NOLA Day Four

NOLA Day 4

The work is “brutal.” That’s how Kenny from NYC describes it. It can be. Today we both started and finished a house. It wasn’t as bad as the first house by a long shot. But about 1:00 we realized we had a chance to finish it today, and despite knowing better we started racing to get it done. I’m feeling it now. We ended up just going as high on the ceilings as we could reach standing on the eight foot ladders we finally got. It was about 4 feet above the water line and will have to do. We have no idea what we’ll get tomorrow.

There are about equal numbers of men and women in the camp, around 1300 people not counting staff. There are 56 showers. I had to stand in line about 15 minutes to take a shower the first day. The second day I planned a little better and didn’t stand in line at all. That hot shower felt great once all the grime got washed away. Things weren’t going so well for the women though. The showers were split 50/50 but the women were having to stand in line 2 hours or more to get a cold shower. Today they adjusted the shower ratio, giving the women 40 showers and the men 16. They did this while we were out working so we didn’t know till we got back and headed for the showers (which is the first thing we do). I stood in line for an hour. The hot water was gone before I even got in line. The women had about a 5 minute wait when I got in line. Clearly the system needs a little more tinkering. Or at least I thought. By the time I got out of shower the women’s lines were as long as the men’s. What are they doing in there?

Last night 6 of us from Black 21 drove into the city to go out to eat. Brian from Santa Cruz had made reservations at this fancy restaurant and was pretty excited about it. Bayonas was the name I think. (You’ll see just how fancy it was Brenda when we get the American Express bill.) It was delicious and fun and a pleasure to be away from the camp. I have to say though I was feeling a bit guilty about being out at a nice place on Brenda’s birthday while she was home cooking spaghetti for the kids. I talked about it being Brenda’s birthday with the other people and was taking some good natured ribbing when Brian’s cell phone rang. He answered and almost instantly this wave of panic washed across his face. Sweat popped out on his forehead. He somewhat abashedly said “Well happy anniversary to you too dear.” I felt much better then.

My work team is not college kids for the most part. Brian’s about my age. There a fellow named Glenn from Indiana who’s probably 70 or so. Eleanor and her daughter Amy from Austin. Eleanor’s probably 65 and Amy’s maybe 25. Jason from Atlanta who’s maybe late 30’s. Norman and Geneva from South Dakota and are in their late 50’s. And Matt and Tracey and Justin from Philadelphia, who actually are college kids. But they’re not with a group; they just drove down on their own. All nice people, though Glenn is a bit dangerous to work around. He likes to find a big kitchen knife to slash the carpets into manageable pieces. But his slashes tend to go a bit wild every once in a while and a couple of times on that first day I had to jump quickly to avoid being cut. Now I try and work in a different room than him whenever I can. Brian and I are the two with the most actual skill at demolishing the houses (know what tools to use, how to use them and where to use them), but everybody is very willing and works hard. I spent about 45 slow minutes today helping Amy take out the kitchen cabinets. I could have done it on my own in about 10, but she was keen on it and also wanted to learn how to use a crowbar. We had to stop every few minutes when a cockroach would run out and she would scream and drop the crowbar. She’s from Texas, you’d think she could deal with them, but no, she’s as bad as Brenda was when we lived there.

Well the food line has opened so I need to put the laptop away and make a dinner decision. Some of the team are going out again, but I think I’m too tired. Unfortunately the wireless connection seems to be down too, so I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to send this tonight….

…I wandered to the other end of camp to find some wireless access, and guess what? I think I just saw Billy Graham’s son. (Kind of amazingly he was giving (still is for that matter) a televised talk and just offered as proof of the existence of God the fact that in a house they were clearing today there were lots of little ceramic figurines. All the ones of Jesus were intact, but all the ones of Santa were broken! Huh! Huh! Think about it.

Postscript:

There were some further developments to this story later on. The whole camp is abuzz. I’ll try and fill you in tomorrow. Still waiting for an internet conncection.