NOLA - Day Four - Paint (Prime) or Finish the Gut job

We had 2 choices today. Paint Janice's house about 10 minutes from St. Jude's or go finish the gut. Finishing the get meant working is 2 very small rooms and carrying all of the stuff down the stairs.

Janice is a wonderful woman. She has been living in Texas since Katrina, and recently moved back and is living with a friend. When we pulled up there was the most wonderful square foot of burnt orange paint on the front of her house. On the way over, we were hoping for bright pink or purple, but this orange was perfect.

We asked James if the house was ready to prime and he said YES. Some of us started priming, BUT the house was not quite ready. There were areas that needed to be scraped still, clapboards that needed to be repaired etc. We had a philosophical discussion about the quality of our job with some people saying, Let's start painting and others saying Do the job as if it were your own house.

Part of our group thought that the trees that were leaning heavily on the wires in front of the house should be pruned before we started. See picture.

Jance arrived and Russ, Melissa and Dan consulted with her about the repairs to make prior to painting. She was very thankful to have someone else taking some interest in her house. She seemed so overwhelmed that when we asked if she wanted us to paint her front porch she said "I don't know, what do you guys think?, give me some help here." She lives in a double hump back shotgun house. Definition to follow. She has a "tenant" who lives on one side of the house, who has not paid her rent for a while and who she is trying to evict. That person's son yelled at us when he arrived during the day. What is up with that?

Dan and Melissa left with Janice to go to home Depot. While they were out, Janice could not give enough to us and bought cases of water and apples for our kids. They fed us for a few days. I still have some of the apples and carrots in my fridge. It is amazing how quickly you can build relationships. Dan and Janice became quite close, both of their Moms have died recently and they bonded in that first hour they spent together.

So meanwhile back at the house, Russ was instructing the kids about painting techniques, clapboard repair, fixing windows and washing paint brushes. We realize much after the fact, that we should have approached the day differently, in that we were pretty disorganized at times, but that was our lesson for the day. We debriefed as advisors later that day. The kids had a blast painting, climbing ladders, nailing clapboards. One youth had quite a propensity for HUGE paint spills.

The biggest teaching moment was learning out to bucket flush the toilet. Janice's side of the house does not have water. In her basement is a toilet we could use, but we had to put water in the tank, in order to flush it. Some of the kids were pretty grossed out, but we taught a few of them how to bucket flush. A skill we have used a few years at Star Island when the toilets were not up to par.

It started to rain at 2:30ish so back to St. Jude's, where we reconnnected with the gut crew.

As is the tradition (second year that the group has done this) we walked to St. Anna's church for a 6pm mass, followed by a $5 meal and wonderful NOLA musicians. Imagine 28 UUs in a high Episcopal mass. We were very respectful. There was a healing part of the service which looked wonderful, and the baptism of an adult male during the mass. One of the pictures is of the musicians. Alabama Slim on guitar. The woman bass player was wonderful. She had the most wonderful facial expressions.

All of our group stayed for most of the music. 3 youth left early with John, Some of us retreated to St. Jude's (2 advisors) and the rest of the crew ran for the beignets and cafe au lait.

NOLA - Day Three - Warehouse or Gut?

It was pretty typical to not get our day's assignment until right before we left. Sometimes Operation Nehemiah knew what we were doing a few hours before, or the night before but not always. At about 8am we found out that we would be deployed to 2 jobs, gutting a house or a "warehouse job". Last year a group of the kids, because they were too young, did not get to gut a house. Last year they were know as The Acorn Group, which was the name of the group they worked with last year. The gut job was definitely more popular, so as a group we decided that The Acorn group, would be first on the list. Then we decided that seniors, who might not have another chance if this was our only gut job should go next. As it turned out, we had 2 more guts during the week, but we were not sure of that at the time.

So, 10 youth and drivers headed to the gut job, and the rest of us with our mapquest directions in hand, drove to the warehouse not knowing what to expect. The address was a closed Walgreens, with two 18-wheelers parked at the back. Walgreens's was renting the warehouse for $1/month to Operation Nehemiah. They had built another new Walgreen's down the street. James said he always shops at Walgreen's now.

James was waiting for us and he drove the fork lift for most of the day. Our task for the day was to unload the 2 trucks which had all kinds of equipment from another one of their warehouses that had been sold. We unloaded: showers, fridges, washers, dryers, 100s of beds, mattresses, trash cans shrink wrapped with shovels, tiles, metal roofing, springs for beds, tables, insulation, air conditioners, tools, garden tools, wheel barrows, cement mixer, carpet, clothing, etc. A lot of the stuff had been loaded onto pallets and stacked and then shrink wrapped. The stacked pallets were about 3 inches too tall for James to be able to wheel them into the warehouse so we had to break them down and carry the stuff inside.

Again, a drug store transformed into a warehouse for construction and demolition equipment. One local resident came by and asked if the Walgreen's was opening. He had such a hopeful look in his eye, that the neighborhood was gaining a drug store.

It was hard work. During our circle time that evening, many of us remarked that we did not feel like we had done anything for the actual residents. One very smart youth commented "Someone has to do that kind of work" Youth are often so wise beyond their years. Each evening we had a circle time, and 2 or 3 youth were selected to lead for the next day. We also asked those youth to decide who would go on each work project, and who would drive in each car. We really tried to empower the youth to lead whenever they could.

The gutting crew came back very dirty but they seemed happy to have met the owner, Ernest Smith. His parents lived right next door in the house that had been completed first.

I did not choose the gut job since I was being cautious with my knee. Carrying heavy debris down stairs and into the dumpster did not seem like work I could do.

Dinner was at St. Jude's and then we walked into the French Quarter, had beignets and coffee and walked along the Mississippi River for a little bit.

NOLA - Transformation and Camp Hope

Our first work project on Monday was at Camp Hope. This is a facility run by Habitat for Humanity, that used to be a school. A school transformed into a facility to house Katrina volunteers. Somehow, the word transformed has always had a positive meaning to me, but in this case it is depressing that a SCHOOL is now a FACILITY FOR HOUSING VOLUNTEERS. Picture on the left is the emptied 18 wheeler.

It was good that we all got to go together on this first project. Here are our 19 wonderful youth (copied from Lizzie's facebook album). If you do the counting, there is one hiding over on the right of the picture!

Our task was to unload an 18-wheeler of the 100 beds and to assemble those beds into 4 rooms, of 25 beds each. We heard a rumor that the beds came from an army base.

There were 2 different kinds of beds, and it took the engineers among the youth to figure that out, and to put the proper pieces into the proper beds. John used this opportunity to teach some young women how to run a power saw, as we had to cut up dowels to fit the bunk beds together. One parent specifically asked that their youth NOT run power equipment. Can you believe that a parent would not want them to run chain saws and drills and saws? ;< ) In our evening circle, many of the comments were about how well everyone worked together, but also how much fun they had, jumping on mattress, and pushing each other on carts, up and down the halls. There is definitely going to be a balance between work and fun. That was the only way to make it through some of the days was to have lots of levity. Each day we made sandwiches for the day. We had bologna and PB&J on this day. We also had bologna for breakfast the first 2 days. As the cook said, you guys eat whatever someone donates to us. It was amazing that they made all of our meals from donated food. Melissa and I also went out to buy fruit and granola bars for the group. Youth were begging for fruit. We also met James on our first day. He works for Operation Nehemiah, and he works really, really hard. He moved down after Katrina, works for a stipend and then goes home to renovate his 8 room house. On our way home, we tried to find one of the houses that the group gutted last year. Since we could not find the house, it might be that it has indeed been torn down. I am sure that happens but would have been hard for our group from last year, to realize that it might not be around. HEY, that might happen to us too, with a house we work on. YUCKY! Home for dinner, and then the obligatory walk into the French Quarter and stop at Cafe du Monde for beignets and cafe au lait. It is ironic to see people who do not have houses, to see the homeless waiting for their breakfast and then to spend $1.82 on 3 beignets. Oh well. Lights out and Quiet time at 10. There are 3 groups of women in our dorm. One of our youth was heard to say "What part of quiet do you not understand?" after the third request for quiet.

NOLA - We will take care of each other

NOLA - the trip down. I am going to blog about NOLA for the next few blogs, a day at a time.

The group all met at the church. John handed all of the adults a post-it with their 2youth names on it. We were in charge of making sure those 2 youth got to NOLA. This tiny organizing tactic proved invaluable for the rest of the week. Parents of youth transported us to the airport, where we were handed a pile of boarding passes from a proactive ticket agent and crept through TSA. Only 2 youth left their boarding passes at the security station. What a stupid system! Carry your boarding pass through the security, PUT IT DOWN, gather your shoes, carry on, whatever else. It must happen a lot, that people leave their boarding passes. We were on the look out though and delivered the boarding passes to the proper individuals. Once on the plane, we traveled to Atlanta, and reminded the youth to take their boarding passes for the next plane out of the seat pocket in front of them.

Once in NOLA, we picked 4 adult drivers who disappeared on a bus to collect the 4 minivans. We were going to have to shuttle some people and luggage and return to get the rest, but at the last minute we decided to stuff the bags so that we could all travel together and not have to return to the airport for the remaining bags and individuals.

On the way to town, the devastation was apparent all along the highway. We could see entire communities of deserted houses where no one lives yet 2 1/2 years later.

We pulled up to St. Jude's Community Center, just on the outside border of the French Quarter. Our beds for the next week were in a Womens and Mens dormitory. For our week they switched dorms because there were many more women than men. Triple and double bunk beds crammed about 70 beds into one room for the women.

St. Jude's has just recently become the office for Operation Nehemiah. St Jude's is run by Sister Beth and they are very busy feeding homeless, food pantry for people who qualify, and doing tax returns. They also have a cardiac exercise room, for those who can no longer use their cardiac program because it has been closed down, torn down or they cannot afford it. It also has class rooms for Sunday school and a few rooms where residents live.

After our orientation, we decided to walk into the French Quarter for dinner. We split up by adults and their 2 post-it youth. We then went to Jackson Square to have beignets and cafe au lait at Cafe du Monde, which became a nightly ritual.

Home to our bunks, ready to get up at 6am for a 6:30 breakfast. We had to be out of the dining hall, since they feed the hungry at 7:30 am.

So, we learned to take care of each other by collecting boarding passes that were left, by watching out for our 2 youth and sometimes having the youth watch out for their adult, by sharing plates of beignets, by allowing people to move at different paces, by organizing beds by preference, by traveling all in a huge large group, even if we had to travel with a suitcase in our laps.

We also instituted another way to find out if everyone was in attendance. The french exchange groups from our high school do this. Everyone is assigned a number. When someone says count off, number 1 starts and everyone hollers out their number all the way up to 28. If someone is missing it is quickly apparent. There was resistance to this method and it certainly caused confusion to have 2 organizing methods, but there were times when we needed the "count off".

Off to NOLA

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we leave for New Orleans. 19 youth and 9 adults taveling together to work through Operation Nehemiah. After the craziness of the last week of work for me, I am looking forward to a different kind of work for a week. I expect to be physically and emotionally challenged. I expect to laugh and cry. I know at the end of a week spent with these special people, that we will have created an experience and a community, that others will not understand.

Talking with my Mom today, I described what my latest "retirement" job is. I want to get red cross trained, and then sign up and travel to different parts of the world, when there are disasters. Hopefully they can use my skills.

So for the next week, think of us down in NOLA. I am sure there will be lots to blog about when we get back.

My big question, should I bring my knitting? I would never go on a trip without it, in olden days, but I am looking at every object as I pack and asking "Will I really use it?" So, will I really have time to knit? I have a book for the plane, I have a journal to write in, tiny colored pencils to draw mandelas, a new card game from my Valentine, FLUXX. It will be a last minute decision . . .

Why is it hard to see our own gifts?

So, yes the rally yesterday was really wonderful. Roberta lit a candle today in appreciation for it at church today. It brought 20 women of First Parish closer to each other. Even partners of some of those women came up to me at social hour to thank me for having it.

I really enjoy these rallies and running them FOR ME, seems very easy.

The construct is very simple. There is one LAW, and 4 principles.

The Law of 2 feet says, move from a session if it is not working for you. It is absolutely OK to get up and leave. In fact true Open Space has bumblebees who pollinate one session with content from another.

The 4 principles are:

It starts when it starts
Whoever is there, is exactly who should have been there
Whatever happens is the only thing that should have happened
When it's over it's over

A central theme yesterday, was that we do not see our "gifts" as being creative. A beautiful singer does not see that as a gift. Neither does the person who analyzes and crunches number. Neither do I see that my gift is to create the vessel for others to fill. Daddy used to do that. He would create the environment and step back and watch us all enjoy it. The most wonderful example was Rod's first family reunion. Dad made sure there was a cricket field set up to include Rod.

It just seems easier to see others' gifts than our own, WELL for me that is. Maybe because our gift often come so naturally, often seem like little effort, often are like rolling off a log. It makes sense but it is still surprising.

I am off to San Diego tomorrow for 4 days. I love traveling. I pack a good novel, my knitting and my IPod. I love watching people in airports, and on airplanes. I love that 6 hour span to read something uninterrupted. Back on the red eye Thursday night. See previous post about red eye.

Women's Rally a Success

Damn, I just lost my post . . .

Here I go again.

Today we held a Women's rally at church. Women who knit, write, make bamboo pipes, do ceramics, quilt, analyze numbers, sing, compose music, make prints and others which I have forgotten got together. We use a methodology called Open Space. Google that to find out what it is about.

We start with an opening circle, break into groups, have a potluck lunch all together, afternoon sessions and then closing circle. I had an activity planned for the closing circle, but threw that away when one group announced they had a song for us all to sing that came out of the afternoon session, from someone who has been blocked recently trying to compose music. Yes, we talked about blocks to creativity, the biggest being fools who say things like "That's a dumb idea" or "You can't sing" or "You can't write" or "This is not perfect". One nugget we talked about was that we are all creative, and need to get over those kinds of comments to find our inner voice or creativity.

I am always a bit nervous when I am planning these, but after today I should just relax. They run themselves, just like Open Space says.

It was a good rally.

Women's Rally a Success - the lost one found

This morning at church 20 women held a rally. I am not sure if that is the appropriate name for what we did, but that is what we always call it, since these started 8 or 9 years ago. We use a metholology called Open Space for these rallies. Today was titled Creativity and Spirituality. We start with an opening circle, decide what sessions we want to run, feed each other lunch by bringing a potluck meal, afternoon sessions and closing circle. Women who paint, knit, write, analyze numbers, make mobiles, sing, make prints, make pottery, make and play bamboo pipes, compose music and probably some that I have forgotten got together. A nugget aka seed that was planted is that ALL of us are creative. When people start saying to us "That is a dumb idea" we start to self-monitor and sometimes believe that we are not creative. Interesting, this often starts when we enter grade school. Women today realize a broader definition of creativity. We closed the rally by saying individually to each other "I appreciate you and appreciate your creativity.

I am always a bit nervous about how these are going to go, but after this one today, I should just relax. I had an activity for our closing circle planned, but that was unnecessary. A group composed a song for us all to sing sung to the tune Dona Nobis Pacem. I was in tears as we sang it.

It was a good rally.