My experience so far in New Orleans:

What did you learn this week about the situation here in New Orleans that you didn’t expect or hadn’t thought about or were surprised by?

All my life, I have been told that the government is here to make our lives better. They create policies that protect our communities, provide us with basic education and are there to help when we need it. I found out that all of those are false. The organization that we have been raised to trust is not trustworthy at all. Jim, one of the co-founders of PNOLA said that the government did not help rebuild NO at all. It was the people in the community and volunteers that have contributed to NO’s restoration.

What have you learned this week about service? What kind of volunteers do the groups we’ve worked with need?  How is good service distinguished from just ‘volunteering’?

I learned that service is a good and not so good thing. It’s good to help people, but it’s not good to do all the work for them. Community service should be more about setting up the building blocks. The only way to provide service to the entire community is to teach them how to make their lives better. Nontheless, extra hands are always needed in rebuilding 🙂 Communities really need long time volunteers. This goes along with what I was saying about the Peace Corps. Volunteers stay in their community for two years to develop a connection with the community and to teach them how they can improve. They can taket or leave it, but seed planting is the important concept. Therefore, volunteering is a temporary job, but service provides a community with solutions (not just a band-aid).

Day (9) Update

Monday. We were back into motion! Monday was a nice day because we were able to see how much our work was appreciated. Jimmy is a disabled man who has a hard time keeping up with his house. Some of us helped inside the house and some of us worked on the yard. There were about 8 people working on the yeard and it took us about 3 hours to complete it. At the end of the day it was rewarding because we didn’t use any electric tools (ie. lawn mower or weed wacker). Instead, we just used our positive attitudes and a bit of hard work. At the end of the day, it felt extremley accomplishing. Also, it was nice working out in the fresh air!

Day (10)-Today

I have been waiting for this day the whooooole trip! We finally worked on restoring the wetlands or as Mel the coordinator would say “Saving the world!”. This was definitley a treat for me. If you don’t know, I am a plant ecologist and my thesis is on forest restoration. For my thesis, my professor (Hi Jeff!) and I planted 1,500 oak seeds over the span of two days. Today we plated 1,000 seedlings that had probably grown about 2 feet high. The bigger the plant, the more time consuming to plant. Nontheless, it was nice to work with something that I love. AT the end of the day, I realized that we have it pretty good in New York. Whenever a wetland is destroyed in NY (by a company), the company has to pay to rebuild a wetland. But, declicate, endangered wetlands are (usually) State Preserves. That way, they are protected by the state and there are strict regulations in destroying it. So far, we have not seen one State Preserve in Louisiana. Therefore, anything is free game for destruction. Maybe if Louisiana’s oil companies stopped messing with nature, restoration projects could be successful. But, I get the feeling that the state may be too interested in money to restrict oil companies. Since healthy wetlands protect against storm surges, hurricanes did not do a terrible amount of damage in the past. Due to the rapid depletion of the wetlands, hurricanes have a much greater effect on the communities within Southern Louisiana. In the end, money is what is destroying the wetlands and increasing storm surges. What a shame.

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 🙂

Since I’ve been slackin on the blogging, I will do a quick recap!

Day 1: It was a slow day. About five hours of sitting and traveling with two transfers (well we didn’t get off the plane but we landed twice). I guess the first day is always the “settle in” day. After traveling for the whole morning, I wanted to get out on the town and do a bit of walking. So, a couple of us went grocery shopping while the other half went walking around the church (Carollton United Methodist Church) neighborhood. We saw a couple of shops and cafes, but only had an hour to walk around.  Nothing too crazy the first night.

Day 2: Our first day of work. We were mostly sheet rocking the house this day. A couple of people worked on insulation, but I sheet rocked with “The Dream Team”- Kirsten, Isaiah, Ruth (an AmeriCorps volunteer) and me! We were working with three AmeriCorps volunteers who have been stationed in New Orleans since September. Our construction boss is Will (a young chap who graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans). We are working with an organization called PNOLA (Phoenix of New Orleans) who only has 2 paid employees (!). Their main man-power comes from volunteers through AmeriCorps and other people like us. It truly is amazing what people have done here on their own free will.

Day 3: Today, we met the person that we were building for. It gave our hard work a purpose. All of the windows of the house were covered by ratty old American flags. There were probably 6 of them. At first I thought that they were a symbolic reference to Hurricane Katrina. So far, I’ve noticed that many people in LA hang American flags outside of their houses. Therefore, I assumed that these flags collected must have been flags that this person found  during the disaster and hung it up on their windows to be sarcastic. Now, you might think “What does she mean by sarcastic?” The reality is that the community feels like they did not receive any help from the government. By hanging these flags from a disaster that would just show that the people had faith in America, but America did not help them (which is why they have to put these flags on their windows-to make sure that no one robs or trashes this empty house).

Nonetheless, the reality is that the flags were all souvenirs from the battles of Sergeant Johnson. The flags were from various parts of the world from New Orleans during “the storm” (as the locals call it) to Iran. Sergeant Johnson is a wounded warrior. He is a tall, jolly black man who had a full camo uniform, a bad limp and an ace bandage around his arm. To know that I am working hard to build this house for him is priceless. Without volunteers like us, Sergeant Johnson would not have a home for Christmas five years after the storm. Unbelievable! I just can’t understand how people are not in houses after so much time has passed. Driving through Mid-City, we can still see houses with big “X”s counting the number of dead bodies. New Orleanians have had to live with this disaster for the past 5 years and it has turned their life upside down. Where are the people that we depend on for safety? Where are the people that have been taking hundreds of tax dollars from us? And why do NONE of them have a soul?

Day 4: Last night we went to Bourbon Street. You know, the popular Mardi Gras, crazy college kid scene… I think it’s a bit over rated. Sure, it was cold and the businesses were empty, but I was more appalled at the vulgarity that is open to the public on this street. This street abides by only a few of the laws that the rest of the US does and it just reminds me of what life would be like if we always gave into desire. I haven’t been to Las Vegas, but I assume that it would be much like Bourbon. Nonetheless, it was still a great experience to absorb the culture. Our day today felt accomplishing. We got a good portion of the living room completed by The Dream Team! Overall, the house is starting to look more like a house which means its heading in the right direction! Today we had some interactions with the locals. For lunch, we sit outside of the house that we work at. Today, a nice old fellow told us to go to the church for a free warm meal. And after him, a couple of ladies greeted us and told us the same. First of all, when does anyone say hello to someone else on the street??!? On Long Island, your supposed to look away or just look down and not say hello. The people here continue to open their arms to strangers in the simplest, but loveliest ways. I’m delightfully surprised to find comfort in the neighborhood we work in!!!

Hello!

My name is Shabana Hoosein. I am a senior at Union with an Environmental Science major and a music minor. Tomorrow I head to New Orleans, LA with 14 peers, one dirty dish loving RD and an enthusiastic sociology professor. I titled this day (-1) but we have been on campus at Union for the past 4 days preparing ourselves mentally and physically for the growth, obstacles and knowledge ahead. So far, it seems like we have a good, diverse group with us here and I’m looking forward to accepting this group as my family for the next 2 1/2 weeks.

I cannot express how excited and anxious I am. I have been waiting to go to New Orleans for the past 5 years. When I became aware of the immense amount of damage that had taken place after Katrina hit, I knew (even at the age of 16) that I had to get down there to help. Of course, my very strict parents  did not want me to go help at that time. Now that I am with a secure group of people and have traveled overseas by myself, my parents were confident that I would be safe on this trip. At first, my father was skeptical about our purpose in NO. He said “Katrina happened 5 years ago. I think they are finished with recovery.” After our weekly meetings fall term I confidently told my father, “You have no idea.” The reality is that I, myself, have no idea.

From what we have learned so far, help is needed. I’m glad that I have been granted the opportunity to live my dream. Community service is not only rewarding, but (more importantly) it is a learning experience. The world has so much to offer and we just have to get out there and grab it. I have faith that I will learn sooo much from this trip. The itinerary  caters to a variety of things such as wetland vegetation restoration, domestic violence, construction work and urban farming.

This is my first sociology class. I am a science major and haven’t taken many classes outside of math, science and music. I feel like my science background will positively contribute to the group’s learning experience and I hope to absorb a massive amount of knowledge from the social perspective. Overall, this is experience will be a journey for all of us. Can’t wait!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anywho, I should probably hit the sack. I’m all packed and ready to rock. Open the curtains and let the show begin!