Who Dat!?

Sunday, January 17th
(Happy 21st bday to my lovely sister, Morgan!)

Finally, my first blog post from New Orleans! I am excited that my team and I found a cute coffee shop called "Flora's" near our house that has free WiFi. I have so much to update about since arriving in NOLA less than a week ago! Enjoy reading!

First of all, you may have noticed the title of this post, "Who Dat?" For those of you who don't follow football, the New Orleans Saints are in the playoffs for the SuperBowl, and "Who Dat?" is the most popular saying around New Orleans right now. I have yet to figure out where is comes from -- I'm thinking Drew Brees or someone may have said this or something. But currently, New Orleans is calling itself "Who Dat? Nation!" Haha. I've seen everything from billboards, to shirts, to FAKE NAILS, to bumper stickers saying "Who Dat?" all over them. It's pretty funny -- and people walking around the city randomly yell out "Who Dat!?" all the time. We've joined in on occasion and yelled it out too!

We left Denver on Saturday morning and spent three days travelling to LA. Below is a picture of the sign as all of the teams were pulling out of campus.

Our first night of travelling we stayed in a hotel in Amarillo, TX. All eight teams from Denver travelling to Louisiana stayed in the same city. In the morning at continental breakfast, we learned that there was this place called "Cadillac Ranch" in Amarillo very close to our hotels. Four teams (including mine) decided to check it out before getting on the highway. So, at approximately 8:15am, about 60 of us parked our "govi-vans" (this is what we're not referring to our vans as -- short for government vans) on the side of this road and ran out into this open field to look at "Cadillac Ranch." As the pictures below show, it was a bunch of old Cadillacs partially buried in the ground with tons of graffiti on them. We found some half-full spray paint cans and began adding our own artwork. Too bad is was about 40'F outside with high winds -- we were freezing and didn't stay very long, but it was really cool to see!

Look at all the grey hoodies! Gotta love wearing the "A" even during SPIKE travel.

Here's a picture of our house that we're living in for this round! We arrived on Monday evening around 5pm. We grabbed some dinner at this cute local place called "Tony's Restaurant" -- there sign outside read "Best Food in Da Parish!" Haha! Then we went grocery shopping, and then came home and unpacked our belongings into the house. Below are several pictures so you can see what our house looks like -- it's really cute! It's a Habitat for Humanity built house, so it's just like the houses that we're delivering supplies to and helping to build!


Through the front door on the left hand side is this lovely living room. It's nice to have space to hang out and couches to sit on (last round we didn't have any couches, so this is a big deal for us!) As you can see, no TV or anything, so we've been playing lots of games and reading a lot. The brown paper on the wall we hung up as a "quote/drawing wall" -- it's already proven to be a conversation piece and a source of many laughs, and it hasn't even been a week!

To the right of the front door is this kitchen. As you can see, we have a "makeshift" table, so we tend to eat sitting on the floor in a circle in the living room. It's more like a "family dinner" this way anyway, since everyone can sit together. We have tons of cupboard space. The only thing we're sort of lacking is a microwave, but we're managing. Toasting and reheating food in the oven it's that big of a deal!

The biggest adjustment for us this round has been 11 people sharing one bathroom. So far, it hasn't really been a problem. We're all pretty flexible and patient when it comes to showering and getting ready in the morning. People have been pretty good about taking quick showers and letting others in to use the bathroom quickly in between. Another nice thing is that right outside the bathroom in the hallway, there's a large linen closet with shelves where we're storing all of our toiletries. This is nice because everyone can still access all of there stuff, even if someone's in the bathroom or shower. Here's a picture I took this morning of the teeth-brushing-line this morning of Tim, Amanda, and Mary.

Here's a picture of bedroom #1 - my room. Mackenzie and Kelly share the bunk on the left wall, and Jamie and I share the bunk on the back wall. The rooms are pretty small and we have lots of stuff crammed into them, so it looks kind of messy, but it's actually not too bad.

Bedroom #2 - Marty, Mary, Meg and Amanda's room.

Bedroom #3 - AKA "Man Cave" - They actually made a sign out of cardboard that hangs on the door that says "Man Cave" with a picture of a sword and a skull and crossbones, haha. This is Tim, Ross, and Joel's room.

We also have a laundry room, which is really exciting because we can do laundry in our house this round! The washer and dryer is really nice -- the dryer plays music when it's finished!


Our house is in the 9th Ward, and it's a pretty run-down neighborhood. I would say that nearly every other house is still abandoned and damaged since the hurricanes of 2005. Here's an example of one of the homes in our neighborhood that I took on my way to work yesterday.

It has definitely taken some adjusting on my part to get used to the type of environment that we live and work in. I don't want to make anyone reading this nervous, but it's a high poverty area, so naturally, there is a decent amount of crime and drug-related activity.

Sadly, my team experienced something extremely awful on our first day in New Orleans. On Tuesday, we finished our first day of work at the warehouse/ReStore around 4pm and headed to a local park to do PT. Some of us had been doing deliveries around the area during the day, and we saw this park on St. Roch Street with an open field, basketball courts, and a playground. We thought it would be safer for our team to head there for PT rather than jogging and stretching in our neighborhood.

We had only been at the park for about 15 minutes. We were all stretching on the basketball courts when suddenly, we heard 3 gun shots that sounded very close to us. All of us looked up but no one said anything -- I think none of us were quite sure if we heard correctly. Then we saw a white Blazer squeal its tire and race around the corner of a house across the street. Still, we stood silently, each of us trying to piece together what we were witnessing. Reality hit when a women came screaming out of the house into the porch. She was hysterically crying, yelling things like help! call 911! call an ambulance! She ran into the street and collapsed in tears -- a women in the house next door came outside and helped her out of the road and into the house nextdoor.

Wide-eyed, my team began running to our van. My teammate Mary used my cell phone to call 911, and we struggled to explain our location to the police since we were unfamiliar with the cross-streets. As we pulled out of the block, we saw police cars flying up the street to the house.

It was one of the most terrible things I've ever witnessed. Sure, I've been in areas of downtown Grand Rapids and heard gunshots at a distance. I've been in "shady" areas (such as Freeport, TX) and seen a drug deal on a corner. But NEVER have I been witness to a drive-by shooting. It was awful. We will never return to that park to do PT. The following day, we told our supervisors at the warehouse about the incident, and Crista, the warehouse manager, said she heard about the shooting on the nightly news but that she doesn't think it was fatal. I really hope this is true. Either way, it was a rough way to start our first day in a new place.

However, I didn't write this to concern anyone reading this entry. As I've been telling my parents and Eric and my friends that I've talked to this week, I am being extra careful, and I do not feel like I am in immediate danger. These crimes are mostly strategic crimes dealing with either gang violence or drug affairs. It's not like people are going around committing random acts of violence -- they have a purpose and a plan. Therefore, as long as my team continues to stay together, be safe, and stay out of places we shouldn't be, I don't feel unsafe. It's just different having to be very aware of our surroundings all the time. It makes me appreciate what I have and where I grew up -- safety was never really a large concern for me at home. Here, I see little kids riding their bikes around neighborhoods that I am fearful to get out of the car in -- it's just a new life experience for me I guess.

Anyway, on a lighter note, below are some more pictures of the area that we've been driving around. Something interesting here is that many of the street names are long and French and hard to pronounce. This is my favorite one so far -- pronounced "chop-i-tool-is"!

Another fascinating thing about New Orleans that I'm enjoying is the architecture. On our first day here, our Habitat sponsor, Melissa, told us that she dares to say there's no place like New Orleans on Earth. It is a very unique place, and the buildings are awesome to drive around and check out. Tons of wrought-iron doors and fences. Below is my attempt to take an "artsy door" picture (I thought of you with this one, Mom!)

This next picture is of a vacant elementary school that we drive past several times a day while making deliveries. It's very eerie because all of the windows are busted out, the siding it falling off, and this sign on the side still has announcements about school starting on 8/21/2005. It's crazy to think that there are still tons and tons of homes and buildings that haven't been touched since Katrina hit almost 4 1/2 years ago.

Aside from the area we're in, I'm really enjoying the work that I'm doing with the Habitat warehouse. Half of my team is at the warehouse and the other half in the ReStore for the first 2 weeks, and then we will switch.

I am currently working in the warehouse with Mary, Marty, Ross, and Meg. A typical day looks something like this: We arrive at 8am and talk to Crista, who is a really awesome woman and that manager of the warehouse. She gives us orders to pick, and we go around the warehouse counting out supplies. This includes things like siding, insulation, roofing tiles, trim, screws, nails; pretty much anything used to build a house. After we pull the orders, we load them up into various trucks, depending on the amount of materials we have to deliver. Then, Crista prints us out mapquest directions and we take off in the HFH trucks around the city to deliver the supplies to the various building sites.

This is so much fun, not only because we get to explore the area by driving around, but also because we get to see and talk to people on different work sites and see the different building stages. Sometimes we even get to make deliveries to other AmeriCorps teams on worksites, which is extra exciting (especially is it's a team we know from Denver!) We do deliveries and pick ups for most of the day. We come back to the warehouse to drop things off and pick up more items if necessary. If we have down time, we organize and label things around the warehouse to make it easier to find supplies. I am learning so much about tools and construction materials, and I am also SUPER SORE! This past week I did more heavy lifting than I've probably done in my entire life combined! The heaviest was when we unloaded 80 lbs. bags of cement for a fencing project. Bags of roofing tiles are also very heavy!

Here's a picture of part of the warehouse. It's hard to see, but it's basically just a giant "garage" with shelves and supplies.

Here's a picture of Mary and I on Friday morning making a delivery. This particular delivery was quite the adventure. It's not uncommon for us to get lost or turned around while making deliveries, especially because NOLA is full of one-ways and no-left-turns. Crista is very understanding of us getting lost at times, and the only way we can really learn the area is to drive around it.

So on Friday morning, Mary and I headed out to make a delivery in the Jefferson area, about 25 minutes away from the warehouse. We had directions and made it to the worksite without any problems. However, as we were leaving and backtracking our directions to get to the highway, our route was interrupted by a MLK Day parade. The road we needed to take to access the highway ramp was blocked by police cars, so we had to detour with traffic to the right. No big deal (so we thought) -- we'd just drive around a little and eventually find our way to another highway entrance. Sure enough, in a few miles we found a ramp to highway I-90 West. We couldn't find a "90 East," which is the direction we needed, so we decided to just get on going westbound and get off at the next exit to turn around and head back east. This seemed like a pretty logically plan to us, but what we didn't realize is that as soon as we began heading west, we went over a drawbridge. Once over this bridge, the only way to return was to pay a $1.00 toll and head back east. The problem was, neither of us had any money on us -- we both had just grabbed our driver's licenses and put them in our pockets, but we didn't think we would need any money. So, we pulled over at a gas station and began searching underneath the seats of the truck for change. We came up with $.62 -- so close, but not enough to get back over the bridge!!!

After discussing our options for a few minutes, we walked into a construction office next door to the gas station. A woman was at the desk making copies, so we explained to her our situation -- We're AmeriCorps members, we're working with Habitat for Humanity, we were making a delivery and a parade route got us turned around, we accidently went over the bridge, we are from Michigan and Wisconsin so we're unfamiliar with the area, we found $.62 in the truck...does she happen to have $.38 for us to get back to our warehouse? I have never asked a stranger for money before, but luckily this woman was extremely nice and understanding. She ended up just giving us a dollar and telling us to be careful, and we were able to make it back safely to the warehouse. Yet another like experience to add to my bag -- it's strange the amount of new experiences I've had in just a few days of being here. That was quite the adventure! We will definitely always carry a few dollars in the truck when making deliveries, just incase something like that ever happens again!

Here's a picture of me in the warehouse! I am making this sad face because the warehouse we painted by a bunch of middle school students and it basically looks like graffiti all over the walls! Crista doesn't like it and neither do we, so we're hoping to help her paint it and maybe paint a mural with the HFH logo to make it look warmer and more professional. I am making a sad face because apparently this section of the ugly wall was painted by a girl named Ashley!

A few more updates from this week...

Yesterday (Saturday), the warehouse group and I got to work on a building site at a Habitat house for the day. We worked to measure, cut, and install baseboard trim all day. It was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, and figuring out the measurements and corner angles were tricky at times. What was really neat about the project is that we got to work with the future homeowner, Jessica. One of the HFH policies is that future homeowners have to contribute at least 300 "sweat equity" hours before they can sign their mortgage. So I got to work as a team with Jessica and talk to her, which was really awesome. I would guess that she's in her late 20's, and she's a single mother of two girls, ages 7 and 2. She works as a teacher's assistant in a Catholic elementary school in the kindergarten room. She is SO excited to own her own home -- she was telling me that she wants to have a stable home for her girls to live in, and she mentioned that they could even stay there while attending college when they're older to save money. Yesterday really put a face with the cause of HFH for me -- I had a great time working with Jessica and the rest of the building team, and I hope we get to go back and continue helping her while we're here!

Another big event was visiting Bourbon Street last night, especially after the Saints won their football game yesterday. My entire team went downtown for the evening. I volunteered to be the DD and drive the van for anyone who wanted to come back by midnight (which is when our van has to be grounded). It was crazy to walk around Bourbon Street -- there was so much going on. Body to body people in the streets, live music, drinks everywhere, BEADS everywhere. We ran into all of the other AmeriCorps teams from Denver who are in NOLA. It was fun to check it out -- I am glad I wasn't drinking though, because there was so much going on, I was overwhelmed enough without having a couple drinks in me! I am interested/nervous to see how crazy Mardi Gras is going to be!

Tomorrow is supposed to be one of our days off, but since it's MLK Jr. Day, it's a National Day of Service, so we're working. We are meeting at 8am at Camp HOPE (which is a volunteer base in NOLA that was set up after Katrina) with all of the other NCCC teams from around the country. There are 8 teams here from my campus, and 8 more teams from the four other campuses around the country -- so we are meeting in the morning for breakfast and a kick-off ceremony. It will be cool to be with all of the NCCC members in NOLA from around the country. Then, my team has been assigned to work in a cemetary restoring and cleaning -- I'm not quite sure what this entails, but the cemetaries here are so interesting, and I'm excited to explore!

I get one bar of wireless internet in my house, so it's possible that I will be able to check my email throughout this week, but it's more likely that I won't be able to update or check things until next weekend when I visit this coffee shop again.

I hope you enjoyed reading my first update. I am really learning a lot and enjoying my time in NOLA so far. I'm sure there will be more to share next weekend. Thanks for reading and take care!