Learning The Cupid Shuffle

What Becky didn't say about the Priestly gut was that this is where she actually learned the steps to the Cupid Shuffle! This dance, which will no doubt soon be sweeping the nation, was incorporated into almost every work environment and provided endless comic relief. To the Right, to the Right, to the Right... ~ Amanda

KaBoom Build Pictures

Tuesday via Sunday

We are home now but with that comes time, energy and bandwidth to better update the blog. First I would like to post about my work assignment on Tuesday.



On Tuesday, May 15th, Amanda, Lellie, Jennifer and I were on the "Priestly School Gut". It was described as a second day gut which means most of the contents have been removed from the building and the walls are coming down. Since this was a three story school and not the typical home gut the rules were a little different. We still had debris to clean up including drapes and blinds to be removed.

Lellie and I took on the third floor. A decision that was not well thought out as it meant carting trashbins full of heavy junk down three flights of dark cement stairs and then back up again for more work. We must have made 15 - 20 trips up and down those stairs over the course of the day. And while that may not sound like much don't forget it is near 90 degrees and we are wearing Tyvec suits, respirators, goggles and workboots. It was a very physical day.

The school has an interesting story in that it was decommissioned in the late 80s and used as storage for both school equipment and munitions. (The connection is not clear to me either) Due to the storm destruction of the nearby local schools it has been determined it is more efficient to return this building to code and reopen than tackle those that were flooded. So what was once thrown away is now better than what was left from the storm.

The work itself was very satisfying. Lellie and I made a great team working methodically without talking; which was lucky because we had one of the worst Team Leaders I've met in my 3 trips to the Gulf Coast. We earned our showers that day, for sure!

Let's get that checked out.

The following entry was written on Friday May 15th....

At the moment I am sitting in the waiting room at Touro Infirmary. James has had 3 bug bites blow up into major infections in the past 24 hours. The most severe is on his leg and looks like a nice replica of Saturn while the one on his arm is more like an areola. It seemed like a good thing to get checked out by the doctor.

Being at the emergency room is never a good thing but tonight also happens to be our last community meeting after dinner at HONO. This is our chance to stand up and say thank you to the people who have made this trip so special and express any final thoughts we might have. I have asked Drue to take care of this and include James and I in her goodbye. I hope she doesn’t take this opportunity to proclaim my love for someone in the bunkhouse just to see how awkward things can be when I get back. (Although I might have done the same thing to her if given the chance)

My workday was spent building a playground with the KaBoom organization and volunteers from the local Mariotts. It was a gorgeous day and I had a hand in many projects from building a jungle gym, shoveling mulch, cleaning up, and a lot of “gofer” requests. “we need a hammer, do you know where we get more tarps, why is this jungle gym leaning to the right?” It was a very fun day. KaBoom organizes playground builds around the country so I encourage anyone to get involved if they come to your town.

I have yet to shower after my workday and am covered in dirt. I love that I can walk around anywhere in New Orleans without a second glance since I have a Hurricane Relief Volunteer T-shirt on. Of course I wouldn’t mind if that shirt was clean…

Our Team At The Slidell Animal Shelter

Day the Fourth: My First Blog

Hi all -- I'd first like to introduce myself in that very, very special picture of me in the partial team photo. See the person in back with their eyes closed who looks like they're about to fall over? C'est moi, Jennifer, honorary Rhino.

It's hard to believe that the week is already drawing to its close -- Thursday, just tonight and Friday left; I'm leaving on Saturday morning, with kudos to JetBlue. The week has been so incredibly rich and rewarding and life-affirming, and there's so much to write about, but I'm sure that some topics are already called by other blogmeisters (i.e., I think night of the tots belongs to Drue). So I'll just write about yesterday, when Amanda, Lellie, Becky and I all become Hands On Studs.

You are a publicly recognized Stud at evening meal if you do an incredible, out of the ordinary job on your day's assignment, and yesterday we kicked it thoroughly. Sarah, Sergio, Drue, and James had been assigned to a KaBoom! playground building job for most of the week, and they told us how great it was -- and they weren't wrong. However, unlike them, we had to get down and dirty. The four of us spent the day digging holes. Not your ordinary holes either, my friends. No, these holes had to be an exact certain depth and width, dug vertically into the earth, tamped down on the bottom. If we failed in our mission, playground equipment would be crooked.

We couldn't allow such a thing, so we gave it our blood, sweat, tears, and dignity. We moved dirt, bricks, clay, and rubble with postholers, digging sticks, shovels, and the old fashioned way with our bare hands. We bemoaned our lack of upper body strength, but that didn't stop us. We lay down in the mud to put stone pavers in the bottom. We got into the holes head first to make sure those suckers were FLAT. We tamped and measured and used a funky laser thing to make sure that all was well. When we got too exhausted to tell if the laser was half an inch off or not, Playground Planning God Traynor got us back on track (i.e, that hole you just spent an hour digging with giant tweezers is six inches too deep, so put some dirt back in).

About halfway through the day, it started raining. Disaster! We had to protect our holes! We ran around with tarps and bricks and shovels of dirt and pieces of cardboard to protect them from the rain. We didn't bother protecting ourselves; the rain felt great. Living in LA, I'd almost forgotten about rain. It's been years since I got to stand out in a driving, needle-like rain, getting thoroughly drenched while thunder roars and I run around putting tarps over dirt. Good times.

And then, when the holes were dug and protected and we took a deep breath of satisfaction, we learned that, since another thunderstorm was coming, we had to mix concrete really, really fast and get the posts in the ground for the shade structure. The Keystone Kops aspect of the concrete mixing will be long remembered, but we triumphed in the end. Posts await for the final building on Friday, and God willing they're not slowly listing to the left or right as the concrete sets.

As though all that wasn't enough for an incredibly fantastic, dirty day, I finally got to meet some of the neighborhood kids in the evening. We're staying in Central City, a historic part of New Orleans, but also a poor one. Meeting the kids was one of the best parts of my trip to date. Ellie, Kaeyla, Ariana, and four-month-old Shilea joined us at an outdoor party held for a HONO staff member who's moving on, and they were fantastic. We played with hoops and pinatas and ran around and had an utterly wonderful time, and Shilea fell asleep from all the excitement.

Remember to keep checking the blog for more fantastic pictures -- the trip is full of stories waiting to be told, and very amusing pictures waiting to be posted!

Partial Team Photo

We haven't had a chance to get the entire team together for a photo but here is a partial group shot. From Left to Right - Jennifer, Amanda, Sergio, Lellie, Drue, Becky and Sarah.

Keep Reading!

Just a reminder to keep reading this blog through the next few weeks -- as with past trips, our team is so totally exhausted by work (and yes, fun too!) that we're not able to keep up with the blogging on a daily basis, but we'll all be writing a bunch to make up for it when we get back to regular computer access. And there are some GREAT photos on the way too, it's just that uploading them remotely is a bit of a challenge.

Thanks!
Amanda

Even my dirt is dirty

If you were to look up the word EXHAUSTION in the dictionary, I'm pretty certain you would see a picture of Lellie, Jen, Amanda and me. This has been by far the longest workday of the trip for me. We left the bunkhouse at 7:30 and didn't return until 5. Sure, that may not sound long to you while you sit in your air conditioned, roof-covered office, but imagine spending that time outside in the heat, humidity, sudden downpour and heat again, all the while digging holes. And of course, loving it!

Today we did the first day prep for a KaBoom playground build. KaBoom is an organization whose goal is to have a play area within walking distance of every child in America. They have vowed to build 100 playgrounds just in the Gulf Coast area. We worked on the Craig Elementary School build which is number #49 out of 100. The first day involves unloading a semi-trailer full of playground unassembled equipment, marking off all the various areas and digging holes, serious holes, for the posts to be cemented in on the full build day. On Friday 300 volunteers from the community, school parents, and the Mariott organization will come together to "build a playground in a day", but today we made sure everything was ready for that to happen.

Thanks to the great leadership of Traynor from Planet Recess we all had great fun but at the moment I couldn't be more tired. And I'm sure the soreness will be here soon. My shower will have to wait until after dinner at which point I can distinguish between my dirt and my bruises.

But right now they are lining up for dinner so I better join them. I may be exhausted but I'm never too tired to eat!

-Becky
(I'm too tired to spellcheck so my apologies to the Editorial Dept)

We are trying not to be silent

Sorry for the slow updates on our work and experiences here but internet access and computer time have both been scarce. Amanda and I come home early after dinner out last night with the sole intention of updating this blog only to find the bunkhouse under attack by a swarm of flying termites. The whole place was on a lock-down of sort with all doors and windows closed and all lights off, hoping to get rid of the bugs. This morning the windowsills are stacked inches deep with dead bugs. I spent yesterday scraping bird poo out of an abandoned school, now dead bugs. Are we having fun yet? (actually, yes, tons of fun and more info on that to come)

Time to get ready for work. I am helping build a playground today and we have to leave for the worksite 30 minutes earlier than normal.

See ya!

Cleaning House

As part of the "Dryades Gut" team, we were at first assigned "AM KP" duty, cleaning up the Hands On bunkhouse before heading out on our hurricane clean-up work. KP consists of scrubbing toilets, mopping floors & generally getting the place in shape for the start of a new day. This chore is not nearly as glamorous as gutting houses or de-molding, but needs to be done daily, especially with the bunkhouse filled to capacity as it is now.
At the last minute, 7 of us got pulled off the Dryades gut and sent to the Slidell animal shelter to clean cages, walk the puppies & play with kitties. As much as we love the hard labor of gutting, we all LOVE the critters. After doing this numerous times, we're an incredibly efficient team of pooper scoopers and cage-cleaners. The happy news is, this is a no-kill shelter. The sad news is, due to lack of funds/help, the rescue dogs probably only get walked once or twice a week. We dedicated ourselves to giving them as much fun and love as possible in our brief visit, and came away wanting to take all of them home with us.
The shelter job didn't take as long as expected, so we were first back to the showers, then made a quick visit to Cafe du Monde for beignets & cafe au lait. We had a spectacular dinner -- sort of a last hurrah from Hands On chef/kitchen manager Melody who'll be leaving HONO this week -- boiled crabs! 6 of us volunteered for "Dinner KP". One of the best moments was a visit from Mr. Mason, a New Orleans native who's home is currently being worked by Hands On. His eloquent speech thanking the volunteers moved us all and confirmed why we're here.
Now, we're off to work again!

The word of the day is "Flexibility"

We are here! Today is the first day of work. We grabbed our work gear, put on our ugliest possible outfits (at least that is my excuse) and gathered outside to start a first day gut on Dryades. Unfortunately, (?), there were too many volunteers so the Rhino team has split between Dryades gut and Animal Shelter! Amanda, James, Lellie, Jennifer, Drue, and Becky are going to the animal shelter while Sergio, Gianni and Sarah will get the joy of sweating in Tyvec. We will check back in later with pics and stories. Thanks for stopping by!