The First Couple Days Of Hands-On, And Such

So...

I arrived in New Orleans on Saturday night, spent the night with the wonderful Farley family (without Joanna, unfortunately) and the next day drove to the site of Hands-On Neans. This will be my home for the next few months. I am an absolute idiot and am withoug camera at the moment, but I'll have one soon. In the mean time, here are my comments.

All the volunteers are staying in a church, with a dining room, kitchen, and a huge bunk room. It's definitely close living, with bunks pushed together, nothing more than a sheet separating them acting as a privacy wall. But I got here early on a Sunday during a weekend of calm, and the volunteer director (who has taken me under her wing and who I have taken a fancy to) picked me out the best available bunk, and it is suiting me well. There's a bit more privacy, and a bit more quiet. Even so, it's a strange thought that my 6 1/2 X 2 1/2 bunk, and the space underneath it, is what I'm calling home for the next 3 months.

The atmosphere of the volunteer community here has a great vibe. The majority of volunteers are probably in their mid twenties, but it varies greatly. and to be honest, i don't know for sure how old almost any of them are, but they all interact without any feelings of superiority or subordination, and that's what is so special about this place. You're respected based on your ability to work hard and do good deeds, and there are few environments where a 40 year old will commend an 18 year old as a peer.

Day to day stuff goes like this. We wake up at seven in the morning. We have a breakfast, choosing from toast, cereal, fruit; and then we pack our lunch for the day ahead (almost always a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and chips, unless you want left overs from the day before). We try to get out the door around 8:00 AM, making sure we grab our:

Tyvek Suit , Hardhat (and drill, occasionally), Crowbar




and respirator......... and set off for the project. Projects are all over New Orleans, but focus mainly in Central city. This is an area that's known for it's violence, but it wasn't hit horribly by the storm, and so there is hope for it to thrive post Katrina. Hands-On received a grant of 250,000 dollars to work on Houses exclusively this area, because it's an area filled with lower middle class folks, a demographic that's been largely ignored in New Orleans, since the working class get the most government attention, and the upper class can take care of themselves.

Projects vary from day to day. After dinner volunteers sign up for projects on a bulletin board, so you have the option to do something new every day of the week, with the exception of team leaders who bring cohesion to the project and stick with it from beginning to end. Nonetheless, despite the varying projects, there are always crews going out to gut houses and to demold them. This is the work that needs to be done most in New Orleans, so it's a large priority for Hands-On. It's important work as well because the work we're doing is saving the home owner anywhere from $12,000-$15,000, with less honorable contractors charging anywhere from $15,000-$20,000.

I started with a gut, wanting to get down and dirty my first day of work. It was an unbelievably frustrating building, a building known as the House of Pain, as Iron Maiden, as Satan's Den; a house made completely of metal. And I mean completely. Metal walls, metal studs, and the drywall was cemented on to metal chicken wire, that also held in the insulation. The day consisted of using worn metal cutters to cut away chicken wire. But my team was made of good people, funny people (a sense of humor can be essential on a tedious day, I've found) and so it ended up being a fun time.

And with that, I depart. More in the future. I'm looking forward.