, Doran would cry and cry just looking and thinking about all that she had lost in the storm. She related this to a patient and a doctor where it was known the patient was going to die. She said that even though they know they are going to die, they still do treatments and take medicine to try and get better. So even though another hurricane will come sometime in the future, they still take the time and money to put back and fix their homes. Doran was explaining that she could only look at one wall at a time and fix that one wall for the big picture was just too overwhelming. While fixing one wall, she said that it was motivating to take one step at a time to fix all of the problems in the house.

Another thing that I wanted to mention was that since we have been here, I have been asked for money more than once. The first time was while we were working, a female came up and asked me if I could give her a couple dollars so that she could buy something at the local store for her daughter to eat. I did not have any money on me so instead I gave the little girl the fruit in which I packed for lunch. I was not sure what to make of this. I know that it is not my place to judge or anything, but I just was not sure whether she was being honest or not. It is hard to tell, because you really don’t know. She could see that we are young white adults here to help and that we have money. I just thought that this was interesting and I didn’t know how exactly to handle the situation.

Last night we went to a local social gathering, where I meet a local resident by the name of Bruce. Bruce is born and raised from New Orleans, and he has gone through it all. He said that his story was much too long to tell but he started telling me anyways. Not really getting into the details of the Katrina experience, he was telling me about himself and about the people of New Orleans. One thing that relly struck me was when he said that from all that they have been through, even though they are all smiling and having a good time on the outside, they are still crying on the inside. This was really sad for me because that is one thing that I have really noticed, in general the people here are extremely nice and welcoming. Everywhere we have been they are the so happy to tell their story, to hear about us and what we are doing, and just talking and having a good time. While still in the process of finishing the repairs on his home, he is just trying to live each day and get through it with waht he has. Relating back to what Doran was saying, he is really just making the best out of life. Straight from work, he still goes out and socializes and has a good time, because that is what life is all about. Celebrating what you have and taking it each day at a time. Getting a little more detailed in Bruce’s story, he lived through New Orleans, stayed here and suffered. By the end of his short summary of what he had been through, we were both in tears. He said that even thought it has been three years, people still have nightmares about this and the emotional damage is almost unbearable. While being emotional about his story, I told him that I felt bad that I was in tears, because I don’t even know. I wasn’t the one that went through that. He was so appreciative of me and of our group and he thanked us for our kind hearts. In the end we exchanged some information, and I hope to keep in touch with him.

In closing, all this has really just struck me. It is so painful to hear these stories and also it brings me sadness that most of our country is just so oblivious to this and to the suffering here. Before I came here, I knew what happened and all of the damage, but the emotional aspect is just unbelievable. It is mind blowing to hear what these people have gone through and are still going through to this day.