It was a good week. We were with the youth group from East Chestnut St Mennonite and also worked with a variety of "long term" MDS people. By long term, I mean anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months at this particular site. There were 5 different projects that MDS was currently working on. Dylan built cement block pillars for 1 house, stained a porch, mowed a lawn and mudded. Zach spent mudded and taped, built a deck and used a weed whacker leaving a lovely J shaped scratch on his leg and did more mudding. I mudded and taped, painted and stained. The lawn mowing and weed whacking was at the MDS property and the boys were not happy about this. When the long termers expressed their appreciation for a job well done with some applause, Ben Adams summed up the boys' feelings. "Wow, 20 seconds of glory for 7 hours of misery."
Mudding is what I've called spackling. It has to be the worst job ever. The group previous to ours did the easy part by mudding and taping all the flat areas of the drywall. Our group had to do the corners and where the ceiling meets the wall. It didn't help that it was 110 degrees and we were on ladders in small closet spaces. Did I say there was no electricity yet? On the 2nd day of this, when I was sweaty and sticky and stinky, Erich looks at me and asks, "Is this better than your real job?" I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.
The best part for me was the chance to talk with the home owners. These were all people who had lost homes during Hurricane Katrina and had gone through all the red tape seemingly required to replace them. To get a house built by MDS, people have to go through local case workers and meet certain criteria. They have to own the land being built on and have enough income to be able to pay the property taxes but not enough money to rebuild on their own. They have to have been turned down for certain loans. The houses are either 2 or 3 bedroom.
Sherry told us her story of helping to evacuate the nursing home where she works and then of having to leave her dogs behind when she left with a friend. The dogs didn't make it through the storm. Neither did her house or possessions, but she wasn't as concerned about that.
Billy is a disabled man who was at his house every day clearing stuff up, talking and laughing. He wants to have a big garden to raise food for himself and some others.
Another woman who's name I'm not remembering has moved into her MDS house already. Last summer she volunteered in the MDS kitchen and just stopped by to chat last week. She was telling us that there is a fund raising effort in Pass Christian for the victims of the floods in Iowa. This despite the face that the city government and library continues to be housed in trailers. Many people have left the area entirely. It was amazing to see how quickly nature takes over.
I walked around our old neighborhood in New Orleans which actually looks better than it did 15 years ago when we lived there. I think there was a fair amount of gentrification going on before Katrina and the lower garden district rebuilt quickly. I wish we could have toured the areas that were more hurt by the broken levees but, well, we just didn't. New Orleans is still full of character and I want to go back. But like Zach says- it needs to be with someone who wants to do what I want to do!
So now we're back home and adjusting to life with Tobin in Montana. It really sucks. But that's another blog.
