To be honest the trip has been much different than I had originally anticipated, but it’s been so worthwhile. I came here thinking we would be going around the Lower 9th Ward, helping people in the community fix up their homes for damages rendered, if you can believe it, six years ago. Instead, we have been working tirelessly to fix up the Village, a community center in the Lower 9th Ward intended to be a place for the community to gather and children to have a safe place to play and learn. Early in the trip, we took a tour of the Lower 9th, as Mack, essentially the father of the Village, told us about his community. He told us about hurricane Katrina and what happened to his home. The water rose about 8- 32 feet that day on land, and most people were forced into their attics, either breaking a hole in their roofs and waited on there to be rescued or died drowning in their own attics before help could come. He explained what the “Xs” on the home meant, the date of the investigation, the name of the organization who examined the home, and the number of people and animals found deceased in the home. It was shocking to think there were still homes with these “Xs” on them, and still so many empty lots were home once stood. It was then that the impact of the hurricane truly sunk in.
While fixing up the community center was not what I had in mind in when I came to New Orleans, I couldn’t have imagined doing anything else. The impact the Village will have on the community when it’s finished is greater than any of us will ever know. The ultimate goal is to fix the place up enough and make it safe enough to earn liability insurance so children can play and learn here safely. This week has been a combination of cleaning, sorting, painting and building in the Village.
One of the projects I have been really involved in over the past days is a map painting of the United States. The idea behind the map is the number of volunteers that come through the community center to stay and work in the Lower 9th Ward from all over the country. The plan is that once the map has been painted on the wall, each group that comes to the Village will be able to mark where they came from, showing how we can all come from different places in the country, but regardless we can still come together for a united cause. First we traced a map we found in the library and drew over the map with a grid. Being the engineers and artists we are, we devised a way to blow up the grid on the wall so we could map out, well, our map! As I’m writing this blog the map is still in progress. But in one day we have drawn and painted most of a 15ft by 10ft map and a large blank white wall. We scaled the huge wall taping out our grid, carefully calculating out every move, as engineers do. We then carefully drew out the map in pencil while other people in the group followed after filling the states in with brightly colored paint. Even if we don’t finish today, like the village itself, it is a work in progress to be finished by other volunteers in the future.
Overall, this trip has been eye opening, saddening, challenging, and tiring, but most importantly one of the best times of my life. I have not only learned so much about New Orleans, it’s culture and the impact of hurricane Katrina, but I’ve learned a lot about myself. I may be one person, but I can make an impact. I’ve gone outside my comfort zone, pushed myself physically and I’ve come out on the other side a better person for it
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