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.
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