Upon my return to South Hadley, MA, I have been almost overwhelmed with mixed emotions. Part of me is happy to be home in perfect timing for the holiday season and the other part is already missing Louisiana. While adjusting to home life again, it has been hard for me to be like I used to. With reflection and much thought I have realized that I am different. From New Orleans and Dulac, I have gained patience, overall appreciation, and some guilt as well. As we approach the holidays, it is kind of hard for me to accept and be ok with how luxurious my life is compared to those in southern Louisiana. I have come to understand and appreciate more foundational things in life. Such things include my family, our ability to live with some luxuries, and most of all my home. After spending much time rebuilding and in some groups, gutting houses, my sense of home has gotten quite stronger.

I have so many thoughts still lingering in my head, of which I am still trying to piece together and find their personal meanings. It has helped me to reread my journal and look and explain to others the pictures and their significance. At the same time, it has also been very hard for me to explain to others my experience. I find it especially difficult when it is just a short conversation, for instance I saw a family friend and in a brief conversation they asked how the trip was. It was too hard for me to come up with a few words to explain the experience. I felt that I needed at least twenty minutes or so to even get my thoughts and stories across. After talking with more and more people, I am finally getting better at using strong enough words to show the emotional connection I made while in Louisiana.

So this morning we woke up early and traveled to Dulac for our first day of work here. Driving through the wetlands and following the bayou, I was shocked at the amount of destruction and damage that was hardly touched. Driving to our first location to work, we passed a large fishing boat that was on the side of the road. Besides the excessive amounts of debri and trash, the houses were torn apart and extremely damaged.

For most of the day today there was a small group of us that stayed at the community center in Dulac and helped organize and do small projects.

While we were there, I was walking around and saw the water lines and the walls there were completely gutted. I think the saddest thing was the kids’ library there. In this particular room, the bottom half of the wall was torn because it was water damaged.

In particular, on the top half of the wall was a mural that was ruined. For me this was sad because the center is now going to require so much work and time in order to fix.

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.

Tomorrow is the big day! It is so exciting to think that by a little after 3 o’clock tomorrow we will be in New Orleans. With all of our recent activities including our trip to the Land Trust and just being together as a group has been really great. By spending so much time together, the class has gotten closer which excites me even more about the trip, now that I know everyone! As I do my last minute packing, and thinking so much about New Orleans, I am really trying to keep an open mind and have no expectations. I feel that this is the only way in which a person from another culture and lifestyle can really understand the difference in living in Louisiana. All in all, tomorrow!!!!!!