Back Home in MN Already!

We're back home in Minnesota! I can't believe how quickly our trip went and I just didn't have enough opportunities to update our blog because of the busyness. However, I'll do my best to bring you up to speed on the last couple of days of our trip. Thursday and Friday were both half days of work and we used them to sand the first coat of mud on Michelle's house. It's not that big (3 bedroooms, 2 bathrooms, a living room and kitchen), but it was messy, difficult work. Because of the humidity, we would sweat 24-7 and then the dust falling off the walls would stick to us and form kind of a white paste that was everywhere on our bodies. However, with a little hard work and lots of water breaks, we were able to finish all the sanding and leave the entire house ready for another crew of volunteers to put up the second coat of mudding (the whole mudding/sanding process needs to be done three times to create the smoothest walls possible).

While we were sanding, we also got a little taste of what life is like financially for many hurricane victims. One morning there was a knock at Michelle's door and someone walked in and handed me a slip of paper. After reading it, I realized that it was a notice saying that the water was going to be turned off if several months of back pay were not paid in two weeks time. Michelle shared later that making ends meet since the hurricane had been hard. Not only did she need to pay the mortgage on a house she couldn't live in because it was too damaged to occupy, she needed to pay utilities for both that house (so she could rebuild) and for her trailer (which luckily she doesn't have to pay for because it came from FEMA). Michelle's dad Carol also shared that like most other people affected by the hurricane, Michelle did not have flood insurance, so she received no money from insurance even though her house needed to be totally resheetrocked. Our team really wanted to help Michelle, and after consulting our budget we realized that we had enough money left over from the generous donors who helped make our trip possible to leave enough with Michelle to cover her water bill.

Thursday afternoon and evening we spent in New Orleans. One of the volunteer coordinators at Aldersgate took us on a tour of the 9th Ward and St. Bernard's Parish, two of the communities hardest hit by the flooding. The whole experience was amazingly eye-opening. We drove and walked through neighborhoods that looked like the hurricane had just occured yesterday. For blocks and blocks we saw houses that had been lifted up by the water and placed back down again off their foundations. The insides were full of all kinds of personal items and furniture that had been lifted up by the flood and then deposited back down every which way. What was left of walls and ceilings were splotched with mold and mildew and there were large piles of trash everywhere. There was even a 40 foot barge still in the middle of the street in one neighborhood a mile or so from any water! It amazed all of us that one year after Hurricane Katrina there could still be neighborhoods that looked this way. Most of the residents had not returned and those that had were living in FEMA trailers in the middle of what looked like a war zone. We heard that New Orleans is predicting that it will take 5-10 years to rebuild and I was convicted anew of the importance of volunteers and the great need that still remains in hurricane-affected areas.

On Friday afternoon we packed up and left for Pensacola. My flight from Pensacola to Minneapolis flew out Friday night (with lots of delays because of bad weather and all the security issues) and everyone else followed Saturday morning. All in all, it was a great trip: our team was very unified and had a great time hanging out together, we worked hard, and we learned a lot. I guarantee that the same would happen for you if you decided to head down south and help your brothers and sisters in need!

(posted by Rebecca at 8:17 am on 8/14/06)