I've lived in Boston for 3 St. Patrick's Days, and I've managed to be out of town for every one of them. Considering that Boston is practically Little Ireland, that seems pretty silly. This year, however, I more than made up for my previous lack of "Erin go bragh". I still wasn't in Boston on St. Patrick's Day...
There are many things to love about New Orleans - great music on every corner, Southern hospitality everywhere you turn, infinite amounts of powdered sugary goodness down at Cafe du Monde, and the best fried chicken you'll ever sink your teeth into. There is also a lot that is unique about New Orleans - it's a deep South city with a Cajun Creole twist. But the awesome and unique also combine in a trait that New Orleans lacks - an open container law. There are only a few other select places in the country that allow the public consumption of alcohol - most notably the Las Vegas strip and Beale St., in Memphis. Otherwise, you'd have to stumble on over to Butte, MT or tiny Fredericksburg, TX to legally sip on the street. While I understand some of the reasoning behind this law, I also find it to be kind of ludicrous, especially when countries like Japan have beer vending machines on the street. In any case, you get used to wandering out on the street with your drink pretty quickly in New Orleans - it's refreshing not to have to wait for everyone to finish up at the bar before moving on.
And so it was that we ventured out to the French Quarter for St. Patty's Day with some Cajun spice. We arrived at Canal St. to find people beginning to line the street, and I was immediately excited about the potential of catching a New Orleans parade. We checked our magic phones, and indeed, the Downtown Irish Club St. Patrick's Day Parade was headed our way from its starting point in the Ninth Ward. We headed to Bourbon St. to grab our first hand grenades of the weekend. Hand grenades, for those who don't know, are unbelievably sweet, unbelievably strong French Quarter specialties involving some mix of amaretto, liqueur, and Everclear. They will knock you to your knees suddenly and with no mercy. In any case, we waited out the parade along with the rest of Canal St. and had a blast catching beads thrown by mostly creepy old men (no sketchiness necessary, for anyone wondering). I can't even imagine what Mardi Gras is like, but it's high on my bucket list. We spent the rest of the night checking out everyone's green regalia and doing what one does on Bourbon St., counting our lucky stars to have gotten to spend a St. Patrick's Day there. I'm not entirely sure when we got back to the hotel, but Neil and I were up until 5 in the morning having one of those awesome conversations that rarely happen outside the 4 years of vacation we call "college."
Thus, having traded in a few of our 8 hours for good conversation, the next morning was a tad painful, but we managed to head out to Waffle House (see previous post) by noon. I made the boys return in time for me to watch Duke in the first round (now technically second round?) of the NCAA Tournament, before remembering that my best buddy from Projects Abroad India was in town for his bachelor party. I texted Maulin and found out he was literally a 10-minute walk away, and so abandoned the Harvard group's trip to the Garden District to crash the bachelor party for a few hours. Maulin's buddies were very welcoming and a lot of fun - and by the time I headed to meet my group for our farewell dinner down on Decatur, I was in some pretty good spirits (pun intended).
Following dinner, someone in our group spearheaded a walk down to Frenchman St., which they had heard was the "local" place to hang out in New Orleans. It was quite the walk, but certainly worth it in the end. Lined with laid-back bars and pubs, its corners alive with street jazz, it's a little bit of an antithesis to the excess of Bourbon. I grabbed a Purple Haze (made by New Orleans' own Abita Brewing Company) and lost track of time, standing on a street corner listening to a jazz band. A few hours (?) later, the jazz band packed up, and we gathered our group to trek back over to Bourbon for the nightcap. On the way, I received a text message on my dying phone from a good friend from college who just happened to be in New Orleans and on Bourbon St. I scampered off to meet Jorge at Pat O'Brien's piano bar. He was there with a couple of his med school buddies - 6 and a half foot tall former Texas and TCU football players who made me feel like a runt. We took in the piano amid sips of Patty O's famous Hurricane. I arrived back at the hotel sometime around 4am - to the relief of some of the Harvard kids, as my phone had died the second I entered Patty O's and they had lost me for good for the night. My flight was scheduled for 11:25 the next morning. Suffice it to say, the painful flight home was well worth the previous week of work and Bourbon St. ridiculousness.
I slept for 17 hours, until being coaxed out of my bed by my roommate, Sarah, around noon on Sunday. It was Southie St. Patty's, and the parade route runs right in front of our apartment. I crawled out of bed to get ready for St Patrick's Day: Round 2, finally in Boston.
Monday, March 21, 2011
By the Numbers
Twenty-five percent of the housing stock in New Orleans is still classified as "blighted" today. Blight - "Something that impairs growth, withers hopes and ambitions, or impedes progress and prosperity" (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/blight).
These houses represent far more than rotten timbers to be carted away. They are affecting the entire city, preventing people from moving in, taking up space that could be otherwise utilized, adding to the weight of Katrina's still-evident aftermath on the Big Easy's residents. Five and a half years later, life in much of New Orleans STILL isn't easy. That blighted stock doesn't even account for the houses that just aren't there anymore - the blocks that were washed away by the waves and today more resemble savannahs than urban neighborhoods.
We spent our day off on Friday recovering from Bourbon Street-variety St. Patrick's Day hijinks. Our first stop was Waffle House for brunch - a trip planned by those of us who dearly miss the 24-hour staple that is nowhere to be found up here in the Bostonian tundra. As luck would have it, we had mentioned our plans to our crew chief, Annie, who had directed us to the Waffle House straddling St. Bernard Parish and the Ninth Ward - neighborhoods that struggled prior to Katrina and were quite literally washed off the map. We jumped at the chance to infuse the local economy with dollars spent on All-Star Specials, followed by a drive through the portion of the Lower 9th Ward being rebuilt on the backs of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
The All-Star Specials, especially those incomparable hash browns, hit the spot, and the staff of the St. Bernard Parish Waffle House was possibly the nicest WH staff I've ever met. Then it was on to the neighborhood. Having driven through before in May of 2008 and been utterly shocked by the lack of - well - anything, I was very curious as to the state of the 9th Ward these days. Three years since my last visit and five and a half years since Katrina, the only real progress being made is on those "Brad Pitt houses," as they're affectionately called. For more info, here's a great article: http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/travel/29cultured.html. Say what you will about Brad Pitt and the houses - "they're a publicity stunt", "they don't respect the style of New Orleans houses", "they're ugly" - but this one man is doing more for New Orleans than our nation's president did in the aftermath. He's providing what looks to me like the one shot for the Ninth Ward to ever return as a neighborhood. (And personally, I think the houses look pretty cool...)
The blocks surrounding Tennessee St. are beginning to look like a neighborhood again, but drive just a few more seconds in any direction, and you hit grassland. Emerging at varied intervals from the ground are the scars of old foundations and front porch steps. Yes, they're still there, weeds slowly overtaking them in some eerie symbolic erasure of what happened here. Some folks have been stubborn enough or brave enough - or a lot of both - to hack through the weeds and rebuild. The homeowners sit on their lone front porches, overlooking the pockmarked roads that still attempt to snake through the grass and mark this as a neighborhood. These 9th Ward rebuilders display a remarkable type of courage. To rebuild in the face of such uncertainty, in the middle of desolation, around the graves of friends and neighbors and family members. There are no convenience stores here. No gas stations. No schools. No fast food joints. Perhaps one functional church. People argue to this day that rebuilding the Ninth Ward is an exercise in futility. Maybe it sits on a flood plain (and so does every multi-million dollar beach front home), but I guarantee you that no one would question rebuilding San Francisco if the San Andreas ever blows again (and that's one stupid place to put a city, if you ask me).
Driving across the North Claiborne Avenue Bridge, and looking back over the Ninth Ward, one is even more struck by the emptiness that still pervades the place. There's a pocket of hope at the water's edge, thanks to a couple of Hollywood's...and the world's...finest citizens. I just hope it's enough. I hope I won't recognize this place when I come back in three more years.
The drive into the city from this side of town winds through some of New Orleans' less affluent areas. This is where that 25% really strikes you. That number may not seem too huge, but I hesitate to imagine what Boston would be like if every 4th building were condemned. You can't really tell anything is wrong when wandering up and down Bourbon St. or St. Charles Ave. But drive a few blocks out of the city center, and you begin to see those haunting National Guard X's on the fronts of homes, pieces of roof surgically removed to save residents trapped in attics. These were the traces of Katrina that sent chills up my spine during my first visit to the city. The National Guard would place an "X" on each house after searching it - the day's date would go in the top space, the number of animals dead inside would go on the left, the number of dead people on the right. The front door of our rebuild house was still branded with its X. Thankfully, the number in the right quadrant was "0". That's unfortunately not the case for many of the X's you see.
My point with all of this is to explain that it's still crucial to help New Orleans. Katrina was the costliest natural disaster this country has ever seen, and our immediate federal response was utterly abominable. Much of the flooding that resulted from Katrina was the result of manufactured feats of ineptitude - the inadequately-built levee walls that crumbled in the face of storm surge; the failed pumping system that allowed stagnant water to sit for weeks; the "Mississippi River - Gulf Outlet", or "Mr. Go" as New Orleanians call it, a man-made canal that essentially provided a route for the Gulf of Mexico to inundate the city. New Orleans is 60 miles from the coast. There should never be a wall of water here. From several accounts, including that of the Episcopal Community Services volunteer coordinator, Pete, who spoke with us about Katrina, the city has been rebuilt on the backs of unskilled volunteers. College kids down for a week to help out. Or fake Harvard pre-med students (i.e. us). There just aren't the resources to do it any other way. When asked, Pete said he imagined it would probably take another 3 years for New Orleans to be relatively back to normal. But that won't happen if people stop spending a week at a time, nailing shingle by shingle, laying brick by brick. Our group was by no means special. We aren't those determined people eeking out every day in the vast vacancy of the 9th Ward. We aren't the residents of Lakeview, who have all but rebuilt their neighborhood. We aren't able to build an entire neighborhood like Mr. Pitt. We each gave 32 hours of our time, less than a full paid workweek - to a city that will, in the end, need at least 8 years to physically recover (and many more to heal not-so-obvious and not-so-treatable wounds). But I feel like it's the least we can all do for a place so unique in our country - a national treasure of food, music, architecture, and people. Where jazz sails sweetly from the corners of Frenchman St., a signal that the strength of this place will always be its enduring spirit.
These houses represent far more than rotten timbers to be carted away. They are affecting the entire city, preventing people from moving in, taking up space that could be otherwise utilized, adding to the weight of Katrina's still-evident aftermath on the Big Easy's residents. Five and a half years later, life in much of New Orleans STILL isn't easy. That blighted stock doesn't even account for the houses that just aren't there anymore - the blocks that were washed away by the waves and today more resemble savannahs than urban neighborhoods.
We spent our day off on Friday recovering from Bourbon Street-variety St. Patrick's Day hijinks. Our first stop was Waffle House for brunch - a trip planned by those of us who dearly miss the 24-hour staple that is nowhere to be found up here in the Bostonian tundra. As luck would have it, we had mentioned our plans to our crew chief, Annie, who had directed us to the Waffle House straddling St. Bernard Parish and the Ninth Ward - neighborhoods that struggled prior to Katrina and were quite literally washed off the map. We jumped at the chance to infuse the local economy with dollars spent on All-Star Specials, followed by a drive through the portion of the Lower 9th Ward being rebuilt on the backs of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
The All-Star Specials, especially those incomparable hash browns, hit the spot, and the staff of the St. Bernard Parish Waffle House was possibly the nicest WH staff I've ever met. Then it was on to the neighborhood. Having driven through before in May of 2008 and been utterly shocked by the lack of - well - anything, I was very curious as to the state of the 9th Ward these days. Three years since my last visit and five and a half years since Katrina, the only real progress being made is on those "Brad Pitt houses," as they're affectionately called. For more info, here's a great article: http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/travel/29cultured.html. Say what you will about Brad Pitt and the houses - "they're a publicity stunt", "they don't respect the style of New Orleans houses", "they're ugly" - but this one man is doing more for New Orleans than our nation's president did in the aftermath. He's providing what looks to me like the one shot for the Ninth Ward to ever return as a neighborhood. (And personally, I think the houses look pretty cool...)
The blocks surrounding Tennessee St. are beginning to look like a neighborhood again, but drive just a few more seconds in any direction, and you hit grassland. Emerging at varied intervals from the ground are the scars of old foundations and front porch steps. Yes, they're still there, weeds slowly overtaking them in some eerie symbolic erasure of what happened here. Some folks have been stubborn enough or brave enough - or a lot of both - to hack through the weeds and rebuild. The homeowners sit on their lone front porches, overlooking the pockmarked roads that still attempt to snake through the grass and mark this as a neighborhood. These 9th Ward rebuilders display a remarkable type of courage. To rebuild in the face of such uncertainty, in the middle of desolation, around the graves of friends and neighbors and family members. There are no convenience stores here. No gas stations. No schools. No fast food joints. Perhaps one functional church. People argue to this day that rebuilding the Ninth Ward is an exercise in futility. Maybe it sits on a flood plain (and so does every multi-million dollar beach front home), but I guarantee you that no one would question rebuilding San Francisco if the San Andreas ever blows again (and that's one stupid place to put a city, if you ask me).
Driving across the North Claiborne Avenue Bridge, and looking back over the Ninth Ward, one is even more struck by the emptiness that still pervades the place. There's a pocket of hope at the water's edge, thanks to a couple of Hollywood's...and the world's...finest citizens. I just hope it's enough. I hope I won't recognize this place when I come back in three more years.
The drive into the city from this side of town winds through some of New Orleans' less affluent areas. This is where that 25% really strikes you. That number may not seem too huge, but I hesitate to imagine what Boston would be like if every 4th building were condemned. You can't really tell anything is wrong when wandering up and down Bourbon St. or St. Charles Ave. But drive a few blocks out of the city center, and you begin to see those haunting National Guard X's on the fronts of homes, pieces of roof surgically removed to save residents trapped in attics. These were the traces of Katrina that sent chills up my spine during my first visit to the city. The National Guard would place an "X" on each house after searching it - the day's date would go in the top space, the number of animals dead inside would go on the left, the number of dead people on the right. The front door of our rebuild house was still branded with its X. Thankfully, the number in the right quadrant was "0". That's unfortunately not the case for many of the X's you see.
My point with all of this is to explain that it's still crucial to help New Orleans. Katrina was the costliest natural disaster this country has ever seen, and our immediate federal response was utterly abominable. Much of the flooding that resulted from Katrina was the result of manufactured feats of ineptitude - the inadequately-built levee walls that crumbled in the face of storm surge; the failed pumping system that allowed stagnant water to sit for weeks; the "Mississippi River - Gulf Outlet", or "Mr. Go" as New Orleanians call it, a man-made canal that essentially provided a route for the Gulf of Mexico to inundate the city. New Orleans is 60 miles from the coast. There should never be a wall of water here. From several accounts, including that of the Episcopal Community Services volunteer coordinator, Pete, who spoke with us about Katrina, the city has been rebuilt on the backs of unskilled volunteers. College kids down for a week to help out. Or fake Harvard pre-med students (i.e. us). There just aren't the resources to do it any other way. When asked, Pete said he imagined it would probably take another 3 years for New Orleans to be relatively back to normal. But that won't happen if people stop spending a week at a time, nailing shingle by shingle, laying brick by brick. Our group was by no means special. We aren't those determined people eeking out every day in the vast vacancy of the 9th Ward. We aren't the residents of Lakeview, who have all but rebuilt their neighborhood. We aren't able to build an entire neighborhood like Mr. Pitt. We each gave 32 hours of our time, less than a full paid workweek - to a city that will, in the end, need at least 8 years to physically recover (and many more to heal not-so-obvious and not-so-treatable wounds). But I feel like it's the least we can all do for a place so unique in our country - a national treasure of food, music, architecture, and people. Where jazz sails sweetly from the corners of Frenchman St., a signal that the strength of this place will always be its enduring spirit.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
How to Build a Roof
The last two days on the work site have been, in my opinion, extremely productive. We have been lucky to score absolutely gorgeous weather, which has made our task a little less difficult and a lot more enjoyable. My experience doing framing work at the end of Day 1 set the stage for Ollie to call on Neil and me to continue framing throughout Day 2. We considered ourselves lucky, as everyone else spent the entire day shingling the roof, nail by tedious nail. We spent the day inside with Ollie, finishing the framing on the bathroom, installing door frames and the cripple studs that distribute the roof load down to the floor, and sledgehammering out the sheathing that had been serving as a temporary external wall for the bathroom. While admittedly a tad less cerebral, the sledgehammering may have been my favorite task. Neil and I took out a lot of aggression on those walls...
Ollie had gifted us with a miter saw for the day, cutting our stud-cutting times by at least a half over the circular saw we'd been using the day before. Neil and I became pretty adept (for unskilled workers with 2 hours' experience) at cutting our wood to size and throwing walls up with the AK-47 grade nail gun. Of course, Ollie put us to shame any time the nail gun landed in his hands.
The electrical and HVAC contractors were on site today, thereby crowding the interior and preventing Neil and I from continuing on with our framing duties. We were thus shipped to the roof, to learn how to place and nail shingles like everyone else. We caught on pretty quickly, and I was able to complete my own little triangular section of the roof by lunchtime, but we both agreed we preferred framing. I AM glad, however, that we spent our day on the roof. Most of the group has spent most of their time up there, so it was great to see and experience first hand what they had been chatting about over the past few days. Obviously, it was also satisfying to contribute and to learn yet another skill. And for me, the construction of the roof in New Orleans provided an interesting contrast to our roof in South India. There, "roofing" consisted of mixing 50% asbestos with water to make a carcinogenic paste, which we then slathered into roof troughs and coaxed into forming a concrete-like substance via daily "concrete-watering" (so that the stuff wouldn't dry too fast). Here, of course, it's been a different story altogether. Each "course" of shingle, maneuvered painstakingly into place over synthetic underlayment, receives 6 nails, ideally, spaced 6 inches apart and 1 inch from either end. You handcraft the roof, shingle by shingle, nail by nail. That's not to say one method is better than the other (minus the, ahem, asbestos). They're just strikingly different.
Tonight, several of the boys and I indulged in Popeye's fried chicken (ALMOST as good as Bojangles'...almost), before eating second dinner at a place called Juan's Flying Burrito on Magazine St. We made the trip out to Juan's on the streetcar - which I still maintain is one of the world's coolest forms of transportation (right up there with the autorickshaw). The cajun-style Mexican food was awesome, and my "Tiger Woods" Arnold Palmer-esque drink was quite tasty as well. We hit up a fantastic gelato/everything amazing dessert place called Sucre several blocks down, and enjoyed a stroll through the Garden District back to catch the streetcar home. With its fabulously grand Southern mansions lining every street and the scent of honeysuckle already in the air, the Garden District remains one of my favorite neighborhoods.
I am headed to bed to rest up for our final day of work, to be immediately followed by St. Patrick's Day Shenanigans, New Orleans style. We're told there will be plenty of parades, music, and green beer to go around, so I'm pretty pumped for a good New Orleans party. Next post - things I've learned about Katrina and New Orleans on this trip, more about the people with whom I've been working, and perhaps an update on St. Patty's in the Big Easy. For now, good night all, and Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Ollie had gifted us with a miter saw for the day, cutting our stud-cutting times by at least a half over the circular saw we'd been using the day before. Neil and I became pretty adept (for unskilled workers with 2 hours' experience) at cutting our wood to size and throwing walls up with the AK-47 grade nail gun. Of course, Ollie put us to shame any time the nail gun landed in his hands.
The electrical and HVAC contractors were on site today, thereby crowding the interior and preventing Neil and I from continuing on with our framing duties. We were thus shipped to the roof, to learn how to place and nail shingles like everyone else. We caught on pretty quickly, and I was able to complete my own little triangular section of the roof by lunchtime, but we both agreed we preferred framing. I AM glad, however, that we spent our day on the roof. Most of the group has spent most of their time up there, so it was great to see and experience first hand what they had been chatting about over the past few days. Obviously, it was also satisfying to contribute and to learn yet another skill. And for me, the construction of the roof in New Orleans provided an interesting contrast to our roof in South India. There, "roofing" consisted of mixing 50% asbestos with water to make a carcinogenic paste, which we then slathered into roof troughs and coaxed into forming a concrete-like substance via daily "concrete-watering" (so that the stuff wouldn't dry too fast). Here, of course, it's been a different story altogether. Each "course" of shingle, maneuvered painstakingly into place over synthetic underlayment, receives 6 nails, ideally, spaced 6 inches apart and 1 inch from either end. You handcraft the roof, shingle by shingle, nail by nail. That's not to say one method is better than the other (minus the, ahem, asbestos). They're just strikingly different.
Tonight, several of the boys and I indulged in Popeye's fried chicken (ALMOST as good as Bojangles'...almost), before eating second dinner at a place called Juan's Flying Burrito on Magazine St. We made the trip out to Juan's on the streetcar - which I still maintain is one of the world's coolest forms of transportation (right up there with the autorickshaw). The cajun-style Mexican food was awesome, and my "Tiger Woods" Arnold Palmer-esque drink was quite tasty as well. We hit up a fantastic gelato/everything amazing dessert place called Sucre several blocks down, and enjoyed a stroll through the Garden District back to catch the streetcar home. With its fabulously grand Southern mansions lining every street and the scent of honeysuckle already in the air, the Garden District remains one of my favorite neighborhoods.
I am headed to bed to rest up for our final day of work, to be immediately followed by St. Patrick's Day Shenanigans, New Orleans style. We're told there will be plenty of parades, music, and green beer to go around, so I'm pretty pumped for a good New Orleans party. Next post - things I've learned about Katrina and New Orleans on this trip, more about the people with whom I've been working, and perhaps an update on St. Patty's in the Big Easy. For now, good night all, and Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
"Who wants to go on the roof?"
Day 1 of the rebuild. Our first stop was "the warehouse", where Episcopal Community Services stores all of the supplies for their many build sites. We were given a short briefing, and then introduced to our crew chief, Annie. Annie can only be described as a lovable hipster - and that's a high compliment from me, as I have a hard time loving hipsters. My hipster issues aside, Annie told us that we would be going to a home of the Still family. The Still family bought their Lakeview neighborhood home in 2002, but due to some sort of financing issues that I do not comprehend, they had not yet closed on the house by the time Katrina hit. In some entirely convoluted and incomprehensible twist, all of the homeowner's insurance went to the previous residents of the Still house - none went to the Stills. Talk about being screwed. So the family of four has been making due in an apartment for the last 5 and a half years, and the house has sat, decaying from mold and a termite feeding frenzy. That is, until today.
The Lakeview neighborhood, as its name implies, borders Lake Pontchartrain. It's a fairly affluent New Orleans neighborhood, predominantly white and middle class. Katrina, however devilish as she was, can never be blamed for racial or socioeconomic discrimination. She was an equal-opportunity agent of destruction, and Lakeview lost the same percentage of residents as the infamous Lower Ninth Ward. Today, Lakeview looks relatively back to normal - new ranch-style homes, green lawns, SUVs in driveways. Its residents have been pretty adamant about rebuilding the neighborhood, and as a result, it is only sparsely dotted with blighted properties. Our home, sandwiched between two very attractive neighboring houses, is one of those dots.
The first job for most of us upon arrival on site consisted of clearing the house of years of accumulated junk. My first job, however, consisted of removing the damaged gutters from the roof. I was practically up the ladder before the title question was posed to the group. Although more exciting than accumulated-junk-removal, gutter destruction proved to be quite the arduous task. Half of the gutters were fairly easy to pry from the soffits, while the other half required us to slice through thick screws with a metal saw which wasn't quite up to the job (we burned out one engine and went through 3 blades). Let's just say that it would have been nice if the same guy had engineered the New Orleans levees... It was extremely satisfying, however, to yell "Timberrrr!" as we succeeded in detaching each section of gutter. The job took about half our day.
Slightly sick of maintaining my balance on the now-sweltering roof, I retreated inside for my next job - installing new wall studs. Within the course of a few hours, Neil (another kid in our group) and I had framed out a new bedroom (the family has two kids and had previously only had one bedroom). Throughout the course of this process, we honed our skills at cutting 2x4 stud wood to length with a circular saw, lining it up and wedging it into place, and sealing the deal with the AK-47 of nail guns. This thing kicks back so much air, you feel like you're constantly being examined for glaucoma. The going was slow at first, but we had gotten the hang of both stud-framing technique and power tool exploitation by the end of the day.
Exhausted and sore, we nonetheless headed home from our first day with a sense of accomplishment. I'm stunned by the amount of responsibility our crew chief and contractor give us. Ollie, the not-unfriendly, but rather brusque contractor who directs Neil and I in our framing efforts, speaks at a thousand miles a minute and expects us to catch on almost instantaneously. He has plenty of other tasks to worry about without having to add babysitting us to his list. Luckily, we've managed to keep up so far, despite a few mutual glances of sheer terror when, say, the nail gun was first demonstrated and then placed firmly into our hands (by the way, that thing must weigh at least 20 pounds - maneuvering around with it while trying not to shoot your eye out can be a rather daunting challenge). Despite the occasional pangs of fear, however, I am certainly enjoying the freedom and sense of trust. Here's hoping, though, that the house doesn't tumble like a stack of Lincoln Logs anytime soon...
The Lakeview neighborhood, as its name implies, borders Lake Pontchartrain. It's a fairly affluent New Orleans neighborhood, predominantly white and middle class. Katrina, however devilish as she was, can never be blamed for racial or socioeconomic discrimination. She was an equal-opportunity agent of destruction, and Lakeview lost the same percentage of residents as the infamous Lower Ninth Ward. Today, Lakeview looks relatively back to normal - new ranch-style homes, green lawns, SUVs in driveways. Its residents have been pretty adamant about rebuilding the neighborhood, and as a result, it is only sparsely dotted with blighted properties. Our home, sandwiched between two very attractive neighboring houses, is one of those dots.
The first job for most of us upon arrival on site consisted of clearing the house of years of accumulated junk. My first job, however, consisted of removing the damaged gutters from the roof. I was practically up the ladder before the title question was posed to the group. Although more exciting than accumulated-junk-removal, gutter destruction proved to be quite the arduous task. Half of the gutters were fairly easy to pry from the soffits, while the other half required us to slice through thick screws with a metal saw which wasn't quite up to the job (we burned out one engine and went through 3 blades). Let's just say that it would have been nice if the same guy had engineered the New Orleans levees... It was extremely satisfying, however, to yell "Timberrrr!" as we succeeded in detaching each section of gutter. The job took about half our day.
Slightly sick of maintaining my balance on the now-sweltering roof, I retreated inside for my next job - installing new wall studs. Within the course of a few hours, Neil (another kid in our group) and I had framed out a new bedroom (the family has two kids and had previously only had one bedroom). Throughout the course of this process, we honed our skills at cutting 2x4 stud wood to length with a circular saw, lining it up and wedging it into place, and sealing the deal with the AK-47 of nail guns. This thing kicks back so much air, you feel like you're constantly being examined for glaucoma. The going was slow at first, but we had gotten the hang of both stud-framing technique and power tool exploitation by the end of the day.
Exhausted and sore, we nonetheless headed home from our first day with a sense of accomplishment. I'm stunned by the amount of responsibility our crew chief and contractor give us. Ollie, the not-unfriendly, but rather brusque contractor who directs Neil and I in our framing efforts, speaks at a thousand miles a minute and expects us to catch on almost instantaneously. He has plenty of other tasks to worry about without having to add babysitting us to his list. Luckily, we've managed to keep up so far, despite a few mutual glances of sheer terror when, say, the nail gun was first demonstrated and then placed firmly into our hands (by the way, that thing must weigh at least 20 pounds - maneuvering around with it while trying not to shoot your eye out can be a rather daunting challenge). Despite the occasional pangs of fear, however, I am certainly enjoying the freedom and sense of trust. Here's hoping, though, that the house doesn't tumble like a stack of Lincoln Logs anytime soon...
Sunday, March 13, 2011
(Red) Beans, Beignets, and Blow-Up Dolls
Some of the greatest fun in traveling occurs during the "getting there." My trip began too early for my tastes - around 6 am on Sunday. I had been out with friends on Saturday night, when we were alerted around 10pm that Sunday morning would bring the switch to Daylight Savings Time. As yet unpacked and having just instantly lost an hour of already brief sleep, I pretty much gave up on getting a good night's rest. On the plus side, I knew I had first class comfort waiting for me on my first flight - US Airways had inexplicably upgraded my frequent flier ticket the previous day. I have never had the opportunity to fly first class before, even if just for a brief jaunt to Washington, DC. Everything was just...easier. My bags were checked for free, the gate agent was nicer than usual, I had a drink in front of me approximately 2.5 seconds after I boarded the plane, and of course, I had no concerns of being cramped in my seat. Ah, how the other half lives.
I would soon realize the other, and potentially most important, perk of first class: the people who sit there are quiet and boring. Generally, neither of these personality traits appeal to me, but they can be golden when you're jammed like a sardine into a narrow metal tube at 36,000 feet. I knew I was in trouble the second I boarded my flight from DC to New Orleans, when my seat mate desperately caught my attention to say hi and flash his blinding pearly whites. "Hi," I said. "How's it going?" he asked, as if we were old friends. "Fine, good," I said, before turning my head towards the window. Maybe this guy would catch a hint. No such luck. He was at it again with the "So how's it going?"s not more than 10 minutes later. When I finally decided to give up and give the guy his small talk, he had a little bit of a social justice-gasm when I told him why I was headed to New Orleans. At that point, I got drilled on my life's future plans. Later, he would get up to hold ANOTHER couple's baby as they rearranged themselves in their seats. By the end of the flight, he was nudging me like we shared some long lost secret, and I was plastered up against the plane window, desperate for landing. He refused to leave without jotting his e-mail address down for me. "Just make sure you write, 'Met on plane' in the subject line", he said. I wonder how many "Met on plane"s this guy has in his little black book.
In any case, in the course of the flight, amidst dodging awkward advances from Pearly White, I realized that we were crossing into the midwestern time zone (and so negating that hour we had just lost to daylight savings?) . I wouldn't have really cared, except for the fact that I had an evil plan to watch the second half of the Duke v. UNC ACC Tourney Championship as soon as I landed, and that this little chink in the iron meant that I would only be able to catch the last 10 minutes...if I ran. So it was that I nearly bolted off the plane as soon as the jetway was attached, and immediately found the first airport bar broadcasting the game. Thus far, I've neglected to mention my traveling companion, Suraj, who just happened to book the same flights as I did. Suraj and I had met at Boston Logan literally as I was boarding the plane, and then had an approximately 15 minute conversation during our layover in DC. So, it was safe to say, I was still in the midst of making my first impression on the first trip companion I would meet - as I busted my tail down the terminal at MSY to the nearest bar. Thank goodness the Duke game wasn't close, or the kid REALLY would have seen me for the nut job I often am. After Duke completed its whipping of the boys in baby blue (2011 ACC Tourney Champs!!!), I thanked Suraj for indulging my insanity, and we made our way towards the rental car company shuttles. He really is a nice kid, and probably one of the few people who would have put up with my nonsense. And of course, I WOULD end up cosmically travel-partnered with the one Indian kid on the trip...
It was at this point, searching for and boarding the shuttle, that we began to feel like we were in the first episode of a Real World season. Two other of our trip-mates had already arrived and already pounded the Bourbon St. pavement. The feeling was only intensified when we arrived at Advantage Rent-A-Car, a swathe of land I would have dismissed as an abandoned used car lot if I hadn't known any better. The rental office was a small, bedraggled, white cinder block structure, the car selection was rather sparse (our choices were a Nissan Versa, a Nissan Versa, or a Nissan Versa), and the place employed a total of 4 employees. Everybody was very nice, however, and we had little problem obtaining our Nissan Versa. Using the power of Droid, we easily made the 15-minute drive into downtown New Orleans and found our hotel. Our two new companions, Andrew and Maggie, were waiting for us in the lobby. Starving, we decided to head straight to the French Quarter. We ended up in a bar, where I had some pretty good red beans & rice and a very good Abita-made craft beer. Following that, we wandered around the French Quarter towards Jackson Square and Cafe du Monde. Unfortunately, the line at the world-famous beignet and cafe au lait establishment snaked around the building a few too many times for our liking, but we made unanimous plans to return for powder-sugared goodness.
As the rest of the build team had arrived, we started to make our way back towards the hotel. Unfortunately, I was in desperate need of caffeine, and could not resist the McDonald's iced coffee beckoning to me on Canal St. I figured I would have coffee in hand and be out in 2 minutes. What actually ensued was the most ridiculous McDonald's experience of all time. I should have known upon seeing the crowd of people waiting for food - or upon waiting in line behind 0 people for 20 minutes - just to order. Or, upon the following interaction ordering coffee at the counter:
- Cashier: "You have exact chaaaaange?"
- Me: "You need EXACT change?"
- Cashier: "Yeah, I ain't got no ones."
- Me: (Look of disbelief/confusion/ire)
- Suraj: "Can we, uh, pay with a credit card?"
- Cashier: "Yeah"
- Me: (Proceeded to successfully order iced coffee)
- Andrew (one of our group) to the cashier: "Coffee please."
- Cashier: "We ain't got no coffee."
- Andrew: "How about a milkshake?"
- Cashier: "Naw, the ice cream machine's broke."
And then we waited for another 10 minutes behind no one for our coffee - the coffee Andrew couldn't have. When it was finally delivered without straws, we decided they weren't worth the effort. After all, this McDonald's had signs posted everywhere imploring customers to request their condiments - in limited amounts.
Following our McDonald's adventure, the whole crew finally met, and we headed to a seafood restaurant in the French Quarter for dinner. Having an apparently well-functioning hippocampus (and thus decent spatial memory - at least when it comes to a city I've visited once for a span of 3 days), I soon found myself leading a group of strangers through a strange city. I somehow managed to land us right at the door to our restaurant, thank goodness. I'll be honest - I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I've been slightly shocked by the lack of knowledge surrounding Katrina in our group, especially considering our reason for being here, so I tend to throw a few pieces of Katrina trivia around here and there with the navigation. Hopefully it's enough and not too much.
When our waiter offered Hurricane-esque "Katrina" drinks in light-up glasses, I was the first one to awkwardly take him up. Others eventually followed, and we soon had a brightly-lit, if headache-inducing table. Hush puppies soon arrived, which our poor waiter had to describe to the Boston crew as "fried cornbread". Watching everyone attempt to daintily eat their hush puppies with silverware, I kind of giggled and just wished for honey butter! We all enjoyed a fresh seafood feast - I had crab-stuffed fried shrimp in hollandaise sauce, and it was divine. For the nightcap, we ventured back down to Cafe du Monde, where we ingested copious amounts of that substance that resembles crack in so many ways - powdered sugar. I think the beignets have become our trip's culinary mascot.
It's about time for me to call it a night - it's been a long, exciting, and exhausting first day of building, the story of which I will share tomorrow night. For now, some much-needed rest. As we do our small part aiding in the recovery of this disaster, we send our hearts to the victims of the current one in Japan.
I would soon realize the other, and potentially most important, perk of first class: the people who sit there are quiet and boring. Generally, neither of these personality traits appeal to me, but they can be golden when you're jammed like a sardine into a narrow metal tube at 36,000 feet. I knew I was in trouble the second I boarded my flight from DC to New Orleans, when my seat mate desperately caught my attention to say hi and flash his blinding pearly whites. "Hi," I said. "How's it going?" he asked, as if we were old friends. "Fine, good," I said, before turning my head towards the window. Maybe this guy would catch a hint. No such luck. He was at it again with the "So how's it going?"s not more than 10 minutes later. When I finally decided to give up and give the guy his small talk, he had a little bit of a social justice-gasm when I told him why I was headed to New Orleans. At that point, I got drilled on my life's future plans. Later, he would get up to hold ANOTHER couple's baby as they rearranged themselves in their seats. By the end of the flight, he was nudging me like we shared some long lost secret, and I was plastered up against the plane window, desperate for landing. He refused to leave without jotting his e-mail address down for me. "Just make sure you write, 'Met on plane' in the subject line", he said. I wonder how many "Met on plane"s this guy has in his little black book.
In any case, in the course of the flight, amidst dodging awkward advances from Pearly White, I realized that we were crossing into the midwestern time zone (and so negating that hour we had just lost to daylight savings?) . I wouldn't have really cared, except for the fact that I had an evil plan to watch the second half of the Duke v. UNC ACC Tourney Championship as soon as I landed, and that this little chink in the iron meant that I would only be able to catch the last 10 minutes...if I ran. So it was that I nearly bolted off the plane as soon as the jetway was attached, and immediately found the first airport bar broadcasting the game. Thus far, I've neglected to mention my traveling companion, Suraj, who just happened to book the same flights as I did. Suraj and I had met at Boston Logan literally as I was boarding the plane, and then had an approximately 15 minute conversation during our layover in DC. So, it was safe to say, I was still in the midst of making my first impression on the first trip companion I would meet - as I busted my tail down the terminal at MSY to the nearest bar. Thank goodness the Duke game wasn't close, or the kid REALLY would have seen me for the nut job I often am. After Duke completed its whipping of the boys in baby blue (2011 ACC Tourney Champs!!!), I thanked Suraj for indulging my insanity, and we made our way towards the rental car company shuttles. He really is a nice kid, and probably one of the few people who would have put up with my nonsense. And of course, I WOULD end up cosmically travel-partnered with the one Indian kid on the trip...
It was at this point, searching for and boarding the shuttle, that we began to feel like we were in the first episode of a Real World season. Two other of our trip-mates had already arrived and already pounded the Bourbon St. pavement. The feeling was only intensified when we arrived at Advantage Rent-A-Car, a swathe of land I would have dismissed as an abandoned used car lot if I hadn't known any better. The rental office was a small, bedraggled, white cinder block structure, the car selection was rather sparse (our choices were a Nissan Versa, a Nissan Versa, or a Nissan Versa), and the place employed a total of 4 employees. Everybody was very nice, however, and we had little problem obtaining our Nissan Versa. Using the power of Droid, we easily made the 15-minute drive into downtown New Orleans and found our hotel. Our two new companions, Andrew and Maggie, were waiting for us in the lobby. Starving, we decided to head straight to the French Quarter. We ended up in a bar, where I had some pretty good red beans & rice and a very good Abita-made craft beer. Following that, we wandered around the French Quarter towards Jackson Square and Cafe du Monde. Unfortunately, the line at the world-famous beignet and cafe au lait establishment snaked around the building a few too many times for our liking, but we made unanimous plans to return for powder-sugared goodness.
As the rest of the build team had arrived, we started to make our way back towards the hotel. Unfortunately, I was in desperate need of caffeine, and could not resist the McDonald's iced coffee beckoning to me on Canal St. I figured I would have coffee in hand and be out in 2 minutes. What actually ensued was the most ridiculous McDonald's experience of all time. I should have known upon seeing the crowd of people waiting for food - or upon waiting in line behind 0 people for 20 minutes - just to order. Or, upon the following interaction ordering coffee at the counter:
- Cashier: "You have exact chaaaaange?"
- Me: "You need EXACT change?"
- Cashier: "Yeah, I ain't got no ones."
- Me: (Look of disbelief/confusion/ire)
- Suraj: "Can we, uh, pay with a credit card?"
- Cashier: "Yeah"
- Me: (Proceeded to successfully order iced coffee)
- Andrew (one of our group) to the cashier: "Coffee please."
- Cashier: "We ain't got no coffee."
- Andrew: "How about a milkshake?"
- Cashier: "Naw, the ice cream machine's broke."
And then we waited for another 10 minutes behind no one for our coffee - the coffee Andrew couldn't have. When it was finally delivered without straws, we decided they weren't worth the effort. After all, this McDonald's had signs posted everywhere imploring customers to request their condiments - in limited amounts.
Following our McDonald's adventure, the whole crew finally met, and we headed to a seafood restaurant in the French Quarter for dinner. Having an apparently well-functioning hippocampus (and thus decent spatial memory - at least when it comes to a city I've visited once for a span of 3 days), I soon found myself leading a group of strangers through a strange city. I somehow managed to land us right at the door to our restaurant, thank goodness. I'll be honest - I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I've been slightly shocked by the lack of knowledge surrounding Katrina in our group, especially considering our reason for being here, so I tend to throw a few pieces of Katrina trivia around here and there with the navigation. Hopefully it's enough and not too much.
When our waiter offered Hurricane-esque "Katrina" drinks in light-up glasses, I was the first one to awkwardly take him up. Others eventually followed, and we soon had a brightly-lit, if headache-inducing table. Hush puppies soon arrived, which our poor waiter had to describe to the Boston crew as "fried cornbread". Watching everyone attempt to daintily eat their hush puppies with silverware, I kind of giggled and just wished for honey butter! We all enjoyed a fresh seafood feast - I had crab-stuffed fried shrimp in hollandaise sauce, and it was divine. For the nightcap, we ventured back down to Cafe du Monde, where we ingested copious amounts of that substance that resembles crack in so many ways - powdered sugar. I think the beignets have become our trip's culinary mascot.
It's about time for me to call it a night - it's been a long, exciting, and exhausting first day of building, the story of which I will share tomorrow night. For now, some much-needed rest. As we do our small part aiding in the recovery of this disaster, we send our hearts to the victims of the current one in Japan.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Avant de Commencer
My first and only trip to New Orleans. My former summer camp co-worker and friend was getting married in a fancy, very Southern Baptist Church on St. Charles Ave. The reception was held at the New Orleans Country Club, complete with a napkin-waving Second Line. Somewhere in the middle of dressing fancily, acting like I knew what I was doing, and rushing to the pillars of Southern aristocracy for wedding-related events, I began to breathe with the pulse of New Orleans.
Of course, it wasn't the church or the country club that got me. It was early mornings I spent strolling through the Garden District and absorbing what was left of the Ninth Ward, the afternoons at the aquarium and Mardi Gras storage hangars, and evenings of Preservation Hall jazz and Bourbon St. bacchanalia. To the untrained eye, New Orleans seemed to be fully recovered from Katrina's ire – the homes of the Garden District stood proudly in their spring grandeur; the St. Charles Streetcar, its tracks just recently fully repaired, happily transported tourists from one end of the city to the other; and the French Quarter brimmed with the energy emanating from tourists vying for a taste of Mardi Gras spirit.
If you opened your eyes and ears a little more, however, you noticed that the city was still reeling. Some restaurants were forced to close at 5pm for lack of employable people to run them any later. Many neighborhoods outside of the Central Business District were shells of their former selves – ghost towns of flood-ravaged homes sprinkled with FEMA trailers. Most chillingly, one was not hard-pressed to find houses with holes cut from their roofs – the escape routes for people who had found themselves trapped in their homes. I vaguely remembered the street we drove along to reach the Country Club Reception on my last night in the city. Chills shook my spine as I realized the reason for its familiarity: We'd stopped across the street on my Katrina bus tour just that morning. So that the bus driver could explain that the numbers written on houses represented those who hadn't made it through those holes in the roof in time. We were about to go celebrate a milestone in my friend's life across the street from someone else's unexpected gravesite. Katrina wasn't just a forgotten nightmare - she was still tangibly there.
Ever since that trip, I've searched for a way to return to New Orleans to do anything I could for the relief effort, and been afraid that I was never going to find the opportunity. I don't think anyone fathomed that the need would still be so acute 5 years down the road. People are still living in FEMA trailers, and under overpasses in makeshift tent cities. On a scale of 1 to Unacceptable, that's an 11.
The 2 months I spent rebuilding in post-tsunami India were replete with many of the most fulfilling moments of my life - aha! moments, as it were. I have no idea what this trip will be like, and I hesitate to construct any wild expectations. What I know is that we're headed to one of the coolest cities in the country to help people who couldn't finish their post-Katrina rebuilds for whatever reason (medical, financial, etc). I know that I can't wait to spend a week outside, detached from my office chair and computer, breathing bayou air and absorbing some natural sun-sent Vitamin D. I know that I can't wait to meet whoever I am going to meet on this trip - whoever might enlighten my world a little bit, in one aspect or another. Beyond that, I kind of revel in the unknown. Let's land at Louis Armstrong International and see what happens.
The purpose of this blog is (hopefully) to chronicle the next week, day by day, experience by experience. My goal? I'm not sure. Perhaps to capture the beautiful detail in each day in a sort of written snapshot, instead of vaguely trying to remember it as a whole in the weeks afterward. And perhaps to paint a picture, however brief, of the state of New Orleans 5 and a half years after the storm - her people, her promise, her triumphs, and her remaining challenges. She's had an array of voices - I humbly submit mine to the mix.
A dimanche, New Orleans...laissez les bon temps rouler...
On the blog title: I bought the T-shirt in a rush on Bourbon St. It's sparked more conversation than any other article of clothing I've ever worn. It's also become my overarching motto for politics everywhere.
Of course, it wasn't the church or the country club that got me. It was early mornings I spent strolling through the Garden District and absorbing what was left of the Ninth Ward, the afternoons at the aquarium and Mardi Gras storage hangars, and evenings of Preservation Hall jazz and Bourbon St. bacchanalia. To the untrained eye, New Orleans seemed to be fully recovered from Katrina's ire – the homes of the Garden District stood proudly in their spring grandeur; the St. Charles Streetcar, its tracks just recently fully repaired, happily transported tourists from one end of the city to the other; and the French Quarter brimmed with the energy emanating from tourists vying for a taste of Mardi Gras spirit.
If you opened your eyes and ears a little more, however, you noticed that the city was still reeling. Some restaurants were forced to close at 5pm for lack of employable people to run them any later. Many neighborhoods outside of the Central Business District were shells of their former selves – ghost towns of flood-ravaged homes sprinkled with FEMA trailers. Most chillingly, one was not hard-pressed to find houses with holes cut from their roofs – the escape routes for people who had found themselves trapped in their homes. I vaguely remembered the street we drove along to reach the Country Club Reception on my last night in the city. Chills shook my spine as I realized the reason for its familiarity: We'd stopped across the street on my Katrina bus tour just that morning. So that the bus driver could explain that the numbers written on houses represented those who hadn't made it through those holes in the roof in time. We were about to go celebrate a milestone in my friend's life across the street from someone else's unexpected gravesite. Katrina wasn't just a forgotten nightmare - she was still tangibly there.
Ever since that trip, I've searched for a way to return to New Orleans to do anything I could for the relief effort, and been afraid that I was never going to find the opportunity. I don't think anyone fathomed that the need would still be so acute 5 years down the road. People are still living in FEMA trailers, and under overpasses in makeshift tent cities. On a scale of 1 to Unacceptable, that's an 11.
The 2 months I spent rebuilding in post-tsunami India were replete with many of the most fulfilling moments of my life - aha! moments, as it were. I have no idea what this trip will be like, and I hesitate to construct any wild expectations. What I know is that we're headed to one of the coolest cities in the country to help people who couldn't finish their post-Katrina rebuilds for whatever reason (medical, financial, etc). I know that I can't wait to spend a week outside, detached from my office chair and computer, breathing bayou air and absorbing some natural sun-sent Vitamin D. I know that I can't wait to meet whoever I am going to meet on this trip - whoever might enlighten my world a little bit, in one aspect or another. Beyond that, I kind of revel in the unknown. Let's land at Louis Armstrong International and see what happens.
The purpose of this blog is (hopefully) to chronicle the next week, day by day, experience by experience. My goal? I'm not sure. Perhaps to capture the beautiful detail in each day in a sort of written snapshot, instead of vaguely trying to remember it as a whole in the weeks afterward. And perhaps to paint a picture, however brief, of the state of New Orleans 5 and a half years after the storm - her people, her promise, her triumphs, and her remaining challenges. She's had an array of voices - I humbly submit mine to the mix.
A dimanche, New Orleans...laissez les bon temps rouler...
On the blog title: I bought the T-shirt in a rush on Bourbon St. It's sparked more conversation than any other article of clothing I've ever worn. It's also become my overarching motto for politics everywhere.
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