Hello all! Here I am again with yet another wonderful and happy update on how things are going in good ol' Nawlens (New Orleans). Week 1 of Camp Hope is in the books and we are now preparing for weeks to come and especially prepping for the Jimmy Carter build event that will be taking place tomorrow (Sunday May 11th). I am super stoked to be helping out with the event as being part of the hospitality team. As a team we have done numerous of things to get us ready and set for the week-long extravaganza. So far so good with living conditions here at Camp Hope. I am living in a communal room of guys from my team as well as another Raven team. Couple nights it was rough sleeping because of a couple people tend to snore very loud, but more and more it has gotten better which is a BIG sigh of relief! Everyone seems to be very nice and kind here which is good and no negative attitudes at all. I like being around the social aspect of this SPIKE just because we get to interact with a social society compared to our first project with being isolated on an island. No complaints, only smiles :)
This past week was filled with doing the small chores that will lead up to bigger things down the road. We were preparing for the Jimmy Carter Event all this week. We were told that 7 blitz houses (located randomly on streets in the Upper 9th Ward) were going to be completely built and the home owners would be getting their keys on Saturday...then all the volunteers were going to completely dry wall 16 houses. So that makes a whopping total of 23 houses in 7 days! It is definately do-able with all the outside help that is coming is as well as us AmeriCorps NCCC teams, AmeriCorps Vista teams, and AmeriCorps Direct squads (this group is a composite team gathered and their specific area is New Orleans for a set number of months).
So now onto the detailed information on how this past week went...
SUNDAY
- our team and Raven 7 team gather for a tour of New Orleans with tour guide John; he took us to the Lower 9th Ward, Musicians Village, and gave us the history of the city
- get to bed at a decent hour getting excited about working again
MONDAY
- meet our site sponsor, Jaime, who is awesome and super nice; she is in the AmeriCorps Vista program helping out with the New Orleans Habitat
- went to the work site and shoveled a huge pile of sand underneath the foundation of a house; brutally hot today
- then we got the tour of the blitz houses that we and the other volunteers will be working on in the upcoming week
- Jaime buys the whole team ice cream when we were shoveling sand which was amazing, she said "welcome to Louisiana and Habitat"
- in the afternoon we drove to the Habitat warehouse and picked up giant, colorful, flower stickers to cable tie to the park fence; the park is where the Jimmy Carter event is going to be at
- of course today was Cinco de Mayo, so a couple of us went out to celebrate the Mexican holiday :)
TUESDAY
- found out disturbing news that our Unit Leader's Dad passed away this morning, all the Raven team leaders gather and plan on leaving together for the memorial service/funeral, TL's will be gone for 5 days
- went to work @ the Habitat building by making goody baggies for all the participants; we put together roughly 800 of them that included things such as: water bottles, pencils, postcards, tool belts, etc.
- this was the initial beginning of the prepping stages of the event; the event marks the 25th (silver) anniversary of New Orleans, LA Habitat for Humanity existing
- after work we got to drive down to the Lower 9th Ward and realize how devastating all the houses looked and how more help is needed; it was sad to see because all that there was left was the stairs and even some of them had Mother Mary statue still standing
- found out we get the day off tomorrow since we will be having a lot of long hours head of us AND that we will be working 9 days straight!
WEDNESDAY
- got the day off and got to sleep in which was nice, gathered up the team and headed down town to the IMAX theatre to see a movie about Katrina; very detailed and it surely opened my eyes
- after movie the team split up and got to tourist around New Orleans for 4 hours; Stan and I stopped at many places including Jackson Square and French Quarter area...very beautiful
- I ate my first PO Boy sandwich that was delicious! Roast Beef is the choice to go.
- will be posting pictures from the experience soon
THURSDAY
- solid work day today with the temp hitting 85 degrees, really starting to feel the humidity at this point; some kids even got heat exhaustion due to the humidity AND lack of water...I make sure to carry my half gallon water bottle with me all the time to avoid that
- we found out that colorful signs we put up a couple days ago were falling down because of the vicious wind; the method we took was stapling and that seemed to be the ticket! (Sorry Dad, cable ties are not used for EVERYTHING!)
- while some of us worked on the stickers/posters, the other half of the team put together signs with stakes to stick in the blitz house's yards
- met our sponsor Melissa, she is very bubbly and super cool; it is awesome we are getting fortunate with sweet sponsors
FRIDAY
- woke up this morning feeling really icky and sick to my stomach, probably from the food the other night...
- didn't go to work today because of an upset stomach and huge migraine, i rested at home and took a SIQ (sick in quarters)
- found out that today was very humid and more people suffered from heat exhaustion and ended up coming back early
- team was very pleased about the amount of work that day; we like how there is not a set task we have to do since we are considered the "do-it-alls" because I know I like to keep fresh and not do one thing over and over again!
- we inch closer and closer to Jimmy Carter project!
SATURDAY
- woke up and worked for about 7 hours doing more prep work for the event; on the eve of the event we got our tentative schedules for the week and further instruction on our responsibilities come time when the volunteers do arrive
- we put up more signs around the neighborhood areas and assisted other groups around the park area in whatever they needed
- we performed a lot of little tasks today in the slaving, warm heat...I believe it reached 89 today. I am still rocking my killer tan!
As we today are on the eve of the Jimmy Carter, I am so ready for it and thinking of the chance of actually meeting the former president who wore blue jeans in the office. All this prep work we did surely will be paying off. Next week is full of delivering supplies in golf carts, setting up lunches, delivering water to volunteers, helping out with the parking, and any other chores they would like us to do. The 8 of us can't wait to help and I will be sharing this experience with you all next week with taking TONS of pictures!! Another update will be coming at the end of the work week with many details. I am just willing to do whatever they need and give them a happy, supportive attitude with no 'huffing' or 'puffing'!
Mr. President, watch out because Raven 3 is heading your way!
