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Carolyn's Journal from trip to Slidell, LA
January 8-15, 2006

Sunday (Jan. 8)

• Most of us arrived in LA via planes or cars…people flew from NYC, CA, PA, GA, FL, KS etc. and drove from Missouri, Texas, Florida etc! I think the farthest drive was Jawaid and Julie who drove 16 hours from Missouri.
  
• Arrived at Pearl River Methodist Church in Pearl River, LA to a nice homecooked meal that Kim Yerkes (Caitlin's mom, and our "Den Mother" for the week) prepared for us. The church is cozy with nice bathrooms and warm showers…this is "my idea of camping"! Most of us were asleep by midnight and ready to tackle our first day of work tomorrow.

• Got a slow start today as Habitat wasn't ready for us when we arrived (bc/ others who they weren't expecting had also showed up and gotten to work already). We learned that East St. Tammany Habitat typically built 2-3 houses a year pre-Katrina had decided to build 8 houses that year, but POST-Katrina, they decided on 100 houses in a year, which was going to be challenging with the lack of employees and man power that they have. Finally, Scott (with Habitat) took us to a neighborhood nearby ("Eagles Point") that had lots of water damage. Our job was to gut a lady's house (who we later found out was HELEN HICKS) which included throwing most of her furniture and personal belongings away….a very sad and challenging task. There was black mold everywhere and the water line reached about 6 feet up, so we tore down dry wall from 6 feet down to the floor.
  
• The memory I'll remember most from today was Caitlin bringing me a folder that was so wet and damaged that read "letters from friends", with tears streaming down her face. It contained many cards and love letters from her husband, friends etc., and Caitlin couldn't bear to throw them out so we put them on a back table on her porch to air dry. This was the point when we realized how "personal" Katrina had already become to all of us. And this is also when we made our first connection with Helen, who had lived there. We hoped to meet her later in the week.
  
• Gabi and I had to eventually take a break from breathing in all of that dust and mold, so we drove around and took pictures and video of surrounding areas. Lake Pontchatrain was only a mile or less from Helen's neighborhood, which explained why the water damage was so great there.
  
• Mark Davis arrived today too, and jumped right in with gutting Helen's house. The Scholars all told me later how impressed they were with him. The local Times-Picayune paper also interviewed Caitlin, Kristin, Kevin and Mark, and it will be published in this Sunday's paper.
  
• Later, many of us showered at a local Health Club, who were so generous to let us use their facilities. It was nice to have a long, hot shower after a hard day of work.
  
• Dinner was a jambalaya mix, salad and King Cakes that one of our local Scholars, Parker, had donated for us. Yummy!

Tuesday (Jan. 10)

• On the way to Helen's house, Kevin drove us all by "Rats Nest" (Lakeview Dr.) area right on Lake Pontchatrain. It was one of the hardest hit areas. Only one house out of hundreds is left standing! Most are completely gone, with only a slab of concrete left. It was heart wrenching to see. Caitlin cried through the entire drive, and most of the cars were silent as everyone stared at the mess while we drove by. Images of broken dreams and family memories were flashing through my head. I can't imagine how long it will take for this street to look normal again!
  
• Today we finished gutting Helen's house and then cleaned all of her floors and her bathrooms. It looked pretty nice when we left. We all signed a card for Helen and left her a Coke Scholars shirt to let her know we were thinking of her.
  
• Dinner was a delicious GUMBO that Kevin Reckert's parents fixed for us! They live in Slidell and had a little damage to their home as well. They are such a nice family!
  
• After dinner, Kathy Bass, President of EST Habitat, came and talked to us about various families that they've helped over the years and thanked us for our work this week. She brought along "Mary" who is from a Habitat family that they've helped as well, and is the first in her family to get this far in school (8th grade) and she read an essay that made us all cry. Mark went up to her afterwards and all but offered her a CCSF scholarship on the spot. (: Kathy also told us that Helen Hicks wanted to take us all to dinner this week as a way to thank us for saving her $4900 on her house. Instead, we told her to invite Helen to the church and let US make HER dinner.

Wednesday (Jan. 11)

• Today we went to Rats Nest and moved debris from behind where a house used to be, to the front of it so that bulldozers can come take it all away. It was one of our hardest days yet, as we all found tons of personal items in the piles of trash and debris. Kate found her 2nd Coke bottle that was unharmed (the first was during her Scholars weekend in 2004 when we did the Chatahootchie clean up)….I got another great picture of her with it! Christopher Stowe found lots important papers (marriage certificates, adoption papers, Baptism certificates etc.) dating from as far back as 1897, 1920, 1932, 1945 etc! He saved all of it in hopes to get in touch with the owner somehow. I went through muddy photo albums and salvaged all of the pictures I could save, and others found vases, crystal bowls, plates, coin collections, religious statues etc. that we all put to the side to save for the owners, if we can find them. Christopher wrote down a number spraypainted in the driveway next door saying "Call Carol and Bobby" so we hope that will give us a lead.
  
• For lunch, we went back and cooked up some of Christopher's family's award winning sausages and took them to others at Rats Nest. It was delicious!
  
• Tonight we all went into New Orleans to eat at Jacques-Imo's Café. Parker had set us up with reservations there and we had our own room off to the side for our whole group! The food was great, and Jacques (the owner) even came around and thanked us for our hard work this week, and then he gave us champagne and bushnell shots on the house! We all sang "Happy Birthday" to Mark (who's b'day is Monday), and took tons of pictures. I've never seen him smile so big watching 30 of his "kids" sing and toast to him. (: Later most of us went out in the French Quarter for a little while….my first time on Bourbon Street.

Thursday (Jan. 12)

• This morning I did airport runs with Caitlin while the others went to the Habitat site to put up dry wall and insulation on surrounding houses. Caitlin and I took Mark and Martel to the airport this morning, and on the way, since we had extra time, we stopped by "Café Du Monde" for some bignets and Café Au Lait. While there, we all sat in massage chairs for 3 minutes, which was so nice, and then Mark broke down when he told us to give a message to the Scholars for him. He said he "was very proud of them all, and that he's a richly blessed man because of them", and that's all he could get out.
  
• When we dropped Mark and Martel off, we picked up Joel Martin, another Scholar coming to help out. Then we went back to the church to make lunch for the Habitat group, which was sandwiches and also red beans and rice that Beverly's dad made! We were able to feed the entire Habitat group AND our's, and they were so grateful! Sabrina, one of the Habitat home owners, ate with us, so it was nice to hear her stories, which mostly included how blessed she feels to be alive after what Katrina did.
  
• Also this morning, Christopher called the number he found in the driveway at Rats Nest yesterday, and he called it and got a hold of Carol, who lived there before Katrina hit, and she sobbed as Christopher told her of all of the papers, photos etc. that he found. Most of it was her great grandmother's, mother's, and her's! He's going to meet her and give it all back to them. These are the kind of moments that make all of this hard work SO worth it!
  
• After lunch we all went back to building and putting up dry wall at Sabrina's house and other sites around there. Personally, I had NO energy today…it was my hardest day yet, and I was sore all over.
  
• Tonight we picked up 15 FREE Dominoes pizzas, that CCE helped to get for us, so that was our dinner. Then we watched the Katrina dvd that Mark left for us (had been all over CNN….filmed by a man who stayed and "rode out the storm"). It was amazing, and his commentary was so funny! The Scholars all sat around watching that, while I taped a few of them in between. Before bed, I held a brief meeting with everyone and then Noelle played us some of her songs. We even got to sing along to some that we knew. It was another one of those moments that makes you smile. (:

Friday (Jan. 13)

• Today is "Friday the 13th" but a good day for us. We took a break from the hard work this morning, and drove into New Orleans to take a tour of the Gulf Shores Bottling Plant. Natalie Toppins, who used to be Kel Vilarubia's assistant at CCE, gave us a great tour of the plant and then the "trailer park" where many of their employees are living right now (since most of their homes were destroyed by Katrina). It was nice to see that CCE helped them out like that and made it as "homey" as they could for them. Before we left, Natalie answered lots of their questions and told us more facts on the Hurricane, levees, etc.
  
• Afterwards we drove through Chalmette, one of the hardest hit areas. Though there is some bad damage there too, most of it is on the inside of the houses, which we couldn't see, because a nearby chemical plant exploded there and chemicals (oil etc) spilled into the surrounding neighborhoods, so the houses there are all filled with mud and chemicals. We all wanted to go there to gut houses today, but you have to wear special "HAZMAT" suits and respirators, and Habitat didn't have enough for us, so instead we drove through to survey the damage. There are many people gutting their own houses there, and I can only imagine how sick they are going to be from that. ):
  
• In the afternoon, we went back to Habitat and Scott sent us over to gut another house that had over 6 feet of water damage. This time we gutted from ceiling to floor! All 25+ of us did it together, so in the three hours we were there, we got most all of it done.
  
• Tonight Jim (who used to be President of EST Habitat), Helen Hicks (whose house we gutted early in the week) and Amber Wallin (our Scholar who lost her home to Katrina in Gulfport, MS) came to have dinner with us! We had lasagna (that Crystal and David brought) with salad and bread.
  
• Afterwards, Jim thanked us and gave a nice little talk, and then Amber stood up and read a poem about helping others that she found from "O" magazine. Then she broke down as she told us about her 12 year old cousin being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer just weeks after Katrina hit, and how blessed she felt to have that time "off" to help her and how the little things in life really don't matter anymore to her. Many of us cried, including me as I was taping every word of it. She later told me (when I video taped her) that she now owns only 5 outfits and just rotates them each week, and she doesn't want to own any more, because they're "just clothes" after all.
  
• That night, I taped about 10 Scholars (all were so touching in some way), while the Scholars played games, listened to Noelle sing, and hung out with Helen, who stayed with us until 12:30 am!

Saturday (Jan. 14)

• Today, our last day, we were up around 7:30 am, got our food together for lunch and headed to Rats Nest to move more debris. On our way, our car recognized CARR DR. right before we got to Rats Nest, which was the road the man lived on who filmed the Katrina dvd that we watched the other night! So, we drove down there just hoping we'd find his house, and we did! His house had a sign on it that said "Katraina dvd's sold here", and sure enough Kennard himself (that's his name) came out to greet us! He's a cute, old sailor man that has sailed around the world over his lifetime, and he and his wife immediately invited us into their home. That started 3 trips that I made over there this morning, taking Scholars who wanted to meet him and taking pictures with him etc. All morning many cars of his "fans" pulled up to meet him and buy dvd's, that he and his wife (Dookie) are selling to help rebuild their home. They are now local celebs. The best thing that happened out of those trips was that Ben Towne, one of our 2005 Scholars, was able to stay there all day and build them a website, which Dookie had been working on but couldn't do herself. He said she tried to pay him, but he said to donate that money to EST Habitat, so she did! She kept calling him her "angel" all day. He did such a great thing for them!
  
• One sad moment for me today was talking to Keisha this morning (she and Bobby were supposed to move back to New Orleans this weekend, but that got postponed until Monday). I could hear the fear and sadness in her voice as she talked about having to leave Atlanta, which has become a home to them, and move back to a place that's desolate and depressing. She feels, which I can understand now, that "there's nothing to move back TO." We both cried and cried but I assured her that God is way bigger than us and something good will come from this and New Orleans WILL bounce back from this. No matter what, we'll always be "forever connected" too. (:
  
• Today we all worked at Rats Nest (along with many people, including Helen Hicks, who came out from the community), and got red EST Habitat shirts to wear, that we all had each other sign (got one signed for Mark too). PBS was there to film some of it too, and from what I hear, Jack spoke on behalf of our group.
  
• I took Auggie, Joy and Christie to the airport around 2:30 pm and then we went to the Habitat site to say our goodbye's and drop off extra food and drinks that had leftover. Sharon, who had been working there and coordinating lunches all week, cried as she told us some horrible Katrina stories from LA and Gulfport (including when her friend stepped on a baby's leg, who had died in the Hurricane). It made us all cry. We're going to miss the Habitat workers, especially Sharon, Janie and Scott, who we worked closest with.
  
• Tonight we had a "hodge podge" for dinner, of mac and cheese, salad, leftover sausage and gumbo etc. Then, half of the group left for New Orleans to go out and stay with Parker or other friends there. I stayed back at the church with Kim, Caitlin, Kristin, Ben, Crystal, David, Noelle, Gabi and Jawaid and Julie (who had to stay another night since their car broke down today). We cleaned up and then played Scattegories, which was so fun!
  
• I can't believe this is it! This trip has been amazing. Emotionally and physically draining, but great in so many ways too. I think it has inspired all of us to come back soon and continue to help out, because the damage will take years and years to clean up and rebuild. We all worry that it may never "be back to normal", but at least we can have a part in trying to make that happen. (: I can't speak for the others, but I know I'm going home with an even bigger sense of how precious life is, and how the material things in life just don't really matter. In my opinion, if I have God and my family and friends on my side, I am the richest gal alive!