My return to the Gulf Coast

Hi Y'all!

I just got back from spring break today around 9 am. I went on a Habitat for Humanity trip with my school Luther College. We had a group of 50-60 students and adults (both employees, retired teachers, and alumni). We took a big coach bus down on March 20th and drove to New Orleans. We arrived at about 3-4 pm and then spent the night. The group I was with cruised down Bourbon St. until we found a restaurant that looked good. We chose a seafood place that had a live band playing. The food was okay but surprisingly the fried shrimp I got were Minnesota sized (tiny). Then we continued looking around and enjoying the sites. In the morning I went with a small group of people and walked along the beautiful river walk. Around 2 pm we packed up again and got on the bus. It was a two hour drive to Ocean Springs, Mississippi from New Orleans, LA. We were able to see much of the damage that Katrina caused as we drove along the highways.

When we got to Camp Victor (the place we stayed at and the organization that organized where we worked and everything else.) around 3 or 4 pm we were first given a tour. It had changed quite a bit from the last time I saw it. It was no longer a distribution center for the community and had converted that space into an extended lounge for the volunteers. Then we were given our dorm assignment and dropped our stuff off and made our beds. We were given some free time and then it was time for dinner. Later that night at about 9:30 we met as a group and discussed the different jobs different groups were to do during the week. I went to a group that was doing both demolition and construction on eaves and Fascia board (basically the part of the house under the overhang of the roof.) It was with a great leader and ex-chem professor named Dale. I had worked with him last year too. We had three other students besides me and two adult leaders, Dale and an alumna named Carol.

The next day was Monday and the lights turn on throughout the camp @ 6AM (there are no roofs separating the different rooms in the camp.) We ate breakfast which I think was biscuits and gravy. It took awhile for all our group members to make themselves a sack lunch and then to gather up all the tools we would need for the job and put them into the vans we had rented. Around 9 to 9:30 we arrived at our work site and met Larry who was the homeowner we would be working for the whole week. He was quite a character and gave us a lot of interesting history lessons about his life and about the area. We began work by tearing down parts of the material that was under the overhang of the roof, the Soffit and the Fascia which had been damaged during hurricane Katrina and had begun to rot. We removed these materials with crowbars and hammers. The next day (Tuesday) we basically did exactly the same things we did on Monday. Except that after work I went to dinner with a big group of friends and shared a big seafood platter with a girl who was an expert in picking apart shrimp and crab. It was so delicious.

On Wednesday, we woke up @ 6 am again. Got to the worksite around 8 or 9 am. Today we would begin sawing and then replacing both the Soffit and Fascia board. I used a circular many times to cut and trim the boards so they would fit in the house. We then used caulk to get them to stick up there. We did this the remaining two days. But I was sick starting on Monday with a sore throat and a bad cough. I stuck it out and went to work Monday through Wednesday but then took a day off on Thursday and stayed at camp and slept for most of the day. This helped me immensly and I was able to go back to work on Friday. Both Thursday and Friday the weather was rather bad and it rained most of the day. The drainage systems in most homes in Mississippi as well as public areas is not very good, so Larry's yard and the road to go to the beach were flooded. This prevented us from working on parts of his house. Friday was our last day of work and when we finished it we took a picture with Larry and said goodbye. (I attached a picture, I hope you get it)

Friday night was quite relaxing, I went to dinner at a Sonic and then went to a grocery store and bought some cough drops to try to cure my still bad sounding cough (which I still have unfortunately). I then played a few board games until about 11 pm when a small group of us decided to walk to the beach (which was about a mile away). It was storming (lightning, thunder, and rain) when we got there and quickly got worse. The winds were around 20-30 mph, and I got some great pictures of both waves and the surrounding area. We decided to leave about a half an hour later because the storm was getting increasingly big. We were rained on, on our way back to camp. I then went to bed at about 12-12:30.

On Saturday we a free day until around 2 pm when we would be leaving to go back to Luther. I woke up around 9-9:30 and a group of us walked to a local donut shop. We then walked to the beach and the roads were severely flooded because of the large storm last night so we were unable to reach the beach (because I had tennis shoes on and couldn't wade through the water) so I decided to go back to camp and pack. I ate some lunch and then got right on the bus. We left around 2 pm. I sat next to the girl I previously mentioned (the one that was very good at picking apart seafood) It took us about 18 hours to drive back to Luther. I got a pretty good amount of sleep on the bus (which can be a difficult feat sometimes). Anyways now I am back at school, and am writing a paper about how the Native Americans benefitted from the Europeans trade networks and economic systems but by 1763 their economic system was destroyed by it. It is for my class New Worlds, New Nations. Well I better get back to it.